Turkic tribal confederations
Encyclopedia
The Turkic
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...

 term oğuz or oğur (in z- and r-Turkic, respectively) is a historical term for "military division; clan, tribe".
The oguz were divisions of the early Turkic Nomadic empires of the 6th to 11th centuries, including Khazars
Khazars
The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people who established one of the largest polities of medieval Eurasia, with the capital of Atil and territory comprising much of modern-day European Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the northern Caucasus , parts of...

, Avars
Eurasian Avars
The Eurasian Avars or Ancient Avars were a highly organized nomadic confederacy of mixed origins. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit entourage of nomad warriors, an organization characteristic of Turko-Mongol groups...

, Bulgars
Bulgars
The Bulgars were a semi-nomadic who flourished in the Pontic Steppe and the Volga basin in the 7th century.The Bulgars emerge after the collapse of the Hunnic Empire in the 5th century....

 and Uyghurs.
With the Mongol invasions
Mongol invasion of Central Asia
The Mongol invasion of Central Asia occurred after the unification of the Mongol and Turkic tribes on Mongolian plateau in 1206. It finally completed when Genghis Khan conquered the Khwarizmian Empire in 1221....

 of 1206-1221, the Turkic khaganates were replaced by Mongol or hybrid Turco-Mongol
Turco-Mongol
Turko-Mongol is a modern designation for various nomads who were subjects of the Mongol Empire. Being progressively Turkicized in terms of language and identity following the Mongol conquests, they derived their ethnic and cultural origins from steppes of Central Asia...

 confederations, where the corresponding military division came to be known as orda
Orda (organization)
An orda or horde was an historical sociopolitical and military structure found on the Eurasian Steppe, usually associated with the Mongols. This entity can be seen as regional equivalent of a clan or a tribe...

.

The 8th-century Kül Tigin stela has the earliest attestation of the term in Old Turkic epigraphy
Orkhon inscriptions
"Orkhon inscription" may refer to:*two monuments in the Orkhon valley, see Khöshöö Tsaidam Monuments*inscriptions in the Old Turkic "Orkhon alphabet" in general, see Old Turkic epigraphy...

, as Toquz Oghuz "six tribes"
The term occurs in numerous proper names of tribes or confederations of the time of the Turkic migration
Turkic migration
The Turkic migration as defined in this article was the expansion of the Turkic peoples across most of Central Asia into Europe and the Middle East between the 6th and 11th centuries AD . Tribes less certainly identified as Turkic began their expansion centuries earlier as the predominant element...

 during the early medieval period, viz.
  • Onogur "ten tribes"
  • Toquz Oghuz "six tribes"
  • Utigurs
  • Kutrigurs
    Kutrigurs
    The Kutrigurs , first mentioned in 539/540, were a horde of equestrian nomads later known as part of the Bulgars that inhabited the Eurasian plains during the Dark Ages. They came into existence when the Eurasian Avars conquered half of the Hunno-Bulgars, whilst the remaining group, who were free ...

  • Uyghur


The Old Turkic stem uq-, oq- "kin, tribe" is from a Proto-Turkic *uk.
The Old Turkic word is sometimes connected with the Old Turkic word oq "arrow";
Pohl (2002) in explanation of this connection adduces the Chinese T'ang-shu chronicle, which reports that
"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'."

An oguz (ogur) was in origin a military division of a Nomadic empire
Nomadic empire
Nomadic empires, sometimes also called Steppe Empires, Central or Inner Asian Empires, are the empires erected by the bow-wielding, horse-riding, nomadic peoples in the Eurasian steppe, from Classical Antiquity to the Early Modern era .The nomadic or semi-nomadic Cimmerians, Avars, Magyars,...

, and only secondarily acquired tribal or ethnic connotations, by processes of ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis is the process by which a group of human beings comes to be understood or to understand themselves as ethnically distinct from the wider social landscape from which their grouping emerges...

.

See also

  • Orda (organization)
    Orda (organization)
    An orda or horde was an historical sociopolitical and military structure found on the Eurasian Steppe, usually associated with the Mongols. This entity can be seen as regional equivalent of a clan or a tribe...

  • Turkic peoples
    Turkic peoples
    The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...

  • Oghuz Turks
    Oghuz Turks
    The Turkomen also known as Oghuz Turks were a historical Turkic tribal confederation in Central Asia during the early medieval Turkic expansion....

  • Turkic migration
    Turkic migration
    The Turkic migration as defined in this article was the expansion of the Turkic peoples across most of Central Asia into Europe and the Middle East between the 6th and 11th centuries AD . Tribes less certainly identified as Turkic began their expansion centuries earlier as the predominant element...

  • Huns
    Huns
    The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...

  • Khaganate
  • Turco-Mongol
    Turco-Mongol
    Turko-Mongol is a modern designation for various nomads who were subjects of the Mongol Empire. Being progressively Turkicized in terms of language and identity following the Mongol conquests, they derived their ethnic and cultural origins from steppes of Central Asia...

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