Elmи мяъмуяси

 Gökçe Yükselen Abdurrazak Peler 

428 

given the name Cuman by the other Turkic tribes because of their 

physiognomy. 

Pritsak (1982: 331) is in agreement with Hazai on that the name Cuman / 

Qun were given by other Turkic peoples. However he thinks that it was 

given by the Qipchaqs to their masters Kimeks,

23

 who left the forest region 

and settled in the steppe. The Qipchaqs, who were a section of the Eastern 

Turks, were driven out of Mongolia by the Uighurs in 744 and settled in the 

steppes between the River Volga and Lake Issiq, where they became the 

neighbours of the Kimeks inhabiting the Irtysh Basin, who also came to the 

region in the second half of the ninth century from Manchuria

24

 fleeing 

Kitays (Kitans or Qitans). The Kimeks incorporated the Qipchaqs into their 

confederacy as a right wing. However, the Qipchaqs, who had the strong 

                                                 

23

 Pritsak (1982: 331-332) regards the Kimeks to be a Proto-Mongolian people. He identifies 

them with the K’umo of the K’umo Hsi. The K’umo Hsi (the Tatabi of the Orkhon 

Inscriptions) together with the Ch’i-tan  (Kitay or Kitan) formed the Liang Fan ‘the two 

barbarians’ of the Chinese sources. He states that the K’umo Hsi was formed of two peoples 

as well. He considers K’umo to be the Chinese version of the Mongolian tribal name 

Quomaγ and therefore a self-designation, while Kimek was the Turkic designation. He 

identifies the Hsi with the Qay people. The hypothesis that the Kimeks had Mongolian 

origins starts with Marquart (1914: 95-97) and is improved by Pelliot (1920: 150-51). 

However Kafesoğlu (1984: 186) objects to this hypothesis and accuses Western scholars 

with not being able to distinguish Turks from Mongolians culturally and racially. He 

emphasizes that the racial features of the Cumans had nothing to do with that of the 

Mongolians and they were closer to the white race. These racial features inspired Grønbech 

(1959: 24) to consider them to be a turkified Indo-European tribe probably from the Altai or 

Upper Yenisei. Togan (1970: 164) also attributes the physiognomical features of the Cuman 

- Qipchaqs to their contact with Indo – European peoples from very early times. Kafesoğlu 

(1984: 186) also states that there are no Mongolian elements in the language of the Cuman 

– Qipchaqs. However Poppe (1962: 331-345) has come up with some Mongolian 

loanwords, antedating the Mongolian invasion, in Codex Cumanicus. Even it is possible to 

put forth a Qipchaq < Mongolian shift as g > w (v). Additionally Pelliot (1944: 73-101) 

attributes the occasional loss of initial q- (k-) in some Turkic languages, Cuman – Qipchaq 

in particular, to the influence of Mongolic. However Halasi-Kun (1950: 45-61) regards this 

consonantal event to be an internal development of Turkic languages. Intriguingly his 

strongest argument is to do with the ethnonym Kimek / (Y)imek. He takes the existence of 

the Yimek form as a solid proof to his claim (1950: 51-52) as the y- prosthesis is a much 

earlier event of Turkic (Räsänen 1949: 137). 

24

 The Ölberli clan of the Kimeks did not leave Manchuria at this stage and remained in the 

region until the nineties of the 11th century (Pritsak 1982: 339-340). A detailed account of 

the Ölberli clan is provided by Golden (1986: 5-29). 

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Some Notes on the History, the Culture and the Language of the Medieval Qipchaq - Cuman Turks 

429 

political and cultural traditions of the Turk Empire turkified the Kimeks

25

, 

whom they called Cuman / Qun. After 1031, when the Uighur State was 

destroyed by the Tanguts in Kan-su, the leadership in Western China was 

assumed by the Mongolian Qay

26

, who formerly formed the K’umo Hsi 

(Tatabi) in Manchuria together with the Kimeks. Following a series of 

unsuccessful confrontations with the Karakhanids, the Qay was pushed into 

the steppe triggering a chain of migrations. The Qays displaced the Qun or 

Cuman / Kimeks, who in turn pressured the Qipchaqs pushing them towards 

the land of the Oghuz / Uz / Torki, who in turn moved into the land of the 

Pechenegs in the southern Russian and Ukrainian Steppe region. The 

Qipchaqs appeared in the former Pecheneg Steppe as early as 1055 and 

conquered the region from the Uzes, giving their name to the steppe

27

. But 

shortly afterwards the Qays also appeared in the former Pecheneg Steppe 

and took over the government centres from the Turkic Qipchaqs in the 

sixties of the 11

th

 century. However in the nineties of the 11

th

 century the 

Ölberli clan of Kimek / Cuman (Qun) origin left Manchuria for the steppes. 

After a short period of instability peace was secured in the Qipchaq Steppe 

around 1116 / 1117 and the Ölberli and Qay clans shared the power. The 

                                                 

25

 If we regard the Yimeks and the Kimeks to be the same people (or the former as a 

subdivision of the latter) Kasghari (Atalay 1985-86 v. 1: 30) notes that they were speaking 

only a Turkic language by the middle of the 11th century.  

26

 Kashgari (Atalay 1985-86 v. 1: 28) mentions the Qay as well among the twenty tribes of the 

Turks. However he also notes that although they knew Turkish very well they had a 

separate tribal language (Atalay 1985-86 v. 1: 30), i.e. they were bilingual. Therefore we 

can assume that the Qay was turkified or at an advanced stage of the process of assimilation 

by the 11th century.  For a detailed account on the Qay people see Eberhard 1947. 

27

 Although Baihaqi reports Qipchaqs to be neighbours of Khwarezm in 1030 (Morley 1862: 

91) and Kashgari (Atalay 1985-86 v. 1: 28) locates them second after the Pechenegs from 

the Byzantine realm, both Arat (1950: 714b) and Hazai (1986a: 126a) note that the first 

attestation of the name Dasht-i Qipchaq ‘the Qipchaq Desert / Steppe’ for the former 

Mafāzat al-Ghuzz mentioned by Istakhri (de Goeje 1870: 227-28), is in the Dîwān of Nāsir-

i Khusraw. Both Arat and Hazai refers to Browne (1902: 31) as their source. However such 

an entry does not exist in Browne neither does Khusraw report anything on Dasht-i 

Qipchaq. The word Qipchaq exists in the Dîwān of Khusraw in two places (Taqavî 1304-

1307: 102 and 329) and only in one occasion (p. 329 line 11) he mentions the Guzz and the 

Qipchaq living together around Ceyhûn, i.e. Jaxartes. The proof that the Mafāzat al-Ghuzz 

and the Dasht-i Qipchaq are the same place comes from Qazwînî, who states in Nuzhat-al-

Qulûb that the Qipchaq Desert is the same place as the Khazar Desert (Le Strange 1919: 

230). The Old Rus’ chroniclers also used the term Pole Poloveckoe, which is the exact 

translation of Dasht-i Qipchaq, to designate the Pontic Steppe (Pritsak 1982:340-41). 

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