The idea that the Eastern & Western Huns were the same has no confirmable basis.
This idea has been proposed before but most histories actually downplay it.
The movement from the steppes could even be like billiard balls and the Xiongnu displaced the Western Huns. The reasons for their appearance are speculative.
Physical descriptions and other details suggested they are not the same people.

Wen di was submitted this report by Chao Cuo (as quoted in 'weapons of ancient China' pp222-223;)

Judging by the time of this submission and whose ear it was designed for I believe it may paint a grander picture than Han/Hun warfare really was...even later than this Jingdi was trying non-military means to control the Xiongnu and Wudis grand expeditions were contemporarily described by his detractors as effective as 'fishing in the Yangtse without a net''.
The Xiongu could enter a battle when it suited them and vanish into the plains when it didnt. To draw out Han supply lines and be able to extract themselves from bad situations meant the Xiongnu would survive all the Han attempts to supress them (raiding even resumed within Wudis lifetime) and remain a group that woudl trouble those that followed the West and then Eastern Han.
It is a shame the Hun strengths are not included in this text...but it is on the Chinese weapons of course.
There are texts in John Piscopo's bibliographies that have ancient weapons of the Ordos region that would be useful.
One thing worth noting is the adoption from the steppes nomads dress for Chinese cavalry (i.e trousers), the popularity of 'ordos style' belt plaques and motif in East Zhou and Han art....and the so-called 'Steppes stlye or Xiongu style knife' which was adopted from here also by the Chinese. Even from Shang some influence is shown is artefactual types and the 'knife money' cash of the the late Warring States period shows how the utility of these knives had now to Chinese been recognised as a commodity.
The Huns advantages could be theorised as mobility, toughness, skill/archery from horseback, foraging/the ability of each man to potentially survive in the steppes if the army dispersed.
Here's some of the knives and in the middle the Chinese money from 2 states..on the left is Yan states 'Ming' cash that has archiac characters of Sun/Moon on reverse.

Edit; the image is too dark but dont have the camera on me to retake this old image.
The knife on the bottom left has a pattern in the handle and the end has broken off where there may have been a horned animal head. It had 3 fixtures for end docaration instead of the usual ring end.

Actually, DNA testing shows that for the Huns of western Europe, they have Hxiong Nu blood. Not 100% Hsiong Nu blood, just a fraction. I'm guessing the Hsiong Nu that went westward breeded with various tribes along the way, and those tribes went further westward.

The problem is whose DNA did they test? I had heard that identifying graves of 'Huns' is Europe is a problem.

Yep it's from "Hun graves". No matter, HsiongNu or no HsiongNu, the fact that the descendents of these nomads went all the way to Europe is still a pretty nice though.

Indeed. HsiongNu can't just have disappeared from the face of the earth in 200 AD and Hun appeared out of nowhere in 400 BC.
The actual link between HsiongNu and Hun has not be established for sure.
"Attila", the "scourge of God" of whom every French kid learns at school is still quite a common surname in Hungary

As with other steppe confederations, the fall of the Xiongnu didn't mean a wholesale replacement by other people, more a change of leadership to different tribes and clans. The people of the steppe would mostly transfer their alleigence to the new leadership.

Thanks Thirdgumi, that's the missing piece. Sounds pretty sensible.

PS; I thought somebody else might note it for me but the Xiongnu hardly 'disapear' at any one time. As previously stated even in Wudi's time they were bold enough to start raiding again and the East Han still had to content with them and other emerging 'barbarians' threats. The Xiongnu are still refered to after the fall of Han and as the collection of 'barbarians' that threatens the central plains shifts to other tribal groups it would seem to have more to do with events within the steppes rather than any direct Chinese influence.
Most Chinese attempts to influence the tribal confederancies backfired at a later date, with the mixing of Han royal blood with nomads and former mercenary tribes becoming a primary threat in their own right.
The Xiongnu didnt pack up and leave, and whichever tribes entered Europe may be more of a flow on effect of the pressure rather than a literal exodus across Eurasia.

I was once told that the ancient pronounciation for the word (it is a very old word...) was considered to be "hunnu". Do people who know ancient pronounciation confirm this?

The link to Huren is unlikely, I don't think the Huns were ever referred to as Huren (or Hu), as their were China's next door neighbours, they had a specific name.

Francois

Your initial question seems to be based on the assumption that the two words are the same, this is incorrect.
The point you should be making is that there is no clear link between the Xiongnu and the European Huns. The link was proposed in the 19th C because the names sounded similar.

nb linguistic eveidence (such as there is) suggests that both groups probably spoke turkic languages, so there may be some links, but they are not the same people driven the length of Asia (as has been conjectured from time to time).

Agreed, although the Hun=Xiongnu was first proposed in the 18th century by the Frenchman de Guignes. It should be noted also that even being known by the same name does not make two groups the same. The modern Turks are more closely related to the Tiele and Uyghurs than to the original Turkut (Tujue). The Turkut in turn knew the Tang dynasty as the 'Tabgach' (Tuoba) even though the Tang were not descended from the Tuoba Xianbei of the Northern Wei. And the Hepthalites were known as 'Hunas' in India and 'White Huns' in Europe, but seem to have different origins from the Huns.

For a thread on the Hun=Xiongnu theory, see: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=1605

And how will you people explain the Soghdians calling Xiongnu Xwn (Khûn)?

The Ancient Chinese pronounciation of Xiongnu was Hongnu (Hung-nu).

Actually it's closer to Hun-Ngu and Hu.

^Well, if the second Character was read somehow like 'ngu', Japanese loan 奴 would be 'go' (not 'do'), and in Mandarin Chinese it would be 'wu2'.

IIRC Japanese 匈奴 "kyoudo"

I tend to agree that a Xiongnu element in the formation of the Huns is likely, though it's very hard to be certain.

The most recent reasonably detailed discussion I am aware of is David Curtis Wright (of Brigham Young University), "The Hsiung-nu-Hun Equation Revisited", Eurasian Studies Yearbook 69 (1997) pp.77-112; and he concludes:

"Several pieces of the puzzle are still missing, but it is now tempting to conclude that the "Hsiung-nu-Hun identity" may be on its way to some verification. Perhaps the terms of the identity, rather than the identity
itself, are now on the table for discussion."

Back to the topics on xiongnu and huns are related. Since Saxon also migrate across from Mongolia. Can we say that all the modern saxon related races are once loser to the mighty race. hahahaha....

What you just said makes no sense...apart from 'hahahahaha'. The Saxons originate in what is now Germany. The Western Hun really caught the fevered imagination of the Europeans but werent really a threat after the death of Attilla. Hungary which bears their name is in Eastern Europe. The impact is more psycholgical than physical. Rome was conquered by Western barbarians not the Huns. The Western Europeans, as in Anglo-Saxons were not displaced by Huns.
The Huns in turn are likely entering Europe for reasons of their own, and whether the Han had any part in that is still not clear.

Please study your ancient history in depth. Saxons are not the original citizens of Germany. Before saxons arrived, the Celtics/Gauls are the dominat races in Western and Central Europe. Later the goths and the saxons then migrate into europe and displaced celtics/gauls from central europe.

Long have historians debated the origins of saxons. How did they appear on the europe? Where did they come from. New research/studies have suggested that they are the defeated remains of the nomads of north and central asias, who have migrated across to europe.

Make futher studies before you make stupid comments.

based on my feel of language i would not be surprised 'xiongnu' = 'hun'. But there seems to be no way to know

I feel a little tension here, please calm down, and stop using words like "stupid comments", it's insulting.

The part where Huns are the same as xiongnu is not clear, but whether Han played a part is quite clear. And I've explained that in another thread.

First lets check the first entry of the Huns under Roman record. The first mention is when the King of Armenia used Hunnish mercenaries in 290 A.D. And roughly in 374 when they destroyed the Alani which dominates the territory between the Don river and the Aral Sea. Later when the Alanis submitted the Huns went further West and attackled the Goths under Hermanrick and destroyed his Gothic kingdom. Now that could ONLY mean the Huns came from Northeastern Turkestan.
As the northern Steppe is filled with lower organized societies without state organizations. And Sogdiana at the time was dominated by the KangGu which was deivided by that time. And it didn't seem that they had the ability to attack the Alanis.

Now the Chinese records was silent on the Northern frontiers since the fall of Han and internal situation restrict the mention of any thing regarding to the huns. But Bei Shi did mention the destruction of the Yen chi(Alani at the same time). Now lets look at Bei Shi again, it was explicitly told that all of the Xiongnu territory was taken by Tan Shi Huai's mounting Xianbei power probably around 170 A.D. and it further mention that the Yueban tribe stayed in Northwestern Zungaria, while the bravest and strongest of the Xiongnu migrated WESTWARDS which could only be the Western Khirgiz steppe and perhaps part of KangGu territory near Talas river. This occured probably in the 170s A.D.

Now between this 200 years of Hunnish conquest of Alani which probaly started a few decades before the actual conquest, and the westward migration of the Xiongnu, we do not know what occured, but the xiongnu was not under a centralized authority and thats probably why it never expanded as fast. I really don't see who else the huns could be if they attacked the Alani from the east. It might be another group of new people intermixed with the Xiongnu that fled, but in any case at least portions of the hun had a Xiongnu ancestry. And any invasion must have come from a territory that was originally under the Xiongnu empire.

The only people around the west were the Ding Ling and Hugie which Bei Shi said were merged and became the Gao Gu, nor were these two groups strong enough to migrate any sizable portion westward, so we can rule them out, then there is the Jien Kun, which is the later Khirgiz, and for the same reason above we can rule them out. Unless another group from Mongolia proper invaded, which is highly unlikely since Mongolian history is in the keen interest of Chinese records, I am quiet sure the invading huns were at least partly the Xiongnu."

Whether these people were xiongnu or not, the thing is they came from the xiongnu empire, and Han played a role in the destruction of that empire.

This is not in Roman records at all, I believe, but only in Armenian sources - Faustus of Buzanta, or P'awstos of Buzand, author of a History of the Armenians written possibly in the 5th century. He mentions - see http://rbedrosian.com/pb1.htm - troops of the Honk', a term which in later writers certainly means Huns. But Maenchen-Helfen (The World of the Huns p.458) suggests that it "is at least doubtful" if the word had the same meaning in earlier sources; and even if it does, in a 5th-century writer references to 3rd-century "Huns" could be a complete anachronism.

There are also, of course, the Chuni in some manuscripts of Pliny's Natural History, whom some have read as "Huns". If so, there were Huns north of the Black Sea in the 1st century AD. But not many people would accept this identification, either.

The earliest definite references to the Huns in western sources are those of the 370s.


This assumes - especially the "only people around in the west" - that the Chinese histories are an accurate source for every people in the steppes as far west as the Volga. This does not seem an entirely safe assumption. If - purely as a hypothetical suggestion, I don't claim there's any evidence for this - some Finno-Ugrian speaking group from the northern forests migrated south, learned steppe pastoralism from a nomad group (as the Finno-Ugrian speaking Magyars were later to do), perhaps from some of the eastern Alans or some of the the Gao Gu, established themselves south of the Urals and then moved west, would the Chinese chroniclers necessarily know anything about it? Their histories of the far west are often correct, but is it safe to assume they are without gaps?

Personally, I suspect that there very probably was a Xiongnu element in the formation of the Huns; but I don't think it can be as near-certain as you imply.

i saw somewhere that it was mentioned that xiong nu bears the resemblance of caucasian features based on ancient chinese drawings of xiong nu during the han dynasty, so it is not impossible that saxons might be somehow related to the xiong nu.

Thats why we WEIGH the possibility. No historical sources are completely accurate. But the fact is, Chinese sources are usually accurate and in detail. The western records clearly match it in that Alani were conquered from the east. Your supposed assumption is totally baseless, therefore doesn't even need to be consulted unless newer evidence come up.




" some Finno-Ugrian speaking group from the northern forests migrated south, learned steppe pastoralism from a nomad group (as the Finno-Ugrian speaking Magyars were later to do), perhaps from some of the eastern Alans or some of the the Gao Gu, established themselves south of the Urals and then moved west, would the Chinese chroniclers necessarily know anything about it? Their histories of the far west are often correct, but is it safe to assume they are without gaps?"

First of all Gao Gu are still people within the xiongnu empire, that doesn't change the fact that Han influenced the westward migration of these people, second, You are still ignoring the BeiShi's account of the westward migration of the xiongnu. They simply didn't just dissapear, they MOST LIKELY did consist parts of the huns.

The fact is there is no organized group of people east of the Alani that wasn't within the xiongnu empire at one time or another, and that gives the Han a role in their migration.

"This is not in Roman records at all, I believe, but only in Armenian sources - Faustus of Buzanta, or P'awstos of Buzand, author of a History of the Armenians written possibly in the 5th century. He mentions - see http://rbedrosian.com/pb1.htm - troops of the Honk', a term which in later writers certainly means Huns. But Maenchen-Helfen (The World of the Huns p.458) suggests that it "is at least doubtful" if the word had the same meaning in earlier sources; and even if it does, in a 5th-century writer references to 3rd-century "Huns" could be a complete anachronism."

Yes, my bad. However, this is not important to the theme.



The Fin theory is just absurd, If that was the case, the Germanic people would be the first to be invaded, but they weren't, the Alanis were, and some Alanis fled west when their kingdoms got destroyed. Its clear that the invasion came from the east and there isn't single tribe east of the Alani that wasn't once withing the xiongnu empire. The only exception are siberian herders far to the north(only sparsely populated, a few ten thousand population at most) without any state structure whatsoever down to the Russian conquest, we can certainly rule them out.



Rreread my post, I never said it was certain, what was quite certain was the fact that the Huns migrated DUE to the Han.

You may not realise how far east in the northern forest belt the Finno-Ugrian peoples extended. The Ugrians have been in the Upper Volga-Ural region since prehistory. Coming down due south from there, as my hypothetical example suggested, would put them north of the Caspian: well east of the Germans, and to the east of at least the Western groups of the Alans; so the Alans would have been encoutered first.

And it wasn't a theory, just a hypothetical example of the type of population movements that could have escaped the notice of the Chinese sources. Nor do I accept that it's absurd; as I said, it's essentially what happened with the Ugrian-speaking Magyars later.


Reread mine; I didn't say you said it was certain, I said you implied it was near certain. Still, I think, a little more dogmatic than the evidence will bear.

It's a possibility but, if we look at the physical characteristics of the Huns as described by the Greco-Roman sources (Ammianus Marcellinus IIRC?), they don't sound very Caucasoid to me. Of course I might be oversimplifying all this to just base it on physical appearance alone since the Finno-Uralic peoples could've even mixed with some of the Turko-Mongolic hunter-gatherer groups of the northern taiga, but from genetic studies, the Finno-Uralics were largely a Caucasoid people. I've read from Hildinger that the Huns spoke a very probable Turkic language so Xiongnu influence isn't entirely unlikely at all. Still, your hypothesis may have a point though, and it might be probable that some Northern Xiongnu elements acquired along with them Finno-Uralic peoples during their probable migration from East Asia, but the suggestions of linguistic experts that of the available evidence left to us from the Greco-Roman sources of the Huns' language that it was Turkic may suggest that the core-elite of the Huns were most likely Xiongnu, at least they had enough influence from a prominent Turkic people (Xiongnu) that they were speaking a probable Turkic language.

Even if its at the north of Alani, it doesn't explain whiy the Alani were attacked first, and only after that kingdom became destroyed did the Huns attack the Germanic kingdom under Hermanrik. If the invasion came from the Finns, then both the Germanic kingdoms and the Alanis would have been attacked, even if the Alani kingdom was destroyed first, it still doesn't explain why the Germanic kindom didn't even get in contact with the Huns until the Alanis were destroyed. all this imply that the invasion was from the east. And the Germnanic kingdom only got in contact with the Huns because the Alanis were out of the way.
Furthermore your theory is not recorded in any sources. Which is why its baseless. Chinese sources are but one of my sources. Not even the core.




Reread mine again, I didn't even say that. I merely told you my view, I only said "I don't see who else it could be". Not a near certain schoalrly view. My point is the Han stimulation not the relation of Hun and xiognu.

Does anyone have a reference to this "DNA testing"?

For Hxiong Nu DNA tests see: http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender...bmedid=12858290

Thanks

I have just perused that DNA tests report. I have also read some posts in the ethnic Turk website. I think that it is possible that the Huns (probably also the Xiongnu) had a Turkic leadership and a Turkic upper class, and lower classes composed other races (e.g. Mongols). Hungary was named after a Magyar tribe, but the Magyars also had Hunnic (ethnic Turkic) leaders and a Hunnic (ethnic Turkic) uppper class when they invaded Central Europe. (That is why when the Magyar entered central Europe, they talked about "returning" to the grasslands of central Europe - because their Hunnic upper class had previously lived there.)

I have read that the Finno-Ugric and the Turks were related (through examing their languages). Perhaps the Turks originated in the same area as the Finno-Ugric people did - west of the Ural mountains? Still a long distance to Mongolia. The Turks could have travelled through the Taiga in the north or through the grassland south of the Taiga; in any event, they reached Mongolia (perhaps 10,000 years ago?) 10,000 years ago was the end of the last ice age. The climate was warming up and became easier for travellers.

According to Wikipedia...
Did Atilla did come up from lower classes? I doubt it.

"Hungary" and similar modernd terms are just names given by other states to "Magyarország" (they don't call their own country a similar term). I do wonder how the name came from.

In the 4th century AD, the Huns were there in Europe... and why not that they ran away to an area around Finland because the Huns scared them away?

And Mongolians are also related to Finno-Ugric, according to Ural-Altaic theory. And this seems to be just a little bit better than Sino-Caucasian, relating Chinese with the North Caucasian language speakers.

I am in favor that even Finno-Ugric speakers migrated from the East (though it might not be as far as East Asia...)

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html
Click on the Y-chromosome line labeled "LLY22" in the Eastern Europe (you may have to switch the timeline).
The migration line is misplaced, though, if you read the text. It should start near Siberia.

The idea that Uralic and Altaic languages are related is still speculative and strongly contested. And I have simply never heard of this "Turkic ruling class" postulation. I would advise against drawing conclusions based on these hypotheses.

Xiongnu...... i read some information on them... but i hope i nv rmb wrongly... they are Xia dynasty the first chinese dynasty in china and the rest i forgotten cos i got mix up wif other info ...haha guess i read too much at a time ... sry if i m wrong

asnd also i rmb a group of ppl become turkist but i forgotten who r they ..Xiongnu or mongolian sry

Thank you Mr. Moderator for your wise words.

It is commonly accepted among Western scholars now that the "Hun" was not a single race, but a federation of various ethnic groups. Whether the Turks were the ruling class in this federation has yet to be determined.

Hi Qrasy,

Thank you for the information on the LL2YY genome.

The Steppes was a highway - people travelled westward and eastward. The origns of the Finno-Ugric people (and probably the Turks) was west of the Ural mountains. It was possible that some of the Finns' ancesters came from Siberia. Also, both the Finns and the Turks were nomadic people - so they probably travelled on both sides of the Ural Mountains.

Also, the Mongol's orignal homeland was not the present Mongolia, but the lands around the huge Lake Baykal. just north of Mongolia. So, the Turks lived in Mongolia, and most of the Mongols lived around Lake Baykal - a most suitable living arrangement.

Yes, and I prefer the "more standard" classification. But the point is, even with that theory, Turkic is still classified to be closer to Mongolic than Finno-Ugric.

I'm not sure if you are referring to Xia of the 16 states? Their names were just the same... perhaps because of their location. The actual states differed by thousands of years.

I think the ruling class might be just the strongest people, or the people who once became the strongest.

The "origin" of a language family... should mean the location where they first differentiated. So, there was still precedents to them.
http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mcdonald/WorldHaplogroupsMaps.pdf
In this way of grouping the various types of Y-chromosome, the N is closest to the O (and both are descendants of K), which are found mostly on East Asia (see the third page).
Also, groups like Nenets, Yakuts, Eskimos look Asian.

EDIT: wait... why did I point out this haplogroup?
Maybe I was thinking it's the only one that Turkish and Yakuts both share? Percentage may mean nothing... because a king can have much more children than other males.
But Uighur does not have much of this, they have O instead...

EDIT: seems that because I read the comment that it traces Uralic speakers... But it does not relate much to Turkic speakers.

I was speculating Manchuria... because of the Mengwu Shiwei.
Shiwei should be most related to Sibe, which means Tungusic? It might be also a confederation of not-so-uniform people.

Hi Qrasy,

You are a fountain of knowledge.

1. The Hun was probably a confederation (with a central government) instead of a federation (where power is held by the constituent governments).

2. I have read from a number of sources that when the Turks lived in Mongolia, the Mongol homeland was the lands around Lake Baykal. However, some of the Mongols could have lived in Manchuria.

3. During the thousand of years the Turks and the Mongols lived side by side (or with the Turks as the upper class), their languages became similar. (One example is Romanian. Romanian originated with Roman/Latin, but after living side by side with Slavs for 2 thousand years - to-day's Romanian has more Slavic words than Latin words.)

4. The two competing theories are:

(a) The Turks originated (West of) the Ural mountains and were Caucasion; and

( The Turks orignated in Mongolia and were Mongoloid.

I am still voting for (a).

In the topics here I can find people referring "Chanyu of Xiongnu", which meant that Xiongnu had central power... but I can't be sure that it holds for the Huns as (I assume it is) diaspora.
I've heard that Atilla is just the strongest among the Huns so people followed him.
(and if the description of Atilla as Asian was true, then that means they brought their women as well?)

Well... this is a common problem in comparing vocabulary.
If you count word numbers, Vietnamese would have more Chinese words than its own. But if we consider the frequency as well, this is not really true.
And then, Romanian is still classified as a Romance language, probably because of grammar and much of basic words. Vietnamese is not classified as Chinese language and neither is English a Romance language...
In the European examples above, the groups that came into contact were still quite closely related (all in Indo-European language family), but as we see Viet-Muong is (usually) regarded as coming from Austroasiatic language family.. and after the group has so much contact with Chinese, they are still not classified as another branch of Sino-Tibetan language family.

But there can be also total language replacement... the ancestors of French once spoke Celtic (or Germanic I forgot?), but now French speak a Romance language, which is different branch.
Some minorities in China also got their language replaced by a Chinese dialect (though they still have "cousin groups" who retain their language).

and I am still choosing B...
Yakut people speak a Turkic language.. but then I can't know if they are not from a Mongolian tribe whose language was replaced by Turkish who then moved there.
The only group that seem to travel from Europe-Asia boundary to the east is the Q, ancestors of most Native American Y-chromosomes (also seem to be the ancestor of the R haplogroup found much in Europe!).
If I don't mess up the similar colors, then this Q is also found in Yakut, Turkish and Uighur...

The Huns are reasonablely well documented by European sources.

I wouldn't rely too much on that one description of Attila - one tends to exaggerate when one is describing an enemy. (Did the person who wrote that description actually met Attila? or did he rely on secondary sources?) The Hun was composed of many peoples (federation or confederation). The leading group was probably Turkic (in which Attila was a part). They did bring their women and children with them to invade Europe.

I know some Turkic people - from Turkey or from some other Turkic countries. I know their views of their origins. I would not post some of the posts here in a Turkic website.

I think that one member of this Forum is a Uighur; perhaps he can give to us his view on this topic - whether Uighur came from Caucasoid origins or Uighur had Mongoloid origins, and only became Caucasoid through mixing with other Caucasoid people (the only Caucasoid people I can think of (mixing with the Uighur) was the Yuezhi - but the Uighur and the Yuezhi were sworn enemies)?

From www.ecotao.com/holism/hu, article on Neanderthals:

".... The Croatian population (of Neanderthals) had some modern human anatomical characteristices. .... A fossil of a 24,500-year-old early modern human child unearthed in Portugal shows distinctive Neanderthal characteristics, possibly the result of interbreeding."