From the muddy depths of my memory, an unreliable source, namely a little-known Turkish translation of Hayyam's Rubaiyat, claimed that 'Samarkand' was found by Turkics and its name originally meant 'fruit of the mountain' or maybe 'fruit of the desert' something like that. It doesn't sound very Turkic to me, but it could be, I am not sure.

The city was founded by Iranic peoples, it was the center of Soghdians for many centuries.

It's name during the Ancient Times was Mârakânda; Kând means "City" in Soghdian (Kent in Modern Turkish), it later became Samârkând.

The Sohgdians were definitially not Turkic (though Mahmûd of Kâshgâr says they were Turkified by the 11th century), they were Eastern Iranic.

The earliest Turkic prescence in Soghdiana was that of Zhizhi Chanyu's Western Xiongnu in the 1st century BC, but this was temporary. The Turkic peoples started migrating and settling there only after the 6th century AD.

We do have examples of writing in the Sogdian language.  It was definitely Eastern Iranian.  A modern descendant of Sogdian is Yaghnabi.

http://iranianlanguages.com/midiranian/sogdian.htm - http://iranianlanguages.com/midiranian/sogdian.htm

It can be said that the city has become Turkified by the change of its name from Marakanda to Semerkand.

It should be noted here that the word kand which means city in Sogdian (and also in western Turkish) can not be seen other Iranic languages and can be explained ethimologically in Turkish easily.

Kenet / to stick, to come together in Turkish which is obviously related with the root of the word "kand".

Semer / fruit, positive outcome of one's struggle (Turkish)

Semiz / Well developed (from the same root) (Turkish) Semirmek (the verb form)

In steppes Sogdians and Turks walked always together. Nomad warriors were securing trade routs and they were ruling the country. Settlers in the cities were trading with them, pay taxes. This is a social structure and it is not related with ethnicity and most of those people were bilingual.

I want to remind you that the Kok Turks (Blue Turks) had written in Sogdian on stones. We understand that they are Turks since these texts were related with politics. But if they were about trade what would you think about them?  

No, the city was mostly Turkified by the 11th century, but not fully even now. Tajik is still used widely in Samarkand today (but not in Bukhara).

Claiming that Kând was Turkic is a funny theory. Kand is Soghdian and not Turkic. Besides, the Turks already had a word for "city": Balïq (coming from "Balchïq" meaning "Mud").

Look, trying to find a Turkic ethymology for Samarkand is useless and illogical, that name doesn't have anything to do with Turkic words like Semiz or Semer/Semir, the city was already there with that name before the Turkic peoples came there. Samarkand isn't Turkic and it definitially doesn't mean "Well Developed, Closely Packed", Samarkand is evolved from Mârakânda, an Iranic name.

I didn't get you, what do you mean?

Kand is the Sogdian form of a Turkish name which clearly comes from the root "KEN". KENETLENMEK means to stick, to come together, KENE is small insect which stick to skin, KENDI means himself (very interesting indeed). They were all Turkish words and we still use KENT in Turkish as the city.

Baliq means city in eastern Turkish but it seems like it is different in western Turkish. I hope you can find the relation between to come together and city as in the case of mud and city.

If you are not convinced about my explaination about SEMIRMEK, SEMIZ I cannot do anything but I can understand you that you are giving more importance to "other sources". But for me it is so obvious that I am not even trying for further explanations that I can find more about this issue. Would you please explain me how do you evolve the word MARACANDA to SAMARKAND? 

Anyway SHEHIR means city in Persian. But the words such as knot or gandu-ganda in Sanskrit or cnodus, nodus in Latin have the same meaning with Turkish KENET. I think this may be a result of Tocharian influence. If it is assumed Yuechis as Tocharians I want to remind you that even the legend of Oghuz Kagan is related with a very similar Yuechi legend and very interestingly with Romus and Romulus of Etruscans' legend too.

I also want to remind you that famous Turkish name of the tribe Ashina which is the founder of Blue Turks means BLUE in Tocharian. 

I was talking about Bugut monuments and many more.

You can read some of them from those links:

http://www.orientarch.uni-halle.de/ca/afras/text/novervie.htm - http://www.orientarch.uni-halle.de/ca/afras/text/novervie.ht m

http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/Articles/osawa.html - http://www.transoxiana.org/Eran/Articles/osawa.html

http://www.transoxiana.com.ar/Eran/Articles/alyilmaz.html - http://www.transoxiana.com.ar/Eran/Articles/alyilmaz.html

Quote:  IHSAN WROTE

Claiming that Kând was Turkic is a funny theory. Kand is Soghdian and not Turkic. Besides, the Turks already had a word for "city": Balïq (coming from "Balchïq" meaning "Mud").

doesn't kand mean little village,  I am not sure if it means city Ihsan ,

BTW, are you sure that Baliq comes from the word balchiq meaning mud,  where did you read this, are there any source which confirms your estate ,

You still haven't shown us a clear evidence that shows that Kand in Turkic. What is the earliest useage of Kend in Turkic? Since when the Soghdians been using the word Kand? Clearly much before the Turkic peoples made close contacts with Soghdiana.

Which "other sources"?

During the time of Alexandros III, the city's name was Mârakânda, it later evolved into Samârkând. Sorry, this is all I know, I'm not a linguist.

It's Yuezhi (Yüecı.

Uhm, which legend is this? Please inform us more.

Ah, I see now

It means "City" in Soghdian.

I read it in multiple places, the one I can remember now is İbrahim Kafesoğlu's Türk Millî Kültürü.

But it's logical since the earliest known Turkic settlements were built with mud bricks.

How did you come to this conclusion? Any sources? The only thing we know for sure is that Samarkand was called Marakanda by greeks and romans. No more no less. First time it was mentioned in 329 B.C. We can't say for sure that the real name was Marakanda.
The affirmation that the name Marakanda somehow later evolved  into Samarkand is purely fictional. I think it's time to call Steven Spielberg and offer him a script for a new movie "Marakanda". I hope it will make more money than "Troy".

There's a controversy surrounding the actual name. So, nobody has a definite answer.

What do we have to speculate about the name Samarkand? From where the name originated?

1. from sanscrit word Samarya meaning meeting and gathering
2. from  soghdian Smarkans.   There's a notion that Marakanda is a corrupted greek version of Smarkans.
3. from turkic SemizKent

As far as I know only turkic version was substantiated by ancient historians. In 11th century Al Biruni and Mahmud Al Kashgari derived name Samarkand from turkic SemizKent.
Hopefully Al Biruni and Mahmud Al Kashgari were not illogical and useless. Perhaps they knew where political winds would blow in the 20th century and decided to turkify the name Samarkand ahead of time (900 years ahead) purely for personal enjoyment of future Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.  May be they had a time machine as in the movie "Back to the future"!

Probably we'll never know for sure what really the name Samarkand means.

Let me make another set of educated guesses (hypotheses).

The name Samarkand comes from:

1. Sumer + Kent.  Sumerians rule! I wonder if they had SumerBank and Yapi-Kredi Bankasi in Samarkand back then! I hope if they had those banks, samarkandians could use Visa and Mastercard in their supermarkets (bazaars)!

2. Samar + Kent. In Urdu/Panjabi word Samar means Fruit. So, Samarkand means City of Fruits. Is that where the devil offered an apple to Eve!?

3. Samaria + Kent. Solomon's People of Northern Kingdom established Samarkand, the new capital of Israel in their struggle against jewish kingdom of Judah. Now I know where all Good Samaritans fled!!

4. Sama + Kant.  In my native kyrgyz language (turkic), Sama means a Strong Desire and Kant means Sugar or City! In Northern Kyrgyzstan there's a town called Kant.
So, in kyrgyz Samarkand is a City of Desire or Sugar of Desire!

Please let me know what version do you like the most!!

What else can I add?  Oh Yeah, Aksak Temir/Amir Temur/Temirlang was the most famous ruler of Samarkand. He was a turkic leader with mongolian ancestry. His mongolian tribe Burlas settled around Samarkand after Ghengiz Khan's conquest of Central Asia.
I hope there's no need to mention who was Ulugbek....

Oh, well... I read about many leaders whom you can call "evil bastards  from the depths of hell itself".... You know Amir Temur is a national hero in Uzbekistan. Undoubtedly he was a great leader of his time.

I didn't really get your point. What's that? The Hauge War Tribunal of atrocities against humanity? Forget about Cyrus the Great! Why don't we compare Temirlang to Mahatma Gandhi, "a true hero and a man"? 

Temirlang was a great leader of his time. He was a lover of science and architecture. Samarkand under his rule boomed. His grandson Ulugbek was a great astronomer, and one of his decendants Babur founded Empire of Mughals. The Icon of India, Taj-Mahal was build by Akbar, in turn decendant of Babur.

So you never heard of Pasgrade? Cyrus Cylinder? Your full of it. Your "hero" is hated by the world. Get over it. Outside Turks, no one respects Timer the Damned except for his military prowress.

Have you heard of Shapur the Great? He built Nishapur, a city were astronomy strived, sciences blossomed and poetry bloomed. Your point is nothing. And I know Smarkand is not the city of "Timur" despite your thinking of it, or some crazy Turk belief. The city was most likely founded and built by Iranians.

 I don't understand you. What Shapur The Great and his Nishapur have to do with the discussion about Samarkand and Temirlang? Are you trying to diminish Temirlang's achievements ? I can tell you only one thing: cultures do not diminish each other. Just because Shapur the Great built Nishapur doesn't mean that Temirlang's legacy is inferior or insignificant. There is no logic behind your provokative statements.

Science, arts, poetry, architecture flourished under Temirlang. And by the way, much of what is today considered historical Samarkand was built by Temirlang. So it's Timurlang's city. This is not "some crazy Turk belief'. That's the fact.

 Please, explain me what do you mean by "Get over It!"? Most of the world does not hate him. He's just one of the great historical leaders of Central Asia. That's all.

Also please quit negatively comparing Turks and Iranians. Think of humanity as a whole. I got a feeling that you are trying to subtly convey a message that Turks are bad/savage and Iranians are good. In no way Turks are inferior or superior to any other culture on the earth. Turks have  rich and proud heritage, just like Iranians, Arabs, Jews and others do.

P.S. Read the thread "A masterpiece of Timurid architecture was unearthed in Khorasan!" in Islamic World category of this forum:
http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=257%20&PN=1 - http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=257%20&a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;PN=1
Temirlang's legacy is evident even in Iran. You'll see a lot of pictures proving it.

Dari please stop, you are ridiculous. Your posts demonstrate that you are uncultivated about the subject. You have to learn about Timur and not simply repeat false informations. What you think are stupidities!

Timur was a great ruler, one of the best of History. He improved economy, thanks to him his empire was the most wealthy of the world. He hated poverty and helped the poor people. He was a sensitive man and he saved many people defeated. He protected and improved Art and Science.  

All the stories which tell Timur was a mad killer are falses or very very exaggerated. At that time, all the rulers killed, even Cyrus. You have named Shapur. But Shapur killed many people too.

So, please, I recommend you to learn about Timur (with real books, with true facts). After that, you'll be able to speak about him. 

Oh yes. Such a great man, who has no right to be despised by us, pathetically incompetent and uncultured Iranians.[/sarcasm]. His name is a curse in my eyes, my family and everyone I know, no jest, in Iran, hates him. You clearly know nothing about Shapur.

Your family and everyone you know hates him, therefore you hate him. What a logical!

Many Iranian exaggerated and deformed the facts. They were not objective and it is comprehensible because they were defeated by a stanger.

The timourides sources also must be taken with measurement because they were also exaggerated with an aim of frightening the populations (like that, they capitulated without fighting (thus less deaths (Timur did not kill the populations which capitulated))).

Don't worry, I know Shapur. And if you think that he has never killed, you have to seriously learn History instead of listening to not-historians stupidly.

Shapur was a great ruler, like Timur.

Timur's Turkic name would be Temür or Teymür.

Anyway, Timur was great in some aspects, but he was also a blood thirsty barbarian. For example, he massacred the entire population of Isfahan because his small garrison at the city was killed; he executed 30,000 war captives in India; he built two tall towers made from the skulls of massacred Turkomans in Syria; he destroyed many Anatolian cities; burnt the entire Ottoman archive, etc etc... At the siege of Sivas, he promised that no one's blood should be spilled if the Ottoman garrison surrendered to him. When the garrison surrendered, he burried them alive.

His campaigns against the Ottomans caused that state to fall into an 11 year lasting civil war and his Golden Horde campaigns later helped Russians to gain strength and create a huge Russian Empire.

The only good things he did was to re-built Samarkand (yes, the modern city of Samarkand was founded or at least re-built by him - the ancient Iranian town was destroyed by the Mongols and it's still in ruins) and improve arts, trade and agriculture.

Slaughters of Timur were extremely exaggerated.  Often the sources are not objective and deform reality.

No, that's wrong. In Isfahan, Timur saved the women and the children. And much of men fled the city before the arrival of Timur.  Moreover he also saved the scientists, the artists and the intellectuals.  And as you said, Timur killed because the Isfahanis killed 3000 timurids.

Timur killed to frighten the population and to force the next ones to capitulate without fighting (thus that saved lives).

Timur was not like Gengis Khan. Gengis Khan was worse because he wanted to destroy the agricultural and urban life.  The Moslem historians estimated the massacres of gengis khan:  Merv 700 000 dead at least, Herat 1 600 000, Djuvaini 2 400 000!

And they are highly exaggarated too. Chinggis Kha'an was a state creater, an empire builder who relied on strong laws, Timur built an empire only on looting and pillaging.

Anyway, Timur wasn't an angel like you describe.

How do you come to this kind of conclusion? In kyrgyz language, iron is TEMIR. In siberian tuvan language, it's DEMIR. There are names like Temir, Temir Ali and Demir among eastern turks including kyrgyz people. Don't forget about Suleyman Demirel in Turkey. So, Temirlang is a turkic name from the very beginning!

What is your definition of word "barbarian"? 

Longman Dictionary:
Barbarian - someone from a different tribe or land who people believe to be wild not civilized

Webster's New Complete Thesaurus:
Barbarian - relating to, or charasteristic of people that are not fully civilized. E.g. The barbarian tribes that sacked Rome

Dal's Russian Dictionary:
Barbarian - vandal, uncivilized, uneducated, wild ...

Oxford Spanish Dictionary;
Barbaric - primitivo, brutal

How word barbarian came to use?
Ancient Greeks called everybody who wasn't greek a "barbaroi". Later Romans called everybody who wasn't roman or greek a "barbari". Basicly this word meant a foreigner, often with the meaning asian for ancient Greeks and Romans.
So, Persians were barbarians for Greeks; Germanic tribes were barbarian for Romans. Interestingly, word Persian is a greek corruption of word Farsi/Parsi.
The word Barbarian passed to other languages around the world with the meaning uncultured, uncivilized and brutal.

To summarize, Temirlang wasn't barbarian for sure!! He was brutal, but not uncivilized. Otherwise Christian Crusaders should be called barbarians after mass killings in Kudus (Jerusalem) as well as Napoleon who killed turks in thousands in Egypt, and european settlers in Northern America who killed native american indians like animals, sometimes for reward. Remember righteous mormons who offered $50 per killed indian from devoted christians in Utah? Why nobody calls them barbarians?

In addition, if Temirlang would've been a barbarian, he'd never left such a rich scientific and archiological legacy to mention a few.

Selective labeling is extremely unfare. So let's quit calling names Temirlang!!

Yes probably, because there too the sources are not objective.

However, it is proven that Gengis Khan made more deaths than Timur.

Timur too.

Not only.

That is funny what you wrote because after his death many people called him "the inhabitant of the paradise".

Samarkand is not in ruins. That's a plain lie. It's one of the main cities of Uzbekistan. Modern Samarkand was built/developed by modern central asians and russians/soviets. What was built by Temirlang is considered ancient historical Samarkand, the capital Temirlang's Empire.

Talk about destruction!! Alexander The Great almost erased Samarkand and brutally killed its population. Samarkand was literally empty after his occupation. Only in the northern part of Samarkand called Afrasiab samarkandians survived.
So who were Greeks and Alexander The Great? Barbarians? Does it make them any different from Mongols and Genghiz Khan?

I never heard that Samarkand was the ancient Iranian town. Your statement is simply untrue.

Archeologists discovered ancient settlements in Samarkand dating back 40-12 thousand years; Neolitic period - 4000-3000 B.C.; and finally Bronze period - 1500 B.C.

Nothing indicates that Samarkand was the Iranian city. Apparently, by the time Iranians first appeared in the area, Samarkand already existed.

So when Samarkand was founded? Answer: Unknown.
Who founded Samarkand? Answer: Unknown

Iranians and Samarkand:

First mentioning of Iranians in Samarkand dates back 5th century B.C. during Persian King Kir the Second's conquest of Central Asia. He brought Iranians to Samarkand. The second wave of Iranians arrived to Samarkand in 9th century under Mahmud Gaznevi. Third wave took place in 17th century under Shah Abbas.

In 10th century Arabs were forced out of Samarkand by Soghdians. The bloody fight resulted in almost complete killing of all male population of Samarkand. Arabian general Nasr Ibn Seyar fled  to Iran and after recruiting Persian soldiers returned back. Later he forced Iranian soldiers to marry soghdian women.

But the largest group of Iranians was brought to Samarkand from Mevr by Emir Murad Shah in 1740. 
Unfortunately in that time Samarkand suffered from cholera disease. Half of population died. To fill the void people were brought from other places. That's how Iraqi warriors of Bayram Ali Khan ended up in Samarkand.

Most of Samarkand's Iranians were  Azeri Turks. They spoke turkic language from the very beginning. That's why today decendants of iranians in Samarkand use uzbek language (turkic), not persian as in Bukhara.

Also unlike Bukharians, Iranians of Samarkand are shiite muslims. It's very rare to see shiites among Central Asians. Even Tajiks in Tajikistan, the only persian speaking country in Central Asia, are sunni.

So,  the word "Iranian" means Turk in Samarkand. I find it very funny!!

As far as for Soghdians, their language is not intelligible to people speaking Farsi/Dari/Tajiki. Nevertheless, Soghdian language belongs to eastern branch of iranian languages.

Stop talking nonsense and derived by one-sided sources. You have to be respectful to every other national hero. If you talk about massacre in Isfahan as an act of an idiot barbar that cannot be seen in civilized societies I remind you Dresden bombing in II WW, atomic bombs in Japanese cities........etc. War is war. You cannot measure the civilization level by only looking at this.

An Iranian city !! Sorry but you are misguided but you consider youself as a guru of Turkish history. (Turk universitelerinin acinacak durumu!!) Just to reply a few questions.

1) When did Mongols destroyed the city? A: In early 1200s.

(Turks were already even in Anatolia at least starting from 1071 and established there Anatolian Seljuk state until Mongol conquest)

2) Against whom did Mongols fight in Transoxiana? A: Khwarizmshahs. Were they Turkic? A: YES.

3) What were the other Turkic states found in the area and around it? A: You can answer it I guess.

4) Timur did not give too much harm to the Anatolian city. Since he was allied with great majority of Turkish tribes in Anatolia against Ottoman Turks.

5) Ottoman garrison in Sivas did not surrendered and refused it when Timur offered it. They fought until the end and they surrendered when the situation become hopeless. But they have been killed. Timur was right to do this.

Absolutely right. Timur arrived at Sivas on August 10, 1400, and the city, of approximately 120 000 inhabitants, resisted until August 26.

Timur killed 4000 men (they was Christians whom the inhabitants of Sivas gave him) and I agree with you Alparslan, timur was right to do that. Because the aim was to frighten the population and to force the next cities to surrender without fighting (thus that saved lives).

Moreover, the city knew their fate.  Timur never used to pillage and he never used to kill if a city paid (it was like a tax) without fighting. He preferred the taxes rather than plunderings. He did not take pleasure to kill people and he hated when his soldiers related to him the kills.

Aha! Assaults on me on many fronts! All right, I shall face all of you on my own

What's bane?

It's more likely that it might have been Temür or Teymür.

Vandal, Wild and Brutal are perfect words to describe Timur.

I would consider him a bloodsplitting vandalic barbarian of one of the worst types anyway. Just my two cents

I would consider them barbarians too.

Yeah, what about Iran? Turkey? The Qypchaq Steppes?

First, you should quit defending such a brutal butcherer.

Why are you guys trying to defend that guy so much? Because he was Turkic? Oh c'mon, Turkics ain't angels all throughout their history and this guy wasn't for sure (just remember those Turkomans he massacred in Syria, they were Turkic too).

Yes, I know. He was more barbaric (in the meaning of blood-splitting butcherer) than Timur.

Not only.

Yes, only on that. That's why his state broke up immediately after his death, whereas Chinggis Kha'an's state didn't for several decades.

Hey, who are you btw? Do I know you? Were you a member of the old AE?

That is funny what you wrote because after his death many people called him "the inhabitant of the paradise".

If I was a resident of Samarkand, I would have called him like that. But remember the people who lived in India, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Qypchaqia.

AFAIK modern Samarkand and Timur's Samarkand are located inside each other whereas the Ancient Samarkand (the one before Mongol destruction) lies outside the city, in ruins. That's what I saw in one of TRT's documents.

We're talking about Timur here, not Alexandros III of Macedon. But anyway, Alexandros was a brutal killer too, you ever heard of what he did to Tyre? Or the Greek cities that didn't surrender to him?

I never heard that Samarkand was the ancient Iranian town. Your statement is simply untrue. Archeologists discovered ancient settlements in Samarkand dating back 40-12 thousand years; Neolitic period - 4000-3000 B.C.; and finally Bronze period - 1500 B.C. Nothing indicates that Samarkand was the Iranian city. Apparently, by the time Iranians first appeared in the area, Samarkand already existed.

You all seem to be reading my words with your organs that you use to sit on, that's why you all get me wrong (and it pissess me very much when people don't understand what I say).

The Samarkand which Chinggis Kha'an destroyed was Eastern Iranic (or more correctly, Turkified Iranic, by the 11th century), Soghdians still lived there. Of course Iranics didn't exist in the region since the beginning of history, AFAIK they appeared in history during the 2nd millenium BC.

Oh, you got me totally wrong!!   The "Iranians" (more correctly "Iranics") I'm talking about are the Eastern Iranic Soghdians. Now, don't tell me that they were Turkic because they weren't for sure

Tajiks? Persian-speaking? I thought they spoke a different Iranic language

Nonsense? Me? It's you and all the nationalists (Iranians, Turkics and others) who speak nonsense all the time. Thanks God I'm not.

Ah, you are like those Turkish nationalists who think I use one-sided "Western" sources, you also think that I'm one of those Western-licker communist neo-liberal masonic jewish-convert traitors. Poor you    

(it's your fault [or incapability] to realise that I'm not supporting a side - a historian can't and shouldn't support any sides, did you know that, nationalist?)

Ok, corrected that, Iranic. Samarkand was Iranic for centuries before being Turkified.

By whom? How? I'm sure you're more...

No, I didn't and never would consider myself a guru of Turkish history, when did I?! Yalancı!!!  

WTF?

The Soghdians, even if Turkified up to a point, were still living in Samarkand before the Mongols came. The Soghdians were Eastern Iranic, did you know that? And by the 11th century, they were bilingual (speaking both Iranic Soghdian and Turkic).

The last Khârezm-Shâh dynasty that grew into a large empire was Turkoman, yes; but it's subjects were made up of many ethnic groups. Just like the Ottomans. Now, don't tell me that only Turks lived in the Ottoman Empire!

Of course Turkic states were founded in the region, this doesn't mean that Soghdiana's entire inhabitors living under Turkic rule before the 13th century were all Turkic. There were Turkic and Iranic inhabitors living in the region. Starting from the late 6th century AD, the Soghdians and Turkics, with the Soghdians being the majority before the Mongol Destruction, lived in the cities whereas the Turkics became the majority outside urban places after that date.

You don't seem to have the capability to think that different peoples lived togteher at the same place at the same time. You're too narrow-minded.

Then please explain me the sacking and looting of Bursa. I'm also waiting from you an explanation of the lack of archive documents of the Ottoman State before Timur's Invasion.

Ok. But he still sacked and looted Bursa which didn't resist (AFAIK).

He did take pleasure from killing people - I've given you a short list of some of his massacres (which incluedes Turks).

Bah, you nationalists would never give up your biased views, would you?

Wild: On the contrary. He was not like Gengis Khan. Timur was very civilized and lived in an unimaginable luxury. He liked painting, architecture, sciences, literature, History...

Brutal: Sometimes, he had to be brutal.

The best words which describe Timur are Intelligent, Sensible, Fair and Trustworthy.

No. It's because his successors were unable.

Yes, and many kings felicited him, including King of France and King of England. But for Bursa, some Historians think that the responsable was his grandson...

Absolutly not. He didn't. His soldiers maybe, but Timur killed with methodology and reason.

And Timur didn't kill more than the other rulers. And maybe less than the others, because the people (with propaganda of terror) were afraid of him and surrendered without fighting.

"Yes, only on that. That's why his state broke up immediately after his death, whereas Chinggis Kha'an's state didn't for several decades."

Timur's state didn't break up after his death, his successor was Shah Ruk, although its true that his empire became smaller in that many parts of his conquest declared their independence.

Hmm... So it's time I should mention about his systhematic destruction of Classical statues which he called idols of infidels.

Sometimes? Let's say most of the time.

Definitially not!

Yes, this shows his brutality

Timur did kill more tham many others.

Ihsan wrote:The "Iranians" (more correctly "Iranics") I'm talking about are the Eastern Iranic Soghdians.

I belive you mean various Saka tribes dwelled in Central Asia before Turkic conquest. Digs showed that the antropological type of these people hadn't changed for ages. Seems that following waves of steppe invadors like Kushans, Chionites [and the domination of the Hephtalites] were not accompanied with the migration of the whole tribes.

Bear with me, I'm too lazy to go back and quote people here.

Samarkand was called by the Greeks during Alexander's time Marakanda, there is no doubt about this.  The Greeks basically always attempted to produce foreign names accurately when giving names to places.  Marakanda is the name that appears in the Greek texts and there's no reason to doubt its relative validity; it's not even remotely Greek sounding.  I honestly cannot see how some of you can see more similarity between SemizKent and Samarkand than Marakanda and Samarkand.  In addition, the Greeks reported Soghdians in the area (Alexander's generals had difficulty dealing with them and Bessos without Alexander helping), not Turks.  The Sakae were the Scyths, the Scythian language, IIRC, is related to the Persian language.

The Greeks didn't consider non-Greeks to be barbarians, but non-Greek speakers.  The word "barbaros" came about because all foreign languages sounded like to Greeks was "barbarbarbarbar."  The Romans adopted this word.  They, however, took an interesting turn with it.  A "barbarus" could be merely a foreigner or stranger or uncivilized.  Romans considered peoples that sported beards barbarians, which is where the Roman word for beard:  barba.  Ultimately, the English word "barber" is derived from barbarian

The Greeks considered the Persians to be descendents of Perseus, hence the corruption of Parsi/Farsi.

Marakanda. The etnonym Mar and its variants appear in some tribes: Medes called Mar in Armenian sources, Mauryas in India, Merw called Maura, Amyrgians, Moor and Moravians in Europe. Perhaps one of 5 Kangju tribes gave this name to Marakanda? The Saka Amyrgians were the closest.

It's interesting that one of the Kangju tribes - Juni, sounds close to Xion - Chionites while we know that the Chionites forced Sogd from the North much later?