Written source · German

Klaproth's map of the languages of Asia

A German orientalist's 1823 survey that sorted the peoples of Asia by language and argued that the name 'Tatar' had been wrongly stretched over Turks and Manchus.

Full title Asia Polyglotta (Paris 1823; 2nd ed. 1831), with the Sprachatlas: comparative vocabularies and ethnogenealogical classification of the peoples of Asia (Mongols, Tungus, Turks, Samoyeds, Finns, Caucasians, Tibetans and others)

Julius von Klaproth

Read the 4 passages Open the original book

Julius von Klaproth, a Berlin-born orientalist who had travelled on the Siberian-Mongol frontier in 1805 and 1806 and in the Caucasus in 1807 and 1808, published Asia Polyglotta in Paris in 1823. It sorts the peoples of Asia into language families (Turkic, Mongol, Tungus, Samoyed, Finnic and others) with comparative word lists, and adds short histories drawn largely from Chinese sources that he translated himself. For the Tatars it traces the name from Chinese records, through Chinggis Khan's conquests, to the Turkic peoples of Crimea, Kazan and Astrakhan who inherited it. The corpus holds the 1823 first edition in several scans and the 1831 edition with its language atlas.

How they knew: Compiled from others
Who “Tartar” means here: Strictly, the Tatars are for Klaproth a Mongol people, known to the Chinese as Ta-ta; he insists the Turkic 'Tatars' of Kazan, Astrakhan and Crimea were only called so because their khans descended from Chinggis, and that the Manchus were never Tatars.
Why read it: It is the clearest early statement of how 'Tartar' went from a Mongol tribe's name to a label for Turks and even Manchus, and why a scholar in 1823 thought the word should be pulled apart.
Watch out: Klaproth was a brilliant but combative scholar whose Chinese extracts are his own translations and have been criticised; his confident etymologies are his own arguments. The OCR drops the Chinese characters.

What it says: 4 passages

Buildings Akhtuba River and Krasny Yar (Astrakhan region)early 19th century

Nogai 'Kundurov Tatars': felt tents in summer, houses in winter

Editorial contextIn his section on the Nogais, Klaproth traces how the Kalmyks drove them west from the steppe between the Tobol and the Yaik, how Peter the Great moved most of them to the Kuma and Kuban, and he lists their tribes and numbers of tents (5,849 felt tents north of the upper Kuban and Kuma, 4,286 between the Terek and the Kuma). The Kundur tribe, called 'Kundurov Tatars' by the Russians, wandered in felt tents like the Kalmyks along the Akhtuba but spent the winter in houses near Krasny Yar on the Caspian.

The Kundur tribe (called Kundurov Tatars by the Russians) now wanders in felt tents like the Kalmyks along the Akhtuba, an arm of the lower Volga, but lives in winter in houses around Krasny Yar near the Caspian Sea.
Working translation
Original wording
Der Stamm Kundur (von den Russen Kundurowsche Tataren genannt) zieht jetzt in Filzzelten wie die Kalmüken, an der Achtuba, einem Arme der unteren Wolga herum, lebt aber im Winter in Häusern um Krasnojarsk am Kaspischen Meere.

Julius von Klaproth

See the original page (p. 219)

About Nogais of the Kundur tribe ('Kundurov Tatars')

The name Crimea, Kazan and Astrakhan13th to 15th centuries, written 1823

How Turks came to be called Tatars

Editorial contextKlaproth explains the mix-up. When Chinggis Khan's son was sent west, the steppes north of the Caspian and Black Sea were full of Turkic peoples (Cumans, Pechenegs, Bulgars), who became subjects of the Kipchak khanate. Its rulers were Tatars (Mongols) but its people mostly Turks. When the empire broke up into the khanates of Crimea, Kazan and Astrakhan, the khans were still descendants of Chinggis, so the states kept the name 'Tatar' even though their armies and people were Turkic. On the previous page he tells how Chinggis himself got his birth name from a captured chief of the 'White Tatars'.

Its rulers were Tatars, but its subjects mostly Turks. Towards the end of the fifteenth century this empire broke up into several small ones, of which those of Crimea, Kazan and Astrakhan were the most important. Their princes descended from [Chinggis Khan] and were Mongols or Tatars, but their armies no longer were … Nevertheless these khanates kept the name 'Tatar', because the khans were Tatars.
Working translation
Original wording
Seine Herrscher waren Tataren, die Unterthanen aber grösstentheils Türken. Gegen das Ende des XV Jahrhunderts zerfiel dieses Reich in mehrere kleine, unter denen die von der Krym, Kasan und Astrachan die bedeutendsten waren. Die Fürsten derselben stammten von … ab und waren Mongolen oder Tataren, aber ihre Heere waren es nicht mehr … Dennoch behielten diese Chanate den Namen Tatarische bei, weil die Chane Tataren waren.

Julius von Klaproth

See the original page (p. 208)

About Mongol (Tatar) khans ruling Turkic subjects in the Golden Horde and its successor khanates

Keep in mind

Klaproth's own synthesis, argued with some polemic against other scholars.

The name Kazan and Astrakhan1823

'Ask a Kazan Tatar if he is a Tatar'

Editorial contextKlaproth says that if you asked a so-called Tatar of Kazan or Astrakhan whether he was a Tatar, he would say no, and that he called his language Türki or Turuk, not Tatar. Remembering that his forefathers had been conquered by the Mongols or Tatars, he took 'Tatar' as an insult meaning robber. Klaproth concludes that Tatars must not be confused with Turks, rebukes the historian Schlözer for doing so, and adds that Chinese historians never called the Manchus 'Ta-ta', so the missionaries' phrase 'Tartar-Manchu' came only from their habit of calling every Central Asian a Tartar.

Ask, however, a so-called Tatar of Kazan or Astrakhan whether he is a Tatar, and he will answer no; just as he calls his language not Tatari but Türki or Turuk. Remembering that his forefathers were subjugated by the Mongols or Tatars, he considers 'Tatar' a term of abuse, which to him means the same as 'robber'.
Working translation
Original wording
Man frage indessen einen sogenannten Tataren, von Kasan oder Astrachan, ob er ein Tatar sei, so wird er mit nein antworten; wie er denn auch seine Sprache nicht Tatari sondern Türki oder Turuk nennt. Eingedenk dass seine Vorältern von den Mongolen oder Tataren unterjocht worden, hält er Tatar für ein Schimpfwort, welches ihm mit Räuber gleich bedeutend ist.

Julius von Klaproth

See the original page (p. 209)

About Volga Tatars of Kazan and Astrakhan

Keep in mind

A general claim about self-naming in Klaproth's day; other sources show Volga Muslims using several names for themselves.

The name Gobi Desert and Mongolia9th to 17th centuries (sources), written 1823

Ta-ta: the name in Chinese records

Editorial contextKlaproth says the Chinese first met the Tatars at the start of the ninth century and called them Ta-ta, later Ta-t'a-öl, a garbled form of 'Tatar' because Chinese has no R. He quotes the Chinese encyclopedia San-tsai t'u-hui of 1604, which places the Ta-ta in the Gobi as descendants of the 'barbarian Yuan' (the Mongols) and counts the Wa-la (Oirats) among them, and concludes that the Tatars were the present Mongols and Oirats (the Kalmyks of Central Asia).

The Chinese, who came to know the Tatars at the beginning of the ninth century, then called them Ta-ta, and in later times Ta-t'a-öl, which is the corrupted pronunciation of the word Tatar, since the Chinese have no R … One sees clearly from this passage that the [Tatars] were the present Mongols and Oelöts (that is, the Kalmyks of Central Asia).
Working translation
Original wording
Die Chinesen, welche die Tatar zu Anfange des neunten Jahrhunderts kennen lernten, nannten sie damals … Ta-ta, und in späteren Zeiten … Ta-t'a-öl, welches die verdorbene Aussprache des Wortes Tatar ist, indem die Chinesen kein R haben … Man sieht aus dieser Stelle deutlich, dass die … jetzigen Mongolen und Ölöten (d. i. Mittelasiatische Kalmücken) waren.

Julius von Klaproth

See the original page (p. 203)

About The Ta-ta (Tatars) of Chinese sources, whom Klaproth identifies with the Mongols and Oirats

Keep in mind

The Chinese characters are lost in the OCR; Klaproth's translations of Chinese texts were his own.

The fine print

How we know

compilation Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly.

compilation of vocabularies from earlier collectors (Pallas, Strahlenberg, Messerschmidt, Fischer, the 1787 Vocabularia comparativa) and from Klaproth's own fieldwork on the Siberian-Mongol frontier 1805-1806 and in the Caucasus 1807-1808, with historical extracts from Chinese and other Asian sources

Research notes

Vocabularies are second-hand for most languages; Klaproth's Chinese historical extracts are his own translations and have been criticized. Paris imprint by a German author writing in German (eligible as German-language original).

Why it matters

Klaproth's classification replaced the loose Tartar category with linguistically defined Turkic, Mongol and Tungus families and traced the historical Tatars through Chinese sources; a key document for how the term Tartary was dismantled in nineteenth-century scholarship.

Places named

all of Asia: Siberia, Mongolia, Manchuria, Central Asia, Caucasus, Tibet, China

Peoples named

Mongols and the Mongol empire

Western Mongols (Oirat, Dzungar, Kalmyk)

Kalmyks

Indigenous peoples of Siberia and the North Pacific

Jurchen and Manchus (incl. the Qing as a Manchu dynasty)

Manchus

Turkic and Central Asian peoples and states

Named only as Tartars or Tatars

Tartars or Tatars (as named)

Peoples of the Caucasus

Caucasian peoples (general)

Tibetans and Tibetan polities

Tibetans and Tibetan polities

Chinese dynasties and states

Chinese (general)

Mongols; Kalmyks; Buryats; Tungus; Manchus; Turkic peoples (Tatars, Kazakhs, Yakuts, Uighurs); Samoyeds; Finno-Ugrians; Caucasian peoples; Tibetans; Chinese

Keep exploring

The witness before

18th centuryGrosier's General Description of China and TartaryA French abbé's survey of China and 'Chinese Tartary' compiled from Jesuit reports, in the English translation of 1788.Compiled from others · 4 passages

The witness after

1701 to 1708De Bruyn's travels down the Volga to Astrakhan, 1703A Dutch painter's eyewitness account, with drawings made on the spot, of the Tatars and Kalmyks of the Volga and Astrakhan in 1703 and 1707.Part eyewitness · 13 passages

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