The Chinese annals record Göktürk names, titles and a few explained words from the middle of the sixth century on.[1] Each of them is written in Chinese characters chosen for their sound. A character keeps the meaning it has in Chinese, and it records the sound it had when the annalist wrote. That sound has to be reconstructed before the Turkic word behind it can be guessed.

The record of the annals

The Zhou Shu gives the founder’s name as 土門 and says that in the first month of the first year of Wei Feidi, 552, he styled himself 伊利可汗, “like the chanyu of old”.[1] It gives his wife’s title as 可賀敦 and compares it with the old 閼氏.[1] It lists the great offices as 葉護, 設, 特勤, 俟利發 and 吐屯發, and it counts twenty-eight ranks in all.[1]

The Tongdian lists the offices again with other names: 屈律啜, 阿波, 頡利發, 吐屯 and 俟斤.[2] Each of these is a Turkic word or has been identified as one. The articles on the khan, the katun, the yabgu, the shad, the tegin, the ilteber, the tudun and the irkin take them one by one, and the twenty-eight ranks set them in order.

Explanations by the Chinese authors

Chinese authors sometimes say what a foreign word means. These explanations are the only place where a Chinese text speaks of the meaning, and they are the author’s own rendering.

  • The Zhou Shu says that the guards of the khan are called 附離 and that in Chinese this word also means wolf. It says that a bare mountain, four or five hundred li from the Dujin mountain where the khan has his seat, is called 勃登凝黎, which in Chinese means the spirit of the earth.[1] See the guard and the mountain.
  • The Sui Shu says that the title 意利珍豆啟民可汗, which it gives to Yami, means “wise and strong” in Chinese.[3]
  • The Jiu Tang Shu says that 登利, the name of a khan, means 果報, “recompense”, in Chinese.[4] The name is understood as Turkic tengri, “Heaven”. If so, the gloss does not translate it. See Tengri Khan.
  • The Wei Shu says that the Rouran khan Shelun styled himself 丘豆伐可汗. It explains 丘豆伐 as “to drive and to open out” and 可汗 as “emperor”, both in the speech of the Wei.[5]
  • The Han Shu says that the Xiongnu call heaven 撐犁 and a son 孤塗, and that 單于 means vastness.[6] See the chanyu and the debate on the language of the Xiongnu.

The Tongdian gives a longer run in one passage on the early ranks of the Göktürks. The brave and strong were called 始波羅, also 英賀弗. The fat and stout were called 大羅便, and daluobian was a wine vessel. The old were called 哥利, the horse 賀蘭, the black 珂羅便, the hair 索葛 and the meat 安禪, and for each of these words the passage names an office formed from it.[2] These words have articles of their own: shiboluo, yinghefu, daluobian, geli, helan, keluobian, suoge and anchan.

One name, several spellings

The same man or the same title is written differently in different histories. The spellings below can be read in the chapters themselves.

Mukan is 木汗可汗 in the Zhou Shu and 木杆可汗 in the Sui Shu, the Bei Shi and the Tongdian.[7] His own name is 俟斤 in the Zhou Shu, 俟斗 in the Sui Shu and 俟叔 in the Bei Shi.[8] The Tongdian adds that his name was also 燕尹, where the Zhou Shu has 燕都.[2]

Taspar is 他鉢可汗 in the Zhou Shu and 佗鉢可汗 in the Sui Shu.[9] The mountain spirit is 勃登凝黎 in the Zhou Shu, 勃登凝梨 in the Bei Shi and 㝅登疑梨 in the Tongdian.[10]

The title of the prince of the blood is written 特勤 in the Sui Shu, the Bei Shi and the Tongdian. The Jiu Tang Shu and the Xin Tang Shu write 特勒.[11] The Zhou Shu in its present printing has 特勤. The editors say that modern study has shown every 特勒 to be a mistake for 特勤, and they have corrected the text.[1] The inscriptions write the word tigin or tegin, and the article on the title sets out the spellings.[12]

Some of these differences come from the copying of a text. Others may be different attempts to write one sound. The histories do not say which.

Reading a transcription

A reader who wants the Turkic word has two steps to take. The first goes from the character to a sound of Middle Chinese, and the second from that sound to a Turkic word. Both are uncertain, and the first depends on the system of reconstruction chosen.

Two cases show how the steps go. A study of 1962 takes 俟斤 for the Tang spelling of the title that the Orkhon inscriptions have as irkin, and notes that the same title is met earlier among the Rouran.[13] The first character is the difficulty. Read as a voiced fricative, it would give izkin for irkin. The study observes that Middle Chinese -t would normally stand for a foreign -r, and that this is found in another spelling of the same title, 乙斤.[14] The same character begins 俟利發, which is usually equated with ilteber. The study finds the phonetic match inexact and the equation doubtful.[15]

The second case is the title that the Tang histories write 葉護. The Han Shu writes the title of nobles among the Wusun, the Yuezhi and the Kangju 翕侯. The same study takes it for the title later used by the Turks as yabgu, and notes that the Chinese initial consonant is troublesome for the equation.[16] If the equation holds, one title appears under two spellings, centuries apart. See the yabgu.

Name equations rest on the same procedure. The equation of 土門 with a Turkic Bumïn is a reconstruction. The Chinese text gives only the characters. See Bumin Khan.

Chinese words in Turkic

Chinese words also entered Turkic. A Bactrian manuscript of 711 writes the word for a woman of rank, kïnžuy, seven times, of a Khalaj princess.[17] Some scholars hold this form to be older than the Old Turkic kunçuy, because of the shape of the word’s source in Early Middle Chinese.[17] See Kunçuy and the Khalaj language.

Limits

The annals give no Turkic spelling of their own. Where the Turkic form is known from the inscriptions or the manuscripts, the Chinese spelling shows how the word was heard. Where it is not known, the characters are all there is, and a name read from them is a proposal. Old Turkic sets out what the inscriptions give, and the survey of the family shows where these words stand among the languages.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
  2. ^ a b c Tongdian, juan 197
  3. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  4. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
  5. ^ Wei Shu, juan 103
  6. ^ Han Shu, juan 94
  7. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50; Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 99; Tongdian, juan 197
  8. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50; Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 99
  9. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50; Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  10. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50; Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 99; Tongdian, juan 197
  11. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 99; Tongdian, juan 197; Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
  12. ^ Kül Tegin inscription
  13. ^ Pulleyblank 1962, p. 69
  14. ^ Pulleyblank 1962, p. 69–70
  15. ^ Pulleyblank 1962, p. 70
  16. ^ Pulleyblank 1962, p. 95
  17. ^ a b Erdal 2004, p. 4

Sources

Literature

  • Marcel Erdal, A Grammar of Old Turkic (2004)
  • Edwin G. Pulleyblank, The Consonantal System of Old Chinese, Part I (1962)

Related

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Chinese transcriptions of Turkic.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/languages/chinese-transcriptions-of-turkic/

Last revised: 8 November 2026