Wilhelm Schott (1802-1889), a Berlin sinologist who also worked on Turkic, Mongolian and Finnish, never travelled in Inner Asia. In this 1849 treatise for the Berlin Academy he compares published grammars and word lists, plus word samples preserved in Chinese histories and encyclopedias, to argue that Tungusic (with Manchu), Mongolian, Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages share one origin around the Altai, a group he calls the Altaic or Finno-Tatar family. Most pages are root-by-root word comparisons. The introduction and addenda say who the 'Tatars' were, what Chinese records tell of the Hiung-nu, Topa and Tu-kiu, and offer remarks on shamanism and poetry. This is the Bavarian State Library copy of the first edition.
How they knew
Compiled from others
Who “Tartar” means here
For Schott 'Tatar' is a language-family label covering the Tungusic (including Manchu), Mongolian and Turkic peoples, which he stretches to include the Finns as 'Finno-Tatar'. He admits the name had been misused and tolerates it only in this sense.
Why read it
It captures the moment the old catch-all 'Tartar' was turned into a scientific language family, the ancestor of the 'Altaic' idea, and it passes on small gems from Chinese sources, such as the Turks starting out as ironsmiths for another steppe people.
Watch out
Many of Schott's word matches (he even notes parallels with Coptic) would not be accepted today, and his remarks on 'raw shamanism' and on the Lapps are value judgments, not observations. The OCR is badly garbled wherever Arabic, Chinese or Coptic script appears.
Editorial contextSchott explains the word ordu, the source of European 'horde': in Mongolian and Turkish it first meant an army camp and then, above all, the khan's court camp, and in a footnote he adds that the Mongols also used it for a palace. He derives it from a root meaning a circle, so that an ordu is literally a ring of tents. At the foot of the page he starts on another root, kor, 'to build', which gives kurghan (kurgan), and on the next page he says the word meant a building in general and then a grave monument.
The first-named word [ordu] means in Mongolian and Turkish an army camp, then in particular a court camp. Just as the Mongolian kür-dü, a circular thing, a wheel, comes from kür (which has also produced kürijen and küren [see above]), so or-du is a circle of tents, from the stronger root or, which lacks the initial consonant.
Working translation
Original wording
Erstgenanntes Wort bedeutet im Mongolischen und Türkischen Heerlager, dann insonderheit Hoflager. Wie nun das mongolische kür-dü kreisförmiges Ding, Rad, von kür (das auch kürijen und küren [s. oben] erzeugt hat), so or-du ein Zeltenkreis, von der stärkeren, aber des consonantischen Anlauts entbehrenden Wurzel or.
Shamanism that Islam and Lamaism never fully uprooted
Editorial contextSchott says conjuring the dark powers by magic is found among all the peoples of his Finno-Tatar family, and that neither Lamaist Buddhism nor Islam had everywhere managed to push it out. In North Asia, he writes, it stayed 'raw shamanism', while among the Finns of Finland the same magic songs grew into poetry and the Kalevala-style epics. It is a sweeping comparison from books rather than fieldwork, but it records how European scholars saw shamanism as the shared old religion under the later faiths.
[such conjurations of the dark powers] we do find among all the peoples of the Finno-Tatar family … Lamaism and even the religion of Muhammad have not everywhere countered them with success … but what in North Asia remained raw shamanism, and among the degraded Finnish tribes of the polar lands still deserves no other name, was transfigured among the Suomalaiset of Finland into true poetry
Working translation
Original wording
finden wir zwar bei allen Völkern des finnisch-tatarischen Geschlechtes … der Lamaismus und selbst die Religion Muhammeds hat ihnen nicht allerwärts mit Erfolg entgegengewirkt … was aber in Nordasien rohes Schamanenthum blieb und noch jetzt bei den verwilderten Finnenstämmen der Polarländer keinen anderen Namen verdient, das verklärte sich bei den Suomalaiset Finnlands zu wahrer Poesie
Editorial contextSchott opens by placing the homeland of his language family on the Altai and naming four peoples who spread out from it: Tunguses, Mongols, Turks and Chudes or Finns. In this footnote he admits that the name 'Tatars' has been misused in Asia and even more in Europe, but says it can be tolerated as long as it means only the Tungusic, Mongolian and Turkic peoples, whose common descent he thinks their languages prove. He refers readers to his separate essay on the oldest Chinese reports of Mongols and Tatars, which he dates to Berlin 1847.
The misuse that has been made of the name Tatars in Asia, and still more in Europe, is well known; but it deserves at least toleration so long as we mean by it only the three peoples mentioned, whose common descent a deeper study of their languages leaves in no doubt.
Working translation
Original wording
Bekannt ist der Missbrauch, den man in Asien, und noch mehr in Europa, mit dem Namen Tataren getrieben hat; er verdient aber wenigstens Duldung, so lange wir dabei nur an die erwähnten drei Völker denken, über deren gemeinsame Abstammung tiefere Erforschung ihrer Sprachen keinen Zweifel lässt.
Editorial contextIn his addenda Schott explains a note from the Chinese encyclopedias Hoan-jü-ki and Ma Tuan-lin: the chief Tu-lun of the S'en-sen took the title K'o-han (khagan, 'khan') in the time of T'ai-wu-ti (reigned 424 to 451), emperor of the Wei dynasty under which the 'Tatar people Topa' ruled northern China, and the Tu-kiu later followed his example. He adds that the S'en-sen were overthrown by the Tu-kiu, who had first served them as ironsmiths. Schott's point is that the title and these peoples are documented in Chinese records centuries before Chinggis Khan.
Heu-Uei (or Juan-Uei) was the Chinese name under which the Tatar people Topa (Tö-pö) ruled the northern China it had conquered. … The S'en-sen, who according to Chinese history were a tribe of the Hiung-nu, were for a time powerful in eastern Turkistan, and fell to the Tu-kiu, who had at first done forced labour for them (as ironsmiths).
Working translation
Original wording
Heu-Uei (oder Juan-Uei) war der chinesische Name, unter welchem das tatarische Volk Topa (Tö-pö) über das von ihm eroberte nördliche China herrschte. … Die S'en-sen, von denen die chinesische Geschichte sagt, dass sie ein Stamm der Hiung-nu gewesen, waren eine Zeitlang im östlichen Turkistan mächtig, und unterlagen den Tu-kiu, die ihnen anfänglich Frohndienste (als Eisenschmiede) geleistet hatten.
Wilhelm Schott (explaining Chinese sources, the Hoan-jü-ki and Ma Tuan-lin)
About Topa (Tuoba) of northern China, the S'en-sen (Rouran) and the Tu-kiu (early Turks)
Keep in mind
Schott's romanisations are his own (Heu-Uei is the Later or Northern Wei; S'en-sen is usually written Rouran or Juan-juan).
The fine print
How we know
compilation Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly.
compilation and analysis of published vocabularies and grammars of Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic and Finno-Ugric languages
Research notes
Schott's Älteste Nachrichten von Mongolen und Tataren (Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie, 1846) was not located as a separate scan in this pass; see candidates.
Why it matters
Formalizes the Altaic hypothesis that gave the old Tatar label a linguistic definition; useful as the endpoint of the scholarly process visible in Strahlenberg (1730), Schlözer (1771) and Klaproth (1823).