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The Onoghurs, Onoğurs, or Oğurs (Ὀνόγουροι, Οὔρωγοι, Οὔγωροι; Onογurs, Ογurs; "ten tribes", "tribes") 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.

Etymology

The name Onoğur is widely thought to derive from On-Oğur "ten Oğurs (tribes)". Modern scholars consider Turkic terms for tribe oğuz and oğur to be derived from Turkic *og/uq, meaning "kinship or being akin to". The terms initially were not the same, as oq/ogsiz meant "arrow", while oğul meant "offspring, child, son", oğuš/uğuš was "tribe, clan", and the verb oğša-/oqša meant "to be like, resemble". The modern name of "Hungary" (see name of Hungary) is usually believed to be derived from On-Oğur (> (H)Ungari).

Language

The Onoghuric or Oghuric languages are a branch of the Turkic languages. Some scholars suggest Hunnic had strong ties with Bulgar and to modern Chuvash and refer to this extended Oghuric grouping as separate Hunno-Bulgar languages. However, such speculations are not based on proper linguistic evidence, since the language of the Huns is almost unknown except for a few attested words and personal names. Scholars generally consider Hunnish as unclassifiable.

Chuvash language is agglutinative in the structure of grammar, phonetically it is synharmonic. Some scholars consider the Chuvash as the sole living representative of Volga Bulgar language. while others support the idea that Chuvash is another distinct Oghur Turkic language. Chuvash is sometimes considered to share a linguistic connection with the Khazar language although the classification of Khazar language debated among scholars. Chuvash has two to three dialects. Chuvash language is agglutinative in the structure of grammar, phonetically it is synharmonic. In this respect, it's almost no different from other Turkic languages. Oghuric family is distinguished from the rest of the Turkic family by sound changes and it has a special place.

The Oghuric languages are also known as "-r Turkic" because the final consonant in certain words is r, not z as in Common Turkic. Chuvash: вăкăр - Turkish: öküz - Tatar: үгез - English: ox. Hence the name Oghur corresponds to Oghuz "tribe" in Common Turkic. Other correspondences are Com. š : Oghur l (tâš : tâl, 'stone'); s > š; *č > ś; k/q > ğ; y > j, ś; d, δ > δ > z (10th cent.) > r (13th cent.)"; ğd > z > r (14th cent.); a > ı (after 9th cent.). The shift from s to š operates before i, ï, and iV, and Vladimir Dybo calls the sound change the "Bulgar palatalization".

Denis Sinor believed that the differences noted above suggest that the Oghur-speaking tribes could not have originated in territories inhabited by speakers of Mongolic languages, given that Mongolian dialects feature the -z suffix. Peter Golden, however, has noted that there are many loanwords in Mongolic from Oghuric, such as Mongolic ikere, Oghuric *ikir, Hungarian iker, Common Turkic *ikiz 'twins', and holds the contradictory view that the Oghur inhabited the borderlands of Mongolia before the 5th century.

The Oghuric tribes are also connected with the Hungarians, whose exo-ethnonym is usually believed to be derived from On-Oğur (> (H)Ungari). Hungarians -> Hun Oghur -> (ten oghur tribes): On ogur -> up.chv. Won ogur -> dow.chv. Wun ogur -> belor. Wugorac -> rus. Wenger -> slove. Vogr, Vogrin -> cheh. pol. Węgier, Węgrzyn, -> lit. Veñgras. The Hungarians are culturally of mixed Ugrian / Turkic heritage, with Oghuric-Bulgar and Khazar influences, even though much of the modern-day Hungarian gene pool also has strong Slavic, Germanic, and Iranic influences. Hungarian has many borrowings from Common Turkic and Oghuric languages:

Hung. tenger, Oghur. *tengir, Comm. *tengiz 'sea', Hung. gyűrű, Oghur. *ǰürük, Comm. *yüzük 'ring', and terms of equestrian culture ló 'horse', nyereg 'saddle', fék 'bridle', ostor 'whip'. A number of Hungarian loanwords were borrowed before the 9th century, shown by sz- (< Oğ. *ś-) rather than gy- (< Oğ. *ǰ-), for example Hung. szél, Oghur. *śäl, Chuv. śil, Comm. *yel 'wind', Hung. szűcs 'tailor', Hung. szőlő 'grapes'.

In the Oghuz languages as azer. tur. öküz means ox (totemic animal), and is a reflection of the Chuvash language wăkăr where rhotacism is used, in the Kipchak languages it is ögiz.

History

The Onogurs were one of the first Oghuric Turkic tribes that entered the Ponto-Caspian steppes as the result of migrations set off in Inner Asia. The 10th century Movses Kaghankatvatsi recorded, considered late 4th century, certain Honagur, "a Hun from the Honk" who raided Persia, which were related to the Onoghurs, and located near Transcaucasia and the Sassanian Empire. Scholars also relate the Hyōn to this account.

According to Priscus, in 463 the representatives of Ernak's Saraghurs (Oghur. sara, "White Oghurs"), Oghurs and Onoghurs came to the Emperor in Constantinople, and explained they had been driven out of their homeland by the Sabirs, who had been attacked by the Avars in Inner Asia. This tangle of events indicates that the Oghuric tribes are related to the Ting-ling and Tiele people. It is considered they belonged to the westernmost Tiele tribes, which also included the Uyghurs-Toquz Oghuz and the Oghuz Turks, and were initially located in Western Siberia and Kazakhstan. Leo I the Thracian granted Ernak the lands of the treacherous Karadach's Akatziroi roughly corresponding to 20th century Ukraine. Later kings of the Onogur Huns included Grod, Mugel and Sandilch, whose Utigurs were engaged in a civil war against the Kutrigurs of Khinialon.

The origin of the Kutrigurs and Utigurs, who lived in the vicinity of the Onoghurs and Bulgars, and their mutual relationship, is considered obscure. Scholars are unsure how the union between Onoghurs and Bulgars formed, imagining it as a long process in which a number of different groups merged. During that time, the Bulgars may have represented a large confederation of which the Onoghurs formed one of the core tribes, together with the remnants of the Utigurs and Kutrigurs, among others.

Jordanes in Getica (551) mentioned that the Hunuguri (believed to be the Onoghurs) were notable for the marten skin trade. In the Middle Ages, marten skin was used as a substitute for minted money. This also indicates they lived near forests and were in contact with Finno-Ugrian peoples.

The Syriac translation of the Pseudo-Zacharias Rhetor's Ecclesiastical History (c. 555) in Western Eurasia records the Avnagur (Aunagur; considered Onoghurs), wngwr (Onoğur), wgr (Oghur).The author wrote following: "Avnagur (Aunagur) are people, who live in tents. Avgar, sabir, burgar, alan, kurtargar, avar, hasar, dirmar, sirurgur, bagrasir, kulas, abdel and hephtalit are thirteen peoples, who live in tents, earn their living on the meat of livestock and fish, of wild animals and by their weapons (plunder)". About the Bulgars and Alans, during the first half of 6th century, he added: "The land Bazgun ... extends up to the Caspian Gates and to the sea, which are in the Hunnish lands. Beyond the gates live the Burgars (Bulgars), who have their language, and are people pagan and barbarian. They have towns. And the Alans - they have five towns." .

The Onoghurs (Oghurs), in the 6th and 7th century sources, were mentioned mostly in connection with the Avar and Göktürk conquest of Western Eurasia. According to the 6th century Menander Protector, the "leader of the Οὐγούρων" had the authority of the Turk Yabgu Khagan in the region of Kuban River to the lower Don.

In early 7th century Theophylaktos Simokattes recorded that certain Onoghur city Βακάθ was destroyed by an earthquake before his lifetime. The Sogdian name indicates it was situated in the vicinity of Iranian Central Asia.

Simokattes in the Letter of the Turk Qaγan (Tamgan) to the Emperor Maurikios recorded a complex notice:

"...the Qaghan set off on another undertaking and subjugated all the Ὀγώρ. This people is (one) of the most powerful because of their numbers and their training for war in full battle-gear. They have made their abodes towards the East, whence flows the river Τίλ, which the Turks have the custom of calling the "Black". The oldest chieftains of this people are called Οὐάρ and Χουννί."

According to the Qaghan, part of those Ouar (Uar) and Khounni (Huns) who arrived to Eastern Europe were mistook by the Onoghurs, Barsils, Sabirs and other tribes for the original Avars, and as such the Uar and Huns took advantage of the situation and began call themselves Avars. Simokattes also recounts "when the Ogor, then, were brought completely to heel, the Qaγan gave over the chief of the Κὸλχ (Kolx) to the bite of the sword", shows Oghurs resistance toward Turkic authority. Scholars consider if the Til is Qara Itil (Black Itil) i.e. Volga (Atil/Itil), then the mentioned Ὀγώρ would be the Oghurs, while if it is in Inner Asia, then it could be the Uyghurs.

Avar Khaganate

By 568 the Avars, under Khagan Bayan I established an empire in the Carpathian Basin that lasted for 250 years. Related peoples from the east arrived in the Avar Kaganate several times: around 595 the Kutrigurs, and then around 670 the Onoghurs. The Avar Khaganate collapsed after c. 822, a few decades later, Álmos and his son Árpád conquered the Carpathian Basin around c. 862–895. The Hungarian conquerors together with the Turkic-speaking Kabars integrated the Avars and Onoghurs.

Old Bulgaria

Kubrat organised the Onogurs under his Empire of Old Great Bulgaria in the Mid 7th century. From the 8th century, the Byzantine sources often mention the Onoghurs in close connection with the Bulgars. Agathon (early 8th century) wrote about the nation of Onoghur Bulgars. Nikephoros I (early 9th century) noted that Kubrat was the lord of the Onoghundurs; his contemporary Theophanes referred to them as Onoghundur–Bulgars. Kubrat successfully revolted against the Avars and founded the Old Great Bulgaria (Magna Bulgaria), also known as Onoghundur–Bulgars state, or Patria Onoguria in the Ravenna Cosmography. Constantine VII (mid-10th century) remarked that the Bulgars formerly called themselves Onogundurs.

Onoghur-Bulgars who settled on the Volga river in the 7th century AD and converted to Islam in 922 during the missionary work of Ahmad ibn Fadlan, inhabited the present-day territory of Tatarstan. After the Batu Khan invasions of 1223–1236, the Golden Horde annexed Volga Bulgaria. Most of the population survived, and a certain degree of mixing between it and the Kipchaks of the Horde ensued. Onoghur-Bulgar group as a whole accepted the exonym "Tatars."

This association was previously mirrored in Armenian sources, such as the Ashkharatsuyts, which refers to the Olxontor Błkar, and the 5th century History by Movses Khorenatsi, which includes an additional comment from a 9th-century writer about the colony of the Vłĕndur Bułkar. Marquart and Golden connected these forms with the Iġndr (*Uluġundur) of Ibn al-Kalbi (c. 820), the Vnndur (*Wunundur) of Hudud al-'Alam (982), the Wlndr (*Wulundur) of Al-Masudi (10th century) and Hungarian name for Belgrad Nándorfehérvár, the nndr (*Nandur) of Gardīzī (11th century) and *Wununtur in the letter by the Khazar King Joseph. All the forms show the phonetic changes typical of late Oghuric (prothetic w-; o- > wo-, u-, *wu-).

See also

• Bulgars
• Kutrigurs
• Utigurs
• Chuvash people
• Khazars
• Extinct Turkic peoples
• Turkic tribal confederations
• Onogur Islands

Notes

1. The ethnonym of the Huns, like those of Scythians and Türks, became a generic term for steppe-people (nomads) and invading enemies from the East, no matter of their actual origin and identity.

References

1. Golden 2011, p. 135–145.
2. Golden 2011, p. 23, 237.
3. ^ Golden 1992, p. 96.
4. Golden 2012, p. 96.
5. ^ Golden 1992, p. 102–103.
6. Bennett, Casey; Kaestle, Frederika A. (2006). "A Reanalysis of Eurasian Population History: Ancient DNA Evidence of Population Affinities". Human Biology. 78 (4): 413–440. arXiv:1112.2013. doi:10.1353/hub.2006.0052. PMID 17278619. S2CID 13463642.
7. Pritsak, Omeljan (1982). "The Hunnic Language of the Attila Clan" (PDF). Harvard Ukrainian Studies. IV (4). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute: 470. ISSN 0363-5570. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-12-13. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
8. Pritsak, Omeljan (1981). "The Proto-Bulgarian Military Inventory Inscriptions". Turkic-Bulgarian-Hungarian relations. Budapest.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
9. Savelyev, Alexander (27 May 2020). Chuvash and the Bulgharic Languages. Oxford University Press. p. 448. ISBN 978-0-19-880462-8. Retrieved 2024-03-30. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
10. Golden 1992, pp. 88, 89.
11. RÓNA-TAS, ANDRÁS (1999-03-01). Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages. Central European University Press. p. 208. doi:10.7829/j.ctv280b77f. ISBN 978-963-386-572-9.
12. Sinor, Denis (1997). Studies in medieval inner Asia. Collected studies series. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate. p. 336. ISBN 978-0-86078-632-0.
13. Agyagási, K. (2020). "A Volga Bulgarian Classifier: A Historical and Areal Linguistic Study". University of Debrecen. 3: 9. Modern Chuvash is the only descendant language of the Ogur branch. The ancestors of its speakers left the Khazar Empire in the 8th century and migrated to the region at the confluence of the Volga and Kama rivers, where they founded the Volga Bulgarian Empire in the 10th century. In the central Volga region, three Volga Bulgarian dialects developed, and Chuvash is the descendant of the 3rd dialect of Volga Bulgarian (Agyagási 2019: 160–183). Sources refer to it as a separate language beginning with 1508
14. Marcantonio, Angela (2002). The Uralic language family: facts, myths and statistics. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 167. ISBN 0-631-23170-6.
15. Price, Glanville (2000). Encyclopedia of the languages of Europe. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 88. ISBN 0-631-22039-9.
16. Clauson, Gerard (2002). Studies in Turkic and Mongolic linguistics. Taylor & Francis. p. 38. ISBN 0-415-29772-9.
17. Johanson, Lars; Csató, Éva Á, eds. (2021). The Turkic Languages. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003243809. ISBN 9781003243809. Another Turkic people in the Volga area are the Chuvash, who, like the Tatars, regard themselves as descendants of the Volga Bulghars in the historical and cultural sense. It is clear that Chuvash belongs to the Oghur branch of Turkic, as the language of the Volga Bulghars did, but no direct evidence for diachronic development between the two has been established. As there were several distinct Oghur languages in the Middle Ages, Volga Bulghar could represent one of these and Chuvash another.
18. Shapira, Dan (2020-12-14), "KHAZARS", Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, Brill, retrieved 2022-05-05 "Eṣṭaḵri stated in one place that the Bulḡar language is like the language of the Khazars, thus giving rise to the Chuvash-Bulḡar"
19. Savelyev, Alexander (June 2020). "Chuvash and the Bulgharic languages". Retrieved 2023-04-25.
20. Golden 2006, p. 91. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGolden2006 (help)
21. Ludwig, Dieter (1982). Struktur und Gesellschaft des Chazaren-Reiches im Licht der schriftlichen Quellen (Thesis). Münster.
22. Encyclopedia of the world's minorities. Carl Skutsch, Martin Ryle. New York: Routledge. 2005. ISBN 1-57958-392-X. OCLC 56420105.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
23. Savelyev, Alexander (2020-06-30). "Chuvash and the Bulgharic languages". The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages. pp. 446–464. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198804628.003.0028. ISBN 978-0-19-880462-8.
24. Golden 1992, p. 95–96.
25. ^ Golden 2011, p. 30.
26. Golden 1992, p. 20, 96.
27. Golden 2011, p. 30, 236–239.
28. Dybo 2014, p. 13. sfn error: no target: CITEREFDybo2014 (help)
29. Golden 2011, p. 29.
30. Golden 2011, p. 31.
31. Golden 1992, p. 262.
32. Golden 2011, p. 333.
33. Guglielmino & Béres 1996, p. 351-353. sfn error: no target: CITEREFGuglielminoBéres1996 (help)
34. Golden 1992, p. 259–260.
35. ^ Golden 2011, p. 164.
36. Golden 1992, p. 259.
37. Clauson, Gerard (1972), An Etymological Dictionary of pre-thirteenth-century Turkish, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page: 120.
38. Егоров (Egorov), Василий Георгиевич (1964). Чăваш чĕлхин этимологи словарĕ [Этимологический словарь чувашского языка] (PDF) (in Russian). Cheboksary: Чувашское книжное издательство.
39. Golden 1992, p. 92–93, 103.
40. Beckwith, Christopher I. (2009). Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton University Press. p. 99. ISBN 9781400829941. Like the name Scythian up to the early medieval period, the name Hun became a generic (usually pejorative) term in subsequent history for any steppe-warrior people, or even any enemy people, regardless of their actual identity.
41. Dickens, Mark (2004). Medieval Syriac Historians' Perceptionsof the Turks. University of Cambridge. p. 19. Syriac chroniclers (along with their Arab, Byzantine, Latin, Armenian, and Georgian counterparts) did not use ethnonyms as specifically as modern scholars do. As K. Czeglédy notes, "some sources... use the ethnonyms of the various steppe peoples, in particular those of the Scythians, Huns and Turkic tribes, in the generic sense of 'nomads'".
42. ^ Golden 2011, p. 141.
43. Golden 1992, p. 92–93.
44. Golden 1992, p. 92–93, 97.
45. Golden 2011, p. 70.
46. Golden 1992, p. 93–95.
47. Golden 2011, p. 32–33.
48. Golden 2011, p. 138, 141.
49. Golden 1992, p. 99.
50. Golden 2011, p. 140.
51. Golden 1992, p. 244.
52. ^ Golden 2011, p. 143.
53. Golden 1992, p. 100, 103.
54. ^ D. Dimitrov (1987). "Bulgars, Unogundurs, Onogurs, Utigurs, Kutrigurs". Prabylgarite po severnoto i zapadnoto Chernomorie. Varna. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
55. Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 431.
56. Golden 1992, p. 98.
57. Golden 1992, p. 254.
58. Golden 1992, p. 112.
59. Golden 1992, p. 97.
60. Golden 1992, p. 100–102.
61. ^ Golden 2011, p. 142.
62. Golden 1992, p. 109.
63. Szabados, György (2016). "Vázlat a magyar honfoglalás Kárpát-medencei hátteréről" [Outline of the background of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin] (PDF). Népek és kultúrák a Kárpát-medencében [Peoples and cultures in the Carpathian Basin] (in Hungarian). Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum. ISBN 978-615-5209-56-7.
64. Wang, Chuan-Chao; Posth, Cosimo; Furtwängler, Anja; Sümegi, Katalin; Bánfai, Zsolt; Kásler, Miklós; Krause, Johannes; Melegh, Béla (28 September 2021). "Genome-wide autosomal, mtDNA, and Y chromosome analysis of King Bela III of the Hungarian Arpad dynasty". Scientific Reports. 11 (1): 19210. Bibcode:2021NatSR..1119210W. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-98796-x. PMC 8478946. PMID 34584164.
65. Fiedler 2008, p. 152.
66. Golden 1992, p. 245.
67. Golden 2011, p. 144.
68. ^ Golden 1992, p. 102.
69. Faḍlān, Ahmad ibn; Montgomery, James E. (2017). Mission to Volga. New York, New York: NYU Press. pp. 3–40. ISBN 978-1-4798-2669-8.
70. Golden 2011, p. 239.

• Maenchen-Helfen, Otto John (1973), The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture, University of California Press, ISBN 9780520015968
• Golden, Peter Benjamin (1992). An introduction to the History of the Turkic peoples: ethnogenesis and state formation in medieval and early modern Eurasia and the Middle East. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. ISBN 9783447032742.
• Karatay, Osman (2003). In Search of the Lost Tribe: The Origins and Making of the Croatian Nation. Ayse Demiral. ISBN 9789756467077.
• Fiedler, Uwe (2008). "Bulgars in the Lower Danube region: A survey of the archaeological evidence and of the state of current research". In Curta, Florin; Kovalev, Roman (eds.). The Other Europe in the Middle Ages: Avars, Bulgars, Khazars and Cumans. Brill. pp. 151–236. ISBN 9789004163898.
• Golden, Peter B. (2011). Studies on the Peoples and Cultures of the Eurasian Steppes. Editura Academiei Române; Editura Istros a Muzeului Brăilei. ISBN 9789732721520.
• Golden, Peter B. (2012), Oq and Oğur~Oğuz* (PDF), Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies, Rutgers University, archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-04-19

[[Category:Migration Period

• Turkic peoples