Was the Tuoba actually the Xianbei(H'sien-pei)?


I myself know that Tuoba was only a clan(or tribe) of the Xianbei.But some recently told me that, the pronounciation of Xianbei in Vietnamese is "Tiển Ti" or "Tiên Ti",the perfectly identity with Vietnamese one of the Tuoba ,another saying,Tuoba and Xianbei were the only one notion .Without knowing the Chinese(so I can't translate one Chinese word into Vietnamese),I can either argue them or confirm this information,this translation;althought my eventually beliving that Tuoba was only a tribe within the Xianbei confederation.Can anyone here confirm for me?

The Tuoba were recorded as being one tribe of Xianbei descended from a Xianbei father and a Xiongnu mother. The later Tuoba origin myth (at least as recorded in the Wei Shu) was that the Xianbei were descended from a son of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), and that this tribe called itself Tuoba because Tuo meant 'earth' (tu) and Ba meant 'descendant' (hou) in the north, and the Yellow Emperor's symbol was earth (i.e. soil).

Another story that was popular among the south Chinese was that the Tuoba were descendants of Li Ling, the Han general who surrendered to the Xiongnu. Li Ling, in this story, married a Xiongnu woman from the Tuoba family, and because the nomads follow the surname of their mother (which is not really true), Li's children were called Tuoba.

I almost already knew such these informations before,but as I told U,one of my friend had so strongly aver the identity between Tuoba and Xianbei that I must pose this question to reconfrim.However,thanks very much for rapidly and kindly answering to me !!!!


Onemore saying,most legends concern the origin of the Tuoba stated much about the ralations between the Tuoba and its maternal- Xiongnu- origin. But it's pity that the Tuoba doesn't exist to the modern-time to perform itself this relation!!!!

Did the Tuoba really have one approximetly theory of the Five Elements?The theory of Five Elements of the Gokturks was exactly their self-made theory,or it was only a borrowed-theory which was rooted from the Chinese ancient philosophy?



Among the ancient tribes/ ethnicities,did any tribe/ethnicity have its own theory of Five Elements?

Rene Grousset wrote a lot in his famous "Empire of the Steppes" (L'Empire des Steppes") about the Toba Turk nomads who ruled China.
Most of historians do not pay attention to the tribal structure of Turkic nomads which is extremely important. Most of the so-called "peoples" like Qangly, Qipshaq, Naiman, Kerei (Kereit), Ongut, Qongyrat, Uysun (Wu-sun), Jalair etc. - are parts of modern Kazakhs, as well as of very close to them Noghays, Steppe Crimean Tatars (both were practically exterminated by Russians), and Uzbek nomads (not urban Sarts!).
Turkic nomads traditionally had overwhelming military might over their settled neighbours which resulted after many centuries of that in creation of many Turkic speaking and even some non-Turkic speaking new peoples - mixtures of the Turkic nomads and local conquered peoples who became also settled and accepted all the culture of the settled peoples. Very often the conquered settled peoples had Turkic ruling class (e.g. Magyars, Bulgars, Sarts, etc.).
Turkic nomads traditionally occupied all the Great Steppe from Danube river to the Great Wall of China and even beyond. Later, after settled peoples acquired firearms and artillery, all the Great Steppe was eventually occupied by Russian Empire from west and Manchu Empire from east.

Actually, the only reason why the Tuoba are sometimes called 'Turks' is because some scholars have identified their language as Turkic (there are a number of Tuoba words transliterated in the Nanqi Shu chapter on the Northern Wei). But there are just as many scholars who interpret these words as Mongolic, and in any case the Xianbei are usually seen as linguistically Proto-Mongolic since they were related to the Khitan and Shiwei.

Rene Grousset's "Empire of the Steppes" is a classic work on the history of Central Asia, and no one has yet produced another book equal to its scope. But some of his views are outdated. For example, his argument that the Northern Wei collapsed because the Tuoba martial culture was softened by decadent 'Chinese culture' is far too simplistic.

The Five Hu people the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Di , Qiang and Jie that dominated northern china in the 4th-6th centuries but what do they look like?

These are very interesting people but the there are no pictures of them and the history books do no justice.
However we do know something about their place of origin and their language.

Lets say I'm trying to make a reenactment of that era and wish to be more acurate then say trying to pass John wayne off as a Mongol.



I'll start with the Xiongnu.(former Zhao)
Some say they speak a proto-turkic language and some say they spoke some sort fo 'yenisay' language.
What ever the case they were nomadic confederation that was predominately mongoloid but had caucasoid admixtures.
So I will settle with Kazakh nomads from yili kazakh autonomous region for the xiongnu.





The Xianbei.(Former-later and southern Yan, northern wei)
From north innermongolia and western manchuria and spoke a turko-mongol or proto-mongolic language so naturally I will choose a inner mongolian for this role.





Now the Di people.(Former Qin)
They are supposed to be from southern sichuan and spoke a proto-tibetic language.
so I will find a nomadic tibetan from sichuan to fit that role.





The Qiang people.(later Qin)
They were also tibetic and very close to Di people.
Well I'll use Qiang actors, I'm not sure if they are direct descendents of the ancient-Qiang people but should be the closest one can find.





Finally the Jie people.(later zhao)
This is a hard one because it was said that the Jie people looked very different to others with deep eye sockets and came from somewhere in central asia, they were easily identifiable thus when the barbarian massacre order was sent out the Jie were more easily identified then the others
I'm not sure who they were, some say they are sogdians and I have seen sogdian murals so I'm going to settle for either a Tajik or a Uzbek.

A sogdian mural found in Xinjiang.



Help me out, what do you think the Hu peoples look like and also wuhuan and dingling.

The Wuhuan would look essentially like the Xianbei - they originally came from the same Donghu confederation.

The Dingling/Tiele/Chile/Gaoche definitely spoke a Turkic language, so one could picture them as looking like a Turk or Uyghur.

If I had to find an actor to play a Jie, he/she would be a Tajik, Uzbek, or Iranian. For the Xiongnu and Xianbei, I'd use a mix of Mongols, Kazakhs, and Turks, reflecting the ethnic diversity of these confederations. For Di and Qiang, I'd choose a mix of Tibetans, Qiang, and Yunnan minorities like the Bai and Yi.

Another thing to note is that Grousset doesn't even read classical Chinese, his sources are mostly secondary, thats probably why his work contains large amount of speculations.

"Whether the Huns were the descendants of the Northern Xiongnu is still much debated - there is not enough evidence to prove it."

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European Huns came from Xiongnu... (The Western World knew this since 1756, from the book of de Guignes: "l'Histoire des Huns, des Turcs, des Mogols et autres Tartares")

The Huns spoke a kind of Turkish. The name of the one of the sons of Attila was Dengizik (Dengizich). "Deniz" means "sea" in modern Turkish (< Dengiz < Tengiz < Tengir).

"Tenger" means "sea" in modern Hungarian and this word also came from "Tengir"...

Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Sabirs and Ogurs all came from Central Asia and Hungarian people mixed with them...

De Guignes was the first to propose the theory, but that does not prove he was right. He also proposed the theory that the Chinese civilization came from Egypt, but no one says they "know this" as a fact just because he proposed it in the 18th century.



Even if this is the case, it doesn't prove that
1) The Xiongnu spoke a Turkic language
2) If the Xiongnu spoke a Turkic language, that they were the only Inner/Central Asian people who did so.

Huns, Sabirs, Bulgars, Ogurs and Avars; they all came from Central Asia...They lived in the regions between Hungary and Caspian Sea...

We know that The Bulgars were a Turkic speaking people... I have a good book about The Bulgars (but in Turkish!) , "The Bulgars and their language" (by Talat Tekin).

Ernakh (Irnik) was the third son of Attila (Avitohol). The Bulgars believed that Attila was their ancestor...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalia_of_...Bulgarian_khans

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According to the Chinese History books the Göktürks (Tujue people) also came from Xiongnu people... So Xiongnu people were Proto-Turks!

Actually, the Chinese sources are not in any agreement about the origins of the Gokturks. One of the two earliest sources, the Sui Shu (completed in 636), says that the ancestors of the Gokturks "were mixed-breed Hu 雜胡 from Pingliang 平涼 (eastern Gansu)" who fled to the Rouran kaghanate in 430 to escape the attacking Northern Wei army, and then settled down in the Altai Mountains and became metal-workers. Now, 'Hu' is a very broad and vague term in Tang-period sources, because it could refer to any foreigner (or his descendants) from the north or west, including Sogdians, Indians, Arabs, Turks, Xiongnu, Xianbi, etc. And "mixed-breed Hu" is an even vaguer term that simply suggests the writer has no idea where these people came from.

Furthermore, the Sui Shu continues with "but it is also said that (或云) their ancestors had a kingdom at the Western Sea". The Western Sea could be either the Aral Sea or the Caspian Sea - the Tang empire had no concrete knowledge of the geography in this area, so its use of such terms was quite imprecise. The version about the kingdom on the Western Sea basically goes that the kingdom was destroyed by its enemies and the whole population was exterminated, and only one boy was spared and abandoned with his limbs all cut off. A female wolf fed the boy and kept him alive, and later mated with him and became pregnant. The enemies of the kingdom came again and killed the boy, but the wolf escaped into a huge cave to the northwest of Turfan and gave birth to ten sons. The descendants of the ten sons (it's not explained where their wives came from) eventually left the cave, led by their chief Axianshe, and pledged allegiance to the Rouran kaghanate.

So the Sui Shu already had two versions of the story, neither of which mentions the Xiongnu. But another source, the Zhou Shu 《周書》, which was also completed in 636, has a variation to the wolf-and-boy story which starts by saying that the Turks were "probably a branch of the Xiongnu 蓋匈奴之別種". It does not mention the mixed-breed Hu story.

Then we come to the next source, the Bei Shi (completed in 659). The Bei Shi starts with the story of the boy and the wolf, but adds that the kingdom/tribe that was exterminated was originally to the west of the Western Sea, and (like Zhou Shu) that it was "probably a branch of the Xiongnu 蓋匈奴之別種也". Next the text says "but it is also said that... (或云)", and repeats the story about the mixed-breed Hu of Pingliang. Finally, it adds a third version where "the ancestors of the Turks originated from the kingdom of Suo 索, to the north of the Xiongnu". This versions says that the Turks originated from Naduliushe, the eldest son of Yizhinishidu, and that Yizhinishidu was one of the seventy sons of the Suo kingdom's chieftain Apangbu, and that his mother was a wolf. Naduliushe had ten wives, and the most junior wife was from the Ashina family. His sons were all named after their mothers, so Lady Ashina's son was named Ashina. After Naduliushe's death, his sons decided to choose a leader based on who could jump the highest. Ashina was youngest but could jump the highest, so he became the leader and was given the title Axianshe.

Now we have three versions of the Turks' origin, one of which mentions the Xiongnu with a "probably".

Finally, 400 years later, the writer of the second official history of the Tang dynasty - the Xin Tangshu (completed in 1060) - attempted to sort out all these conflicting versions and present an authorative statement on the origin of the Turks. But all he could come up with was this:
"The Ashina tribe of the Turks were probably a northern branch of the Xiongnu (蓋匈奴北部也). They lived to the north of the Altai Mountains, were vassals of the Rouran, and multiplied to great numbers".

The "probably" in the first sentence is very telling again. The truth is that the Tang historians had no idea where the Turks came from. They heard of some of the Turks' own origin myths, including those of the wolf and boy and of Yizhinishidu, Naduliushe, and Ashina/Axianshe, but none of these myths sounded believable or matched with what the earlier Chinese texts said about the peoples of the north. So the historians added their own theories about "mixed-breed Hu from Pingliang" and "probably a branch of the Xiongnu", neither of which had any evidence whatsoever.

You may not be familiar with ancient Chinese sources on the steppe nomads, but I can confirm that this sort of pure speculation about their origins was very common. Another example is Tang sources on the Tiele 鉄勒 tribes. It is well-attested in earlier sources that the Tiele were descended from the Gaoche 高車 or Dingling 丁零, who were originally from the Lake Baikal area and were conquered by the Xiongnu but always remained a separate people. But the Tang sources say that the Tiele "were descendants of the Xiongnu" (匈奴之苗裔也). This is entirely false and misleading, and no modern historian takes it seriously. I would suggest that we be equally skeptical about the claims that the ancestors of the Turks were "probably a branch of the Xiongnu".

Thank you!

But where did the Göktürks come? Most of our Turkish words came from Göktürk Language.In Turkey we still use some Göktürk words. We can still understand Orkhon inscriptions...So where did this language come?

Where did the Bulgars (Proto-Bulgarians)come? Why did they speak a kind of Turkish then?

You might want to start by reading Edwin Pulleyblank's 1990 article about the Turkic language of the Tiele (also known as Chile, Gaoche, or Dingling): http://www.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/~asiamajor/pdf/1990/1990-21.pdf

It is difficult to establish whether the Tiele and the Gokturks came from the same ancestors. But it might be possible on the basis of linguistic comparison.

THANKS!


Göktürks (Tujue) fought against other "Turkish tribes". These tribes (Uyghurs, Karluks, etc. )were all Turkic peoples because they spoke Old Turkic. Göktürks (Tujue)were only the ruling class....

I mean:

Göktürks (Köktürk = Tujue) fought against Tokuz Oguz (Dokuz Oğuz = 9 Oghuz), Uygur (Uighur/Uyghur), Kırkız (Kırgız =Kyrygz), Türgiş (Turgesh), On Ok (10 Arrows), Bayırku, Ediz, İzgil, Oğuz (Oghuz), Kurıkan and Karluk peoples... These tribes were all Turkic peoples. Where did they come from?

After the Göktürk State, the Arabs and the Persians called all of them "Turks"...

At the beginning "Turks" were only the ruling class.

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Göktürks also fought against Juan Juan (Apar =Avar), Otuz Tatar (30 Tatar), Kıtany (Kitay = Kitan = Qidan), Tatabı, Tokuz Tatar (9 Tatar) people...

Were these tribes Mongolians?

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We also know that Göktürks fought against Sogdak (Sogdians), Tangut (Tibetan people), China and Az peoples...

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What does "Tölis" mean? What does "Tarduş" mean?

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Kao-ch'e = "High Carts"

Tele-gen = "High Carts"

Tiele = Tele?

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Hsin-li = Sir?

Göktürks (Köktürk =Tujue), Tokuz Oguz (Dokuz Oğuz = 9 Oghuz), Uygur (Uighur/Uyghur), Kırkız (Kırgız =Kyrygz), Türgiş (Turgesh), On Ok (10 Arrows), Bayırku, Ediz, İzgil, Oğuz (Oghuz), Kurıkan and Karluk peoples; they all came from Xiongnu Empire...

So Xiongnu people = Proto-Turks!

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Seeing Xiongnu people as an unknown race is not so true!


We can think like that:

Confucius = K'ung fu tzu (551 BC-479 BC) was born in the state of Lu. At that time the name of China was NOT China! So Confucius was not a Chinese philosopher!!! He was a Proto-Chinese man!

I mean: The old name of the Turks = Xiongnu!

The Xiongnu empire was multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic. The Xianbi tribes also came from the Xiongnu empire originally, and so did the Khitan, but most historians think they spoke proto-Mongolic languages. So if you're arguing that every people that originated in the Mongolian steppe spoke proto-Turkic just because they were all once ruled by the Xiongnu, that's about the same as arguing that every country that was once part of the British Empire now speaks only English.

I didn't say that they all spoke a Proto-Turkic language. There were also Proto-Mongolians and Proto-Tungusic peoples. But at that time the name of Mongolians were not "Mongolians", of course...Turkish and Mongolian languages have hundreds of common words. (I will try to write this list on another thread...)



I think, we can't say that "They have disappeared into history." Some of them were not assimilated into the "Han" (Chinese people).

Today, the people of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, (and other Turkic peoples of Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Balkaria, Karachay, Northern Cyprus, Khakassia, Altai, Tuva, Yakutia/Sakha), Mongolia, Xinjiang(Uyghur) and Tibet are the descendants of these five ethnicities ..

and I forgot to write Uzbekistan!

Modern DNA technology had conclusive result about the racial interaction between Mongoloid and Caucasoid. Namely, the mixed people in Turkistan and Central Asia were the result of "admixture", not the result of some evolutionary "intermediary". Up till 2500-3000 years ago, there was zero link between the two groups other than the common origin from Africa 50,000-100,000 years ago. The two groups went separate paths from the Mediterranean coastline, with Caucasoids going north towards the Caucasus Mountain and Mongoloid going east towards today's Vietnam. They never met again till 2500-3000 years ago, somewhere i) near the Blackwater Lake, i.e., the mountain mouth of Altai Mountain and ii) in the territory of today's TUVA republic, i.e., north of Altai Mountain.

In China's history, the pattern was clear, i.e., the Huns raided the west, the Turks raided the west, and the Mongols raided the west. The so-called Altaic language could very well have originated in Manchuria, not Siberia where you had no chance of survival other than being a caveman in severe winters.

I know you mentioned that you read Turkish language. You may want to reflect on your origin using the approach that I just described.