Jie

Rouran epoch Göktürk epoch Uyghur epoch Kirghiz epoch

Rouran First Göktürk Tang rule Second Göktürk Uyghur Kirghiz Huns Western Göktürk Türgesh Karluk Khazar

Rouran 400–554
First Göktürk 552–630
Tang rule 630–682
Second Göktürk 682–744
Uyghur 744–840
Kirghiz 840–924
Huns 370–469
Western Göktürk 552–659
Türgesh 699–766
Karluk 766–800
Khazar 650–969

The Jie appear in the Chinese records of the fourth century AD. These records count them among the Xiongnu and place them settled inside the frontier. Shi Le, who founded the Later Zhao in northern China, came from them. A Tang tradition says that under the Later Zhao the northerners avoided the word hu (Hu), the name of the foreigners of the north and north-west, because Shi Le himself was of hu descent. Another work puts the ban in 608. Both accounts are late, and the taboo may be a later explanation.^[1] Some scholars place the Jie inside the Xiongnu, as a branch of the Qiangqu tribe. This branch is distinct from the Tuge, from whom the Liu house of the Xiongnu Han came. The Wei Shu calls Shi Le’s people a separate branch of the Xiongnu.^[2]

The Jie matter far more than their size suggests, because of a single sentence. The Jin Shu preserves a four-word couplet, glossed there in Chinese. It is the longest connected utterance of any Xiongnu-affiliated tongue that survives. Every account of the Xiongnu language has had to explain it. The couplet has been identified as Turkic, as Yeniseian and as Iranian. The article on the language sets out the competing proposals.

References

^ Laufer 1919, p. 298,300
^ 内田吟風 1935, p. 571

Literature

Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Uchida Ginpū 内田吟風, 五胡亂及び北魏に於ける匈奴 (1935)
Berthold Laufer, Sino-Iranica. Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran (1919)