A Paris professor of Chinese defines the 'Tartar' peoples by their languages (Manchu, Mongol, Uighur-Turkic, Tibetan) and reviews what Chinese and European writers said about them, 1820.
Full title Researches on the Tartar languages, or Memoirs on various points of the grammar and literature of the Manchus, Mongols, Uighurs and Tibetans, vol. 1 (only volume published)
Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, first professor of Chinese at the Collège de France, published this first (and only) volume of research on the grammar and literature of the Manchus, Mongols, Uighurs and Tibetans in 1820. He never travelled; he worked from Chinese books, Jesuit manuscripts and printed grammars in Paris. His opening chapter asks who the 'Tartars' are and where the name came from, and he surveys Chinese descriptions of northern peoples and the Turkic peoples of Siberia. The corpus has four Google scans of the 1820 Imprimerie royale edition (T0660 to T0663) and his 1832 review of Schmidt's Mongol chronicle (T0664).
How they knew
Compiled from others
Who “Tartar” means here
For Rémusat 'Tartares' is a vulgar, collective European label for the peoples of high Asia, borrowed from the name of one tribe, the Tatars; he sorts them into four 'Tartar races' by language (Manchu-Tungus, Mongol, Turkic, Tibetan).
Why read it
The moment the word 'Tartar' was turned from a map label into a scholarly category, by a scholar who also cleared away older fanciful etymologies.
Watch out
A philologist's book, heavy on grammar; the ethnographic passages are Chinese texts in his translation, and his 'races' reflect early nineteenth-century classification. Google OCR lacks page mapping, so printed pages are read off the scans.
A Chinese portrait of the Tatars: wool tents, hot stones, tree burials
Editorial contextRémusat translates a Chinese geography, the Kouang-iu-ki, on the Tha-tche (Tatars): they follow rivers and pastures with their herds, dress in hides, make tents of coarse wool, cure illness by burning the sick part with a heated stone, sing and dance at funerals, and some place the corpse in a tree and burn the bones three years later. Rémusat judges such Chinese portraits 'not lacking in accuracy and fidelity'.
The Tha-tche follow the rivers and the places rich in pasture … They make their tents of coarse woollen cloth. … When they are ill, they heat a stone and burn themselves (on the sick part). At funerals they accompany the dead singing and dancing. Some place the corpse in a tree, and three years later they gather the bones and burn them.
Working translation
Original wording
Les Tha-tche suivent les rivières et les lieux fertiles en pâturages … Ils font leurs tentes avec de grosses étoffes de laine. … Lorsqu'ils sont malades, ils font chauffer une pierre, et se brûlent eux-mêmes (la partie malade). Aux funérailles, ils accompagnent le mort en chantant et en dansant. Quelques-uns placent le cadavre sur un arbre, et, trois ans après, ils recueillent les os et les brûlent.
The Chinese geography Kouang-iu-ki, translated by Abel-Rémusat
'Tartar' is a European blanket name borrowed from one tribe
Editorial contextRémusat opens by defining his subject. The peoples between India, China and Persia, the Sea of Japan, the Caspian and the Arctic are known by the 'vulgar and collective' name of Tartars, a word unknown to many of the peoples it is applied to. It seems to be a corruption of Tatar, the name of one tribe so powerful and famous that it was stretched to cover the others when all of Tartary united under Chinggis Khan's house.
are known by the vulgar and collective name of Tartars. This name, entirely unknown to several of the nations to which Europeans apply it, seems to be an alteration of Tatar, the particular name of a tribe which, by its power and fame, earned the extension of its name to the others.
Working translation
Original wording
sont connus sous le nom vulgaire et collectif de Tartares. Cette dénomination, entièrement inconnue à plusieurs des nations auxquelles les Européens l'appliquent, paroît être une altération de Tatar, nom particulier d'une tribu qui, par sa puissance et sa célébrité, a mérité qu'on l'étendît aux autres.
Editorial contextRémusat reviews earlier guesses about the name Tatar and dismisses them. Bergeron's river Tartar (taken from Matthew Paris) is 'entirely imaginary' in the light of better geography; his Syriac 'abandoned' and lost-tribes theory is 'more untenable still'; Fischer's claim that the Chinese called all neighbours Ta-ta is false; and Muslim writers' ancestor 'Tatar, brother of Mongol' is a genealogical invention modelled on the Bible.
Bergeron proposes, after Matthew Paris, the name of a river Tartar or Tatar, on whose banks the tribe in question lived; but more exact knowledge of the geography of these regions allows us to regard the river Tartar as entirely imaginary.
Working translation
Original wording
Bergeron propose, d'après Matt. Paris, le nom d'une rivière Tartar ou Tatar, sur les bords de laquelle habitoit la tribu en question; mais des notions plus exactes acquises sur la géographie de ces contrées, permettent de regarder la rivière Tartar comme entièrement imaginaire.
Russian labels: the Tatars of Tobolsk, Tomsk, the Ob and Krasnoyarsk
Editorial contextRémusat explains the Siberian 'Tatars': southern Siberia is full of Turkic nations, partly descended from armies the Mongols brought in the thirteenth century and partly older inhabitants. The Russians who conquered them in the late sixteenth century call most of them simply Tatars, adding the name of the town or district where they live: Tatars of Tobolsk, of Tom, of the Ob, of Krasnoyarsk.
The Russians, who subdued them at the end of the sixteenth century, call most of them by the common name of Tatars, to which they add the name of the town or district where they find them settled. Thus they distinguish the Tatars of Tobolsk, of the Tom, of the Ob, of Krasnoyarsk, those of the Chulym
Working translation
Original wording
Les Russes qui les ont soumis à la fin du xvi.e siècle, les désignent, pour la plupart, par le nom commun de Tatars, auquel ils ajoutent celui de la ville ou du canton où ils les trouvent fixés. C'est ainsi qu'ils distinguent les Tatars de Tobolsk, de Tom, de l'Obi, de Krasnoyar, ceux du Tchoulim
About Turkic peoples of southern Siberia ('Tatars')
The fine print
How we know
compilation Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly.
compilation of earlier sources and scholarly analysis: Remusat worked from Paris manuscripts and printed grammars, never travelled; defines "langues tartares" as Manchu, Mongol, Uighur and Tibetan and discusses the ethnonym Tartar
Research notes
Relies on Jesuit manuscripts (Amiot, Gerbillon) and on Klaproth; Remusat and Klaproth disputed priority on several points.
Remusat also published Observations sur l'Histoire des Mongols orientaux de Sanang-Setsen (1832, IA observationssurl0000rmus, 102 images): a French review of Schmidt's German edition of the Mongolian chronicle; recorded here as companion rather than separate record.
Why it matters
The book that gave "Tartar" its early nineteenth-century philological definition (a language family of Manchu, Mongol, Uighur-Turkic, with Tibetan) and reviewed every prior European statement about Tartar writing; essential for tracing how the word narrowed from geography to linguistics.