Kipchaks

The Kipchaks interpreted their name as meaning "hollow tree" (cf. Middle Turkic: kuv ağaç);[1] according to them, inside a hollow tree, their original human ancestress gave birth to her son.[2] Németh points to the Siberian qıpčaq "angry, quick-tempered" attested only in the Siberian Sağay dialect (a dialect of Khakas language).[3] Klyashtorny links Kipchak to qovı, qovuq "unfortunate, unlucky"; yet Golden sees a better match in qıv "good fortune" and adjectival suffix -čāq. Regardless, Golden notes that the ethnonym's original form and etymology "remain a matter of contention and speculation".[4]

In the Kipchak steppe, a complex ethnic assimilation and consolidation process took place between the 11th and 13th centuries.[5] The western Kipchak tribes absorbed people of Oghuz, Pecheneg, ancient Bashkir, Bulgar and other origin; the eastern Kipchak merged with the Kimek, Karluk, Kara-Khitai and others. They were all identified by the ethnonym Kipchak.[5] Groups and tribes of possible Mongolic or para-Mongolic extraction were also incorporated into the eastern Kipchak conglomerate. Peter Golden argues that the Ölberli were pushed westwards due to socio-political changes among the para-Mongolic Khitans, such as the collapse of the Liao dynasty and formation of the Qara Khitai, and attached themselves to the eastern Kipchak confederation where they eventually came to form a part of the ruling strata and elite. Golden identifies the Ölberli with the Qay whom are recorded as the Xi in Chinese sources and Tatabı in Turkic inscriptions, and were of Mongolic or para-Mongolic background - likely stemming from the Xianbei.[6][7]

Chinese histories only mentioned the Kipchaks a few times: for example, Yuan general Tutuha's origin from Kipchak tribe Ölberli,[8] or some information about the Kipchaks' homeland, horses, and the Kipchaks' physiognomy and psychology.[9][10][11]

The Kipchaks were first unambiguously mentioned in Persian geographer ibn Khordadbeh's Book of Roads and Kingdoms as a northernly Turkic tribe, after Toquz Oghuz, Karluks, Kimeks, Oghuz, J.f.r (either corrupted from Jikil or representing Majfar for Majğar), Pechenegs, Türgesh, Aðkiš, and before Yenisei Kirghiz.[12] Kipchaks possibly appeared in the 8th-century Moyun Chur inscription as Türk-Qïbchaq, mentioned as having been part of the Turkic Khaganate for fifty years;[13] even so, this attestation is uncertain as damages on the inscription leave only -čq (𐰲𐰴) (*-čaq or čiq) readable.[14] It is unclear if the Kipchaks could be identified with, according to Klyashtorny, the [Al]tï Sir in the Orkhon inscriptions (薛延陀; pinyin: Xuè-Yántuó),[15][16][17] or with the Juéyuèshī (厥越失) in Chinese sources;[13][18] however, Zuev (2002) identified 厥越失 Juéyuèshī (< MC *kiwat-jiwat-siet) with toponym Kürüshi in the Ezhim river valley (Ch. Ayan < MCh. 阿豔 *a-iam < OTrk. Ayam) in Tuva Depression.[19] Linguist Bernard Karlgren and some Soviet scholars (e.g. Lev Gumilyov[20]) attempted to connect the Kipchaks to the Qūshé ~ Qūshí (屈射), a people once conquered by the Xiongnu; however, Golden deems this connection unlikely, considering 屈射's Old Chinese pronunciation *khut m-lak and Eastern Han Chinese *kʰut źa ~ kʰut jak/jɑk (as reconstructed by Schuessler, 2009:314,70).[lower-alpha 1][22][23] The relationship between the Kipchaks and Cumans is unclear.[13]

While part of the Turkic Khaganate, they most likely inhabited the Altai region.[13] When the Khaganate collapsed, they became part of the Kimek confederation, with which they expanded to the Irtysh, Ishim and Tobol rivers.[13] They then appeared in Islamic sources.[13] In the 9th century Ibn Khordadbeh indicated that they held autonomy within the Kimek confederation.[13] They entered the Kimek in the 8th- or beginning of 9th century, and were one of seven original tribes.[24] In the 10th-century Hudud al-'Alam it is said that the Kimek appointed the Kipchak king.[13] The Kimek confederation, probably spearheaded by the Kipchaks, moved into Oghuz lands, and Sighnaq in Syr Darya became the Kipchak urban centre.[13] Kipchak remnants remained in Siberia, while others pushed westwards in the Qun migration.[13] As a result, three Kipchak groups emerged:[25]

• Kipchaks of the Pontic–Caspian steppe.
• Kipchaks of the Syr Darya, associated with the Khwarazmian dynasty.
• Kipchaks of Siberia, later composing the Siberian Tatars.

The early 11th century saw a massive Turkic nomadic migration towards the Islamic world.[26] The first waves were recorded in the Kara-Khanid Khanate in 1017–18.[26] It is unknown whether the Cumans conquered the Kipchaks or were simply the leaders of the Kipchak–Turkic tribes.[26] By the 12th century, the two separate confederations of Cumans and Kipchaks merged.[27]

Cumania in c. 1200.

The Mongols defeated the Alans after convincing the Kipchaks to desert them through pointing at their likeness in language and culture.[28] Nonetheless, the Kipchaks were defeated next.[28] Under khan Köten, Kipchaks fled to the Principality of Kiev (the Ruthenians), where the Kipchaks had several marriage relations, one of which was Köten's son-in-law Mstislav Mstislavich of Galicia.[28] The Ruthenians and Kipchaks forged an alliance against the Mongols, and met at the Dnieper to locate them.[28] After an eight-day pursuit, they met at the Kalka River (1223).[28] The Kipchaks, who were horse archers like the Mongols, served as the vanguard and scouts.[28] The Mongols, who appeared to retreat, tricked the Ruthenian–Kipchak force into a trap after suddenly emerging behind the hills and surrounding them.[28] The fleeing Kipchaks were closely pursued, and the Ruthenian camp was massacred.[28]

The nomadic Kipchaks were the main targets of the Mongols when they crossed the Volga in 1236.[29] The defeated Kipchaks mainly entered the Mongol ranks, while others fled westward.[29] Köten led 40,000 families into Hungary, where King Bela IV granted them refuge in return for their Christianization.[29] The refugee Kipchaks fled Hungary after Köten was murdered.[29]

After their fall, Kipchaks and Cumans were known to have become mercenaries in Europe and taken as slave warriors. In Egypt, the Mamluks were in part drawn from Kipchaks and Cumans.

The Kipchak–Cuman confederation spoke a Turkic language.[26] Mongolian linguistic elements in the Kipchak–Kimek confederation remain "unproven",[26] though that confederation's constituent Tatar tribe were possibly Turkified Mongolic speakers.[30]

Kipchaks and Cumans spoke a Turkic language (Kipchak language, Cuman language) whose most important surviving record is the Codex Cumanicus, a late 13th-century dictionary of words in Kipchak, Cuman, and Latin. The presence in Egypt of Turkic-speaking Mamluks also stimulated the compilation of Kipchak/Cuman-Arabic dictionaries and grammars that are important in the study of several old Turkic languages.

When members of the Armenian diaspora moved from the Crimean peninsula to the Polish-Ukrainian borderland, at the end of the 13th century, they brought Kipchak, their adopted Turkic language, with them.[31] During the 16th and the 17th centuries, the Turkic language among the Armenian communities of the Kipchak people was Armeno-Kipchak. They were settled in the Lviv and Kamianets-Podilskyi areas of what is now Ukraine.[32]

The Cuman language became extinct in the 18th century in the region of Cumania in Hungary, which was its last stronghold.

The Kipchaks practiced Tengrism.[33] Muslim conversion occurred near Islamic centres.[33] Some Kipchaks and Cumans were known to have converted to Christianity around the 11th century, at the suggestion of the Georgians, as they allied in their conflicts against the Muslims. A great number were baptized at the request of Georgian King David IV, who also married a daughter of Kipchak Khan Otrok. From 1120, there was a Kipchak national Christian church and an important clergy.[34] Following the Mongol conquest, Islam rose in popularity among the Kipchaks of the Golden Horde.[35]

An early description of the physical appearance of Kipchaks comes from the Great Ming Code, the supreme legal code of the Ming dynasty of China, which was finalized in the year 1397 AD.

The Ming dynasty was dominated by the Han Chinese ethnic group, having overthrown the Mongol-dominated Yuan dynasty that came before it. The Ming government drafted a legal policy of Sinicization for Mongols and other ethnic minorities who formerly enjoyed prestige in the Yuan dynasty.

This assimilation policy required these ethnic minorities to speak Chinese. They were also required to marry members of Han Chinese ethnic group.

However, a legal exemption was made for some ethnic minorities, including the Kipchaks. These groups would not be required to marry Han Chinese people, because their physical appearance was considered unattractive, and strange. The Kipchaks are described as having blond or red hair, blue or green eyes, and an overall appearance that was considered "vile" and just too foreign to be attractive to the Han Chinese.[38]

Thus, Kipchaks were not obligated to marry Chinese:

"if Chinese persons do not wish to marry Qincha [Kipchak] or Hui Muslims, the latter may marry among their own race."

"Huihui are shaggy, with big noses, and Kipchaks have light hair and blue eyes. Their appearance is vile and peculiar, so there are those who do not wish to marry them."

— (Da Ming lü jijie fuli 6.36b)

The 17th century Chinese author Xu Qianxue, wrote of the Kipchaks:

They customarily sleep armed and armored; by nature, they are courageous, fierce, and firm; [they are] blue/green-eyed and red-haired.

— Zizhi Tongjian Houbian

Russian anthropologist Oshanin (1964: 24, 32) notes that the ‘Mongoloid’ phenotype, characteristic of modern Kipchak-speaking Kazakhs and Qirghiz, prevails among the skulls of the historical Qipchaq and Pecheneg nomads found across Central Asia and Ukraine; Lee & Kuang (2017) propose that Oshanin's discovery is explainable by assuming that the historical Kipchaks' modern descendants are Kazakhs, whose men possess a high frequency of haplogroup C2's subclade C2b1b1 (59.7 to 78%). Lee and Kuang also suggest that the high frequency (63.9%) of the Y-DNA haplogroup R-M73 among Karakypshaks (a tribe within the Kipchaks) allows inferrence about the genetics of Karakypshaks' medieval ancestors, thus explaining why some medieval Kipchaks were described as possessing "blue [or green] eyes and red hair.[39]

Kipchak confederations

• Ayyub Khan (fl. 1117), Kipchak leader
• Bačman (fl. 1229–1236), Kipchak leader in the Lower Volga
• Qačir-üküle (fl. 1236), Kipchak leader in the Lower Volga
• Köten (fl. 1223–1239), Kipchak leader

Kipchak ancestry

• Al-Mansur Qalawun, Mamluk sultan of Egypt (r. 1279–1290)
• Baibars, Mamluk sultan of Egypt (r. 1260–1277)
• Faris ad-Din Aktai, Mamluk emir
• Nasir ad-Din Qabacha, Mamluk Sultan of Multan

History of the Turkic peoples pre–14th century
Mural of Turkic cavalry, Beshbalik, 10th c.
Topics Peoples Languages Mythology Timeline
Historical Turkic polities Dingling Tiele people Göktürks First Turkic Khaganate 552–581 Western Turkic Khaganate 581–657 (Tokhara Yabghus, Turk Shahis) Eastern Turkic Khaganate 581–650 Second Turkic Khaganate 682–744 Khazar Khaganate 618–1048 Xueyantuo 628–646 Kangar union 659–750 Turk Shahi 665-850 Türgesh Khaganate 699–766 Kimek confederation 743–1035 Uyghur Khaganate 744–840 Oghuz Yabgu State 750–1055 Karluk Yabgu State 756–940 Kara-Khanid Khanate 840–1212 Western Kara-Khanid Eastern Kara-Khanid Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom 848–1036 Qocho 856–1335 Pecheneg Khanates 860–1091 Ghaznavid Empire 963–1186 Seljuk Empire 1037–1194 Sultanate of Rum Cuman–Kipchak confederation 1067–1239 Khwarazmian Empire 1077–1231 Kerait Khanate 11th century–13th century Delhi Sultanate 1206–1526 Mamluk dynasty Khalji dynasty Tughlaq dynasty Qarlughid Kingdom 1224–1266 Golden Horde 1240s–1502 Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo) 1250–1517 Bahri dynasty

• Codex Cumanicus
• Afghan Kypchaks
• Nağaybäk
• Sir-Kıvchak
• History of the central steppe

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kipchaks.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kipchaks.

• Codex Cumanicus
• Kipchak dateline at the Wayback Machine (archived October 13, 2004)
• Murad ADJI, The Kipchaks