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Concept
Göktürks
Summary
The Göktürks, Türks, Celestial Turks or Blue Turks (Türük Bodun; ) were a nomadic confederation of Turkic peoples in medieval Inner Asia. The Göktürks, under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan (d. 552) and his sons, succeeded the Rouran Khaganate as the main power in the region and established the First Turkic Khaganate, one of several nomadic dynasties that would shape the future geolocation, culture, and dominant beliefs of Turkic peoples.
Strictly speaking, the common name "Göktürk" emerged from the misreading of the word "Kök" meaning Ashina, ruling clan of the historical ethnic group's endonym: which was attested as Türük Kök Türük, or Türk. It is generally accepted that the name Türk is ultimately derived from the Old-Turkic migration-term 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰰 Türük/Törük, which means 'created, born'.
They were known in Middle Chinese historical sources as the Tūjué (; reconstructed in Middle Chinese as romanized: *dwət-kuɑt > tɦut-kyat).
The ethnonym was also recorded in various other Middle Asian languages, such as Sogdian *Türkit ~ Türküt, tr'wkt, trwkt, turkt > trwkc, trukč; Khotanese Saka Ttūrka/Ttrūka, Ruanruan to̤ro̤x/türǖg and Old Tibetan Drugu.
According to Chinese sources, Tūjué meant "combat helmet" (), reportedly because the shape of the Altai Mountains, where they lived, was similar to a combat helmet. Róna-Tas (1991) pointed to a Khotanese-Saka word, tturakä "lid", semantically stretchable to "helmet", as a possible source for this folk etymology, yet Golden thinks this connection requires more data.
Göktürk means "Celestial Turk", or sometimes "Blue Turk" (i.e. because sky blue is associated with celestial realms). This is consistent with "the cult of heavenly ordained rule" which was a recurrent element of Altaic political culture and as such may have been imbibed by the Göktürks from their predecessors in Mongolia. The name of the ruling Ashina clan may derive from the Khotanese Saka term for "deep blue", āššɪna.
Official source
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