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How Xiongnu called themselves?
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Posts: 781 		  Quote barbar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: How Xiongnu called themselves?
    Posted: 24-Jan-2008 at 22:38
 
I know there are countless of topics on Xiongnu or Hun here.  Sorry if this has already been addressed somewhere. Wiki is also missing this point. I could have posted it in any related topics. However, Xiongnu being one of the most important group in the history of steppe, I personally think this deserve a new topic.  
 
Although archeological findings suggest Xiongnu used a kind of Runic script, we still lack any direct evidence as for the Xiongnu history from their own words, unlike Kokturk and Uyghurs. We have to rely mainly on Han Chinese Records which had the most concern about this rival group.  Actually It is very surprising for me that in Shiji and Hanshu, Xiongnu and Hu were used alternatively for  the same group. Actually the term Hu was used just as the pronoun of Xiongnu. 
 
I notice a letter in Hanshu, which was writen by Xiongnu Shanyu to the Han emperor, went like this:
 
其明年，单于遣使遗汉书云：南有大汉，北有强胡。胡者，天之骄子也，不为小礼以自烦。今欲与汉闿大关，取汉女为妻.......
 
Translation: The other year, Shanyu (King of Xiongnu, Tenriqut) sent a delegate to Han and wrote to say:" In the south great Han, In the north strong Hu. Hu is, proud sons of the heaven,  not bother themselves with petty gifts. Now want to open the gate between Han, get the daughter of Han as a wife......
 
It is quite clear that Xiongnu called themselves Hu. Athough this is a Chinese transliteration, one thing should be clarified that Xiongnu is Chinese degorative naming of Hu.  However it's possible that a tribe in the power in Hu confederacy might be Hun (then came Chinese derogarative Xiongnu). 
 
What should be the original term in Hunnic language? I'll live it for open discussion, and give my points accordingly.
 
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You leave us in suspense wise barbar.Smile
 
The Xiongnu used to be part of a Wu Hu (Five Hu) classification of peoples occupying China's (Han) northern border. These Hu were called barbarians or non-Chinese.
 
How the terminolgoy of the word Hu came to represent the Xiongnu is a question you can help answer. The Hu may have been called Kun or Hun by the Xiongnu themselves.
 
 
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 00:27
Forgive my ignorance,
 
But are you saying, that you feel this is the direct relationship that names the black and white huns of European history to the Xiongnu of Chinese history?
 
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Xiongnu are Huns of European history.
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Posts: 0 		  Quote ProMongol Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 18:07
Originally posted by barbar

 
I notice a letter in Hanshu, which was writen by Xiongnu Shanyu to the Han emperor, went like this:
 
其明年，单于遣使遗汉书云：南有大汉，北有强胡。胡者，天之骄子也，不为小礼以自烦。今欲与汉闿大关，取汉女为妻.......
 
Translation: The other year, Shanyu (King of Xiongnu, Tenriqut) sent a delegate to Han and wrote to say:" In the south great Han, In the north strong Hu. Hu is, proud sons of the heaven,  not bother themselves with petty gifts. Now want to open the gate between Han, get the daughter of Han as a wife......
 
It is quite clear that Xiongnu called themselves Hu. Athough this is a Chinese transliteration, one thing should be clarified that Xiongnu is Chinese degorative naming of Hu.  However it's possible that a tribe in the power in Hu confederacy might be Hun (then came Chinese derogarative Xiongnu). 
 
What should be the original term in Hunnic language? I'll live it for open discussion, and give my points accordingly. 
 
I believe Xiongnu (Huns/ Guns) called themselves "XYH" originally. So closest chinese transliteration is "Hu"-'XУ"
Most meaningful translation of the word  "XYH" is in Mongolian language. "XYH" is mongolian word for "men" "man" "people". Just like inuit people call themselves as "INUIT" which means "man""person" in their language, Huns called themselves "MAN" in their language as "XYH"  which still in use in old and modern Mongolian language.
 
Mot Mongol Traduction (Franais)
хүн tre humain
 
 
Ps: (then came Chinese derogarative Xiongnu) . I don't think it is derogative term. It is just chinese could say say/ write it. Todays chinese call German's Deguo, French Feguo and it is not considered as derogative term.  
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Originally posted by ProMongol

 
 
I believe Xiongnu (Huns/ Guns) called themselves "XYH" originally.
 
 this word  "XYH" is in mongolian cyrillic alphabet. Latin transliteration is "HUN"
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Posts: 3113 		  Quote Sarmat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 18:56
Originally posted by ProMongol

 
I believe Xiongnu (Huns/ Guns) called themselves "XYH" originally. So closest chinese transliteration is "Hu"-'XУ"
Most meaningful translation of the word  "XYH" is in Mongolian language. "XYH" is mongolian word for "men" "man" "people". Just like inuit people call themselves as "INUIT" which means "man""person" in their language, Huns called themselves "MAN" in their language as "XYH"  which still in use in old and modern Mongolian language.
 
Mot Mongol Traduction (Franais)
хүн tre humain
 
 
Ps: (then came Chinese derogarative Xiongnu) . I don't think it is derogative term. It is just chinese could say say/ write it. Todays chinese call German's Deguo, French Feguo and it is not considered as derogative term.  
 
The thing is that in ancient Chinese pronouncation it was not Xiong but Hun. I mean the characters are the same but in ancient Chinese they were pronounced as Hun. However, the selection of the Chinese characters itseld is derogatory. Literal translation of Xiongnu means : "Angry Slaves." Chinese have a lot of characters for the words which sound totally similar. So, they were clearly selecting the characters for the name of a particular tribe. For sure they could find character hun or hu with more respectful meaning, yet they elected "Angry Slaves" in order to emphasize Xiongnu "barbarism."
 
Deguo and Faguo on the contrary have nice meanings: "Country of Morality" and "Country of Law."
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Posts: 781 		  Quote barbar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 19:30
Originally posted by ProMongol

 
I believe Xiongnu (Huns/ Guns) called themselves "XYH" originally. So closest chinese transliteration is "Hu"-'XУ"
Most meaningful translation of the word  "XYH" is in Mongolian language. "XYH" is mongolian word for "men" "man" "people". Just like inuit people call themselves as "INUIT" which means "man""person" in their language, Huns called themselves "MAN" in their language as "XYH"  which still in use in old and modern Mongolian language.
 
 
Xiongnu didn't speak Mongolian, why should they use a mongolian word as their name?
 
Using a word meaning "MAN" as the title doesn't make sense for an open society such as Xiongnu.
 
The letter is quite clear that They called themselves HU.  It must be like that Tujue called themselves Turk, and they had a royal clan ASHINA.  HU must be a general term while HUN might be a royal clan name.
 
Question is what is this Chinese HU in Hunnic language?
 
In this Chinese letter, actually the structure of the sentence including HU is commonly used when defining something. that means:
 
It can be translated as: "HU are the proud sons of the heaven" or even better "HU means proud sons of heaven."  
 
Can't this give us some clues?
 
IF we didn't have Kokturk and Uyghur inscriptions, we might still be debating what these Tujue and Huihu called themselves.
 
Huihu in Chinese documents was Uyghur in Uyghur writings.  Hui was meaningful transliteration of Uy, while the Hu was just the transliteration of the Oghur.  "Alliances of the Oghurs." In the documents it was claimed many times that "Huihu, ancesters were Xiongnu".  The common term for them both were Oghur or ghur.
 
I'm quite confident to say that HU in Hunnic was Oghur or Ghur.
 
Now look at those tribal groups in European Huns: Onoghur, Qutoghur, Utoghur etc.   
 
These also can give us further clues.
 
Originally posted by ProMongol

 
Ps: (then came Chinese derogarative Xiongnu) . I don't think it is derogative term. It is just chinese could say say/ write it. Todays chinese call German's Deguo, French Feguo and it is not considered as derogative term.  
 
It was derogative term, the character used for NU means SLAVE.  Chinese could transliterate HUN exactly as HUN. Actually they named one of the Uyghur tribes as exactly as HUN.
 
There are Chinese words like HUN DAN, HUN ZHUO, HUN ZHA .........
 
I have no doubt Xiongnu came from the word HUN.  However it seems to be not the general term Xiongnu refered to themselves. 
 
 
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Posts: 781 		  Quote barbar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 19:42
Originally posted by Sarmat12

 
The thing is that in ancient Chinese pronouncation it was not Xiong but Hun. I mean the characters are the same but in ancient Chinese they were pronounced as Hun. However, the selection of the Chinese characters itseld is derogatory. Literal translation of Xiongnu means : "Angry Slaves." Chinese have a lot of characters for the words which sound totally similar. So, they were clearly selecting the characters for the name of a particular tribe. For sure they could find character hun or hu with more respectful meaning, yet they elected "Angry Slaves" in order to emphasize Xiongnu "barbarism."
 
Deguo and Faguo on the contrary have nice meanings: "Country of Morality" and "Country of Law."
 
Exactly, however a few things to clear up. The character Xiong wasn't the one for "ANGRY", it was just the only Character used for XIONGNU.  So it must be a simple transliteration.
 
Deguo and Faguo don't have those meanings actually, although indeed the characters were chosen that way. Originally Deguo was Deyizhi (Deutch) Gongheguo (republic) and Faguo was Falanxi (France) gongheguo (republic), those were abbrivated ones, just like Meiguo, Yinguo etc.  Simple transliterations.
 
 
 
 
 
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Posts: 5221 		  Quote Temujin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 19:42
Originally posted by barbar

 
Xiongnu didn't speak Mongolian, why should they use a mongolian word as their name?
 
Using a word meaning "MAN" as the title doesn't make sense for an open society such as Xiongnu.
 


how do you know it is a Mongolian word? Mongolian language includes words from other languages such as Khan from Turkic.
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I see. Mongolian "XYH"- HUN is the The name for HUNS. Somehow Mongolians still kept that word in use till now. There must be linguistic connection between donghu> huns> sianbi> kidan> mongol  

The supposed sound of the first character has a clear similarity with the name "Hun" in European languages. Whether this is evidence of kinship or mere coincidence is hard to tell. It could lend credence to the theory that the Huns were in fact descendants of the Northern Xiongnu who migrated westward, or that the Huns were using a name borrowed from the Northern Xiongnu, or that these Xiongnu made up part of the Hun confederation.

The traditional etymology of "匈" is that it is as pictogram of the facial features of one of these people, wearing a helmet, with the "x" under the helmet representing the scars they inflicted on their faces to frighten their enemies. However, there is no actual evidence for this interpretation.

In modern Chinese, the character "匈" is used in four ways: to mean "chest" (written 胸 in this sense as the set of Chinese characters evolves), in the name 匈奴 Xiōngn "Xiongnu", in the word 匈人 Xiōngrn "Hun [person]", and in the name 匈牙利 Xiōngyl "Hungary". The last of these is a modern coinage which may derive from the belief that the Huns were related to the Xiongnu.[citation needed]

 
Hungnu (Chinese: 匈奴; pinyin: Xiōngn; Wade-Giles: Hsiung-nu);
 
Xianbei (simplified Chinese: 鲜卑; traditional Chinese: 鮮卑; pinyin: Xiānbēi; Wade-Giles: Hsien-pei)
 
Donghu (Chinese: 东胡; pinyin: Dōngh),
 
What is other options on "How Xiongnu called themselves"?
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Posts: 0 		  Quote ProMongol Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 20:07
Originally posted by Temujin

Originally posted by barbar

 
Xiongnu didn't speak Mongolian, why should they use a mongolian word as their name?
 
Using a word meaning "MAN" as the title doesn't make sense for an open society such as Xiongnu.
 


how do you know it is a Mongolian word? Mongolian language includes words from other languages such as Khan from Turkic.
That can be another option too. It has to be proven. But Turkic languages have no traces of word HUN. If there is turkic versions, please provide?
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Posts: 0 		  Quote ProMongol Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 20:23
Originally posted by barbar

 
Xiongnu didn't speak Mongolian, why should they use a mongolian word as their name?  
When you have
Only about 20 Xiongnu words[1] belonging to the Altaic languages are known[2], and only a single Xiongnu sentence survives from the Chinese documents.
we can not say for sure "Xiongnu DIDN'T speak similar language to Mongolian, of course turkic too. Anyway the term Mongol or Turk is used later. Probably  Mongolian and Turkic language were not distinct language
 

Hsiung-nu (Xiongnu) were led by a chief called shan-y, whose full title transcribed into Chinese is Ch'eng-li Ku-t'u Shan-y, words which the Chinese translate as "Majesty Son of Heaven". In these words may be detected Turko-Mongol roots: ch'eng-li in particular is the transcription of the Turkic and Mongol word Tngri, Heaven. [15]

Ch'eng-li - is Tngri,

Ku-t'u -????
 
Shan-y-???
 
 
what is these words are?  I could read. it only SQUAREs in my display?
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Posts: 781 		  Quote barbar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 20:56
Originally posted by Temujin

Originally posted by barbar

 
Xiongnu didn't speak Mongolian, why should they use a mongolian word as their name?
 
Using a word meaning "MAN" as the title doesn't make sense for an open society such as Xiongnu.
 


how do you know it is a Mongolian word? Mongolian language includes words from other languages such as Khan from Turkic.
 
It's less likely that Mongolian borrow such a basic word from Turkic.  Moreover, it doesn't have this meaning in Turkic. For MAN we have "ER", for human we have "KISHI"
 
The point here is HUN didn't mean MAN as Mongolian, which can be subject to later discussion.
 
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Posts: 781 		  Quote barbar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 21:02
Originally posted by ProMongol

I see. Mongolian "XYH"- HUN is the The name for HUNS. Somehow Mongolians still kept that word in use till now. There must be linguistic connection between donghu> huns> sianbi> kidan> mongol  

 
 
Donghu and Xiongnu (HUN) are two distinct groups, Donghu was called such just because they were in the east of HU. They were not the eastern branch of HU.
Check our discussions here:
 
 
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Posts: 5221 		  Quote Temujin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 21:13
Originally posted by barbar

 
It's less likely that Mongolian borrow such a basic word from Turkic.  Moreover, it doesn't have this meaning in Turkic. For MAN we have "ER", for human we have "KISHI"
 
The point here is HUN didn't mean MAN as Mongolian, which can be subject to later discussion.
 


well, i didn't said it was borrowed from Turkic. also, there is no reason to assume that Turks use exactly the same words Xiong-nu used before.

also, i think it is greatly logical to assume Hun = man. in german "deutsch" means the people. so if we say in german: we, the "deutsche" = we, the people. so if the Xiongnu said: we, the Hun, it is likely to mean we, the men. in german there was also a tribal name Alamanni which can mean "all men". there was also markomanni = bordermen. i think it is not irrational to believe that they used Hun in this meaning. at leats i wouldn't rule it out so easily. all we are talking about here is guesswork anyways. as you said Chinese can more or less pronounce Turkic names, and Hun sounds more like Mongolian Hun than Oghur/Ghur. there is no R sound in Hun and the Gh sound is not the same as the H sound.


Edited by Temujin - 25-Jan-2008 at 21:15
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Posts: 781 		  Quote barbar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 21:13
Originally posted by ProMongol

 
That can be another option too. It has to be proven. But Turkic languages have no traces of word HUN. If there is turkic versions, please provide?
 
We do have traces in Turkic.
 
Hun means Life and Blood,in contemprary Uyghur turkic.  
 
We have another word QAN for blood, JAN for life. All are related to one common root word in mordern and old Turkic:  KUN means the SUN.
 
In ancient Tengrism, SUN together with MOON were considered to be the children of the heaven (sky god).
 
Let's recollect the words of the XIONGNU Shanyu: "Hu are the proud sons of the Heaven".
 
 
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Posts: 5221 		  Quote Temujin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 21:17
Translation: The other year, Shanyu (King of Xiongnu, Tenriqut)


BTW, where do you get Tengriqut from?
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Posts: 781 		  Quote barbar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 21:23
Originally posted by Temujin

Originally posted by barbar

 
It's less likely that Mongolian borrow such a basic word from Turkic.  Moreover, it doesn't have this meaning in Turkic. For MAN we have "ER", for human we have "KISHI"
 
The point here is HUN didn't mean MAN as Mongolian, which can be subject to later discussion.
 


well, i didn't said it was borrowed from Turkic. also, there is no reason to assume that Turks use exactly the same words Xiong-nu used before.

also, i think it is greatly logical to assume Hun = man. in german "deutsch" means the people. so if we say in german: we, the "deutsche" = we, the people. so if the Xiongnu said: we, the Hun, it is likely to mean we, the men. in german there was also a tribal name Alamanni which can mean "all men". there was also markomanni = bordermen. i think it is not irrational to believe that they used Hun in this meaning. at leats i wouldn't rule it out so easily. all we are talking about here is guesswork anyways. as you said Chinese can more or less pronounce Turkic names, and Hun sounds more like Mongolian Hun than Oghur/Ghur. there is no R sound in Hun and the Gh sound is not the same as the H sound.
 
It would be more logical to have tribal names with the suffix of "MAN". Among Turkic or European Huns, we did have such tribal names, such as Hazer, Aghachiri etc, with the meaning "People of Something". Only with the meaning with people or man, it's less likely.
 
I don't correlate OGHUR/GHUR with HUN. Oghur/Ghur is the general term, and HUN is the name of the ruling clan. They both were used by XIONGNU, just as Chinese used HU and Xiongnu alternatively.
 
I'll touch the meaning of Oghur/Ghur later.
 
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Posts: 781 		  Quote barbar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Jan-2008 at 21:36
Originally posted by Temujin

Translation: The other year, Shanyu (King of Xiongnu, Tenriqut)


BTW, where do you get Tengriqut from?
 
Hanshu, Xiongnu Zhuan:
 
单于姓挛鞮氏，其国称之曰撑犁孤涂单于。匈奴谓天为撑犁，谓子为孤涂。单于者，广大之貌也，言其象天单于然也。
 
Translation: Shanyu, family name is Luandi, it's country call as "Chenglihutushanyu'. Xiongnu call the sky as "Chengli" (Tengri), Call son as "Hutu" (Qut).
 
 
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