The Peoples of the Steppe Frontier in Early Chinese Sources

• Main Author: Edwin G. Pulleyblank
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies 1999-06-01
• Series: Migracijske i Etniĉke Teme
• Subjects: ancient Chinese civilization; Chinese language; “barbarians”; Tibeto-Burman; Austroasiatic; Altaic
• Online Access: http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/161177
• ISSN: 1333-2546; 1848-9184

Nascent Chinese civilization once shared the north China plain and the surrounding uplands with various non-Chinese “barbarians”. The Chinese language itself is related to the Tibeto-Burman language family. Some of the “barbarians” to the west belonged to this group, especially the Qiang. Of the major non-Chinese groups, the Yi, along the eastern seaboard, probably spoke an Austroasiatic language. They can be identified with a series of coastal Neolithic cultures, elements of which contributed much to the formation of Chinese civilization in the Central Plain. It has often been assumed that the non-Chinese in the north uplands, the Di and Xiongnu – in Han times nomadic rulers of the steppes of Mongolia – spoke Altaic languages. Although there is good reason to think that the Hu did speak Altaic (i.e. Mongolic), the Xiongnu, first seen in the Ordos and linked to the earlier Yiqu, were linguistically quite different. Their language may have been Yeniseian or an aberrant form of Tibeto-Burman, or without living relatives. In Han times, when hu had become a general term for horse-riding nomads, applied especially to the Xiongnu, the original Hu became known as the Eastern Hu. They were differentiated in Han sources into the Xianbei (*Särbi), ancestors of the historical Mongols, and the Wuhuan (*Awar), a name recognizable as that of the Avars who invaded Europe in the sixth century. The earliest Turkic-speaking peoples that can be identified in Chinese sources are the Dingling, Gekun or Jiankun, and Xinli, located in South Siberia. The nomadic power immediately to the west of the Xiongnu in Han times were the Yuezhi. When the Xiongnu defeated them, their main body moved west, eventually to the Amu Darya, extinguishing the Greek kingdom in Bactria and later establishing the Kushan empire. It is argued that they were Indo-Europeans, speaking a Tocharian language of the type attested in later documents from the oasis states of the Tarim basin. Recent finds of Caucasoid mummies in Xinjiang dating from the early second millennium BCE onward suggest that this was the time when Tocharian speakers first reached the borderlands of China, bringing with them important cultural elements from the west – metallurgy and the horse-drawn chariot – that played an essential role in the formation of Chinese civilization. The beginning of the Chinese bronze age around 2000 BCE, coinciding with the traditional date of the founding of first dynasty, the Xia, was probably indirectly stimulated by this event.