Bulaqs

The Bulaqs were a Turkic tribe known mainly from Arabic sources, originating from the Lop Nor region. They were a core part of the Karluk confederacy located in the Altai Mountains. Many of them migrated to the Southern Ural, into the neighbourhood of the Volga Bulgars and Magna Hungaria Hungarians. Eventually, they were conquered by the Tsardom of Russia in the late 16th century, whom their last record is from. According to a hypothesis, many of them settled in the Balkans and the Carpathian Basin with the Bulgars, another Turkic nation. Certain medieval writers, most notably Anonymus, Simon of Kéza and William of Rubruck wrote about a people of this name. According to the dictionary of Mahmud al-Kashgari, their name, Bulaq, means "broad-backed horse" Károly Czeglédy and Lajos Ligeti deciphered the ethnonym from the Chinese sources (Old Chinese miə̯u-lâk Middle Chinese bu-lâk>Arabic bulaq) as mou-lo 謀落 or mou-la 謀剌. Omeljan Pritsak came to the same conclusion without referring to the previous scholar's works. As already Gyula Németh noted, the mi̯əu-lôk or miə̯u-lâk ~ bulaq is etymologically related to the colour of horses which was a usual tribal designation on the steppe. Dezső Pais states that the name originates from the Turkic balxu, (bal ("slice")+-ku or -xu suffix) meaning "branch" or "part". This was adopted by the Slavs as blach (singular) and blasi (plural). Turkologist László Rásonyi dismisses this claim and notes that Bulaq meant "white-piebald" horse in some Turkic languages and in Mongolian, whole in Chagatai, "white-legged horse". The people formed in the Lop Nor region, from where they migrated away around year zero due to desertification. The Chinese and Arab manuscripts mentioned the tribal names of the Karluks. According to the Chinese sources, the Bulaqs were one of the three core tribes of the Karluk confederation who lived in the Altai Mountains and were among the Western Turkic troops who were defeated in the Tang campaigns against the Western Turks in 650.