The Turkic term oğuz or oğur (in z- and r-Turkic, respectively) is a historical term for "military division, clan, or tribe" among the Turkic peoples. With the Mongol invasions of 1206–21, the Turkic khaganates were replaced by Mongol or hybrid Turco-Mongol confederations, where the corresponding military division came to be known as orda .
The 8th-century Kul Tigin stela has the earliest instance of the term in Old Turkic epigraphy: Toquz Oghuz, the "nine tribes".
Later the word appears often for two largely separate groups of the Turkic migration in the early medieval period, namely:
The stem uq-, oq- "kin, tribe" is from a Proto-Turkic *uk. The Old Turkic word has often been connected with oq "arrow"; [1] Pohl (2002) in explanation of this connection adduces the Chinese T'ang-shu chronicle, which reports: "the khan divided his realm into ten tribes. To the leader of each tribe, he sent an arrow. The name [of these ten leaders] was 'the ten she', but they were also called 'the ten arrows'." [2] [3] An oguz (ogur) was in origin a military division of a Nomadic empire, which acquired tribal or ethnic connotations, by processes of ethnogenesis. [3]
The Bulgars were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between the 5th and 7th centuries. They became known as nomadic equestrians in the Volga-Ural region, but some researchers believe that their ethnic roots can be traced to Central Asia.
The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West, Central, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.
The Oghuz Turks were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia. Today, much of the populations of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are descendants of Oghuz Turks. Byzantine sources call them Uzes. The term Oghuz was gradually supplanted by the terms Turkmen and Turcoman by 13th century.
The Kipchaks or Qipchaqs, also known as Kipchak Turks or Polovtsians, were Turkic nomads and then a confederation that existed in the Middle Ages inhabiting parts of the Eurasian Steppe.
The Onoghurs, Onoğurs, or Oğurs were a group of Turkic nomadic equestrians who flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between 5th and 7th century, and spoke an Oghuric language.
The Yemek or Kimek were a Turkic tribe constituting the Kimek-Kipchak confederation, whose other six constituent tribes, according to Abu Said Gardizi, were the Imur, Tatars, Bayandur, Kipchaks, Lanikaz, and Ajlad.
The Kimek–Kipchak confederation was a medieval Turkic state formed by seven peoples, including the Yemeks and Kipchaks, in the area between the Ob and Irtysh rivers.
The Karluks were a prominent nomadic Turkic tribal confederacy residing in the regions of Kara-Irtysh and the Tarbagatai Mountains west of the Altay Mountains in Central Asia. Karluks gave their name to the distinct Karluk group of the Turkic languages, which also includes the Uzbek, Uyghur and Ili Turki languages.
Esegels were an Oghur Turkic dynastic tribe in the Middle Ages who joined and would be assimilated into the Volga Bulgars.
The Kayı or Kayi tribe were an Oghuz Turkic people and a sub-branch of the Bozok tribal federation. In his Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, the 11th century Kara-Khanid scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari cited Kayı as of one of 22 Oghuz tribes, saying that Oghuz were also called Turkomans. The name Kayı means "the one who has might and power by relationship" and the Turkmen proverb says that "people shall be led by Kayı and Bayat tribes".
The Turkic migrations were the spread of Turkic tribes and Turkic languages across Eurasia between the 4th and 11th centuries. In the 6th century, the Göktürks overthrew the Rouran Khaganate in what is now Mongolia and expanded in all directions, spreading Turkic culture throughout the Eurasian steppes. Although Göktürk empires came to an end in the 8th century, they were succeeded by numerous Turkic empires such as the Uyghur Khaganate, Kara-Khanid Khanate, Khazars, and the Cumans. Some Turks eventually settled down into sedentary societies such as the Qocho and Ganzhou Uyghurs. The Seljuq dynasty settled in Anatolia starting in the 11th century, resulting in permanent Turkic settlement and presence there. Modern nations with large Turkic populations include Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and Turkic populations also exist within other nations, such as Chuvashia, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan and the Sakha Republic of Siberia in Russia, Northern Cyprus, the Crimean Tatars, the Kazakhs in Mongolia, the Uyghurs in China, and the Azeris in Iran.
The Toquz Oghuz was a political alliance of nine Turkic Tiele tribes in Inner Asia, during the early Middle Ages. The Toquz Oghuz was consolidated and subordinated within the First Turkic Khaganate (552–603) and remained as a nine-tribe alliance after the Khaganate fragmented.
Nomadic empires, sometimes also called steppe empires, Central or Inner Asian empires, were the empires erected by the bow-wielding, horse-riding, nomadic people in the Eurasian Steppe, from classical antiquity (Scythia) to the early modern era (Dzungars). They are the most prominent example of non-sedentary polities.
Oghuz Khagan or Oghuz Khan is a legendary khan of the Turkic people and an eponymous ancestor of Oghuz Turks. Some Turkic cultures use the legend of Oghuz Khan to describe their ethnic and tribal origins. The various versions of the narrative preserved in many different manuscripts have been published in numerous languages as listed below in the references. The narratives about him are often entitled Oghuzname, of which there are several traditions, describing his many feats and conquests, some of these tend to overlap with other Turkic epic traditions such as Seljukname and The Book of Dede Korkut.
The Eastern Turkic Khaganate was a Turkic khaganate formed as a result of the internecine wars in the beginning of the 7th century after the First Turkic Khaganate had splintered into two polities – one in the east and the other in the west. Finally, the Eastern Turkic Khaganate was defeated and absorbed by the Tang dynasty, and Xueyantuo occupied the territory of the former Turkic Khaganate.
The Oghuric, Onoguric or Oguric languages are a branch of the Turkic language family. The only extant member of the group is the Chuvash language. The first to branch off from the Turkic family, the Oghuric languages show significant divergence from other Turkic languages, which all share a later common ancestor. Languages from this family were spoken in some nomadic tribal confederations, such as those of the Onogurs or Ogurs, Bulgars and Khazars.
The Oghuz Yabgu State or Oghuz ili was a Turkic state, founded by Oghuz Turks in 766, located geographically in an area between the coasts of the Caspian and Aral Seas. Oghuz tribes occupied a vast territory in Kazakhstan along the Irgiz, Yaik, Emba, and Uil rivers, the Aral Sea area, the Syr Darya valley, the foothills of the Karatau Mountains in Tien-Shan, and the Chui River valley. The Oghuz political association developed in the 9th and 10th centuries in the basin of the middle and lower course of the Syr Darya and adjoining the modern western Kazakhstan steppes.
Nushibi was a Chinese collective name for five tribes of the right (western) wing in the Western Turkic Khaganate, and members of "ten arrows" confederation found in the Chinese literature. The references to Nushibi appeared in Chinese sources in 651 and disappeared after 766. The Nushibi tribes occupied the lands of the Western Turkic Khaganate west of the Ili River of contemporary Kazakhstan.
Duolu was a tribal confederation in the Western Turkic Khaganate. The Turgesh Khaganate (699-766) may have been founded by Duolu remnants.
Shajara-i Tarākima is a Chagatai-language historical work completed in 1659 by Khan of Khiva and historian Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur.