西戎 = Turks ?

[skylee]

I went to the National Palace Museum in Taipei yesterday (I go there almost every year). At the exhibition titled "Remnants of an Empire / 帝國遺響" (Empire here should mean Zhou Dynasty as the exhibits are of Qin and Han Dynasties), the introduction says -

"秦本西戎民族,春秋初期以後漸漸興起 ..."

And the English version goes -

"The Ch'in people were original Turks, who rose to power after the early Spring and Autumn period."

And reading this I was like (in HK Cantonese slang you could say O 哂嘴 ). My question is could that "Turks" mean the people we commonly call "Turks" nowadays? If so I am a bit surprised ...

[zhwj]

That's interesting - I was under the impression that while 戎 could refer to ancestors of the Qin people, at that time, 西戎 were people even further to the west.

At any rate, the use of 'Turks' for a group of people came up much later (sez the Wikipedia), in the sixth century. It's a label for people speaking a family of languages, right? So if the languages of the people in the west during the late Zhou are unknown, there's really no way to tell if they are proto-Turks or some other nomadic people who later moved somewhere else.

[Quest]

Excuse me for yet another conspiracy theory. Is the exhibition organized by the DPP or the likes? either that or the organizers haven't done their homework.

I found this site for Qin roots: http://www.xawb.com/gb/rbpaper/2005-02/07/content_473800.htm

A brief google search seemed to confirm that 秦 and 西戎 were separate races, and 西戎 were never "Turks" 突厥，either。

[studentyoung]

西戎 Xīróng

[Xirong nationality] 我国古代对西北少数民族的总称

http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE8ZdicA5ZdicBF.htm

戎　殷、周时已有西戎、鬼戎。至春秋时有已氏之戎、北戎、允姓之戎、伊洛之戎、犬戎、骊戎、戎蛮七种。春秋末年，被秦、晋所并。

http://www.esgweb.net/Article/Class58/Class90/Class91/200312/405.htm

"The Ch'in people were original Turks, who rose to power after the early Spring and Autumn period."

I think 西绒 translated as “Turks” is not so correct. Perhaps, the translator confused 突厥 with 西绒.

As for the relationship between 突厥人 in Qin Dynasty and Turks nowadays, please check the link below.

http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/16241320.html

Thanks!

[skylee]

Excuse me for yet another conspiracy theory. Is the exhibition organized by the DPP or the likes?

I don't think so. It is the NPM after all. And if you have only seen all those "blue sky white sun red ground" flags flying ...

I think it is just bad translation ... feel very diappointed though (same applies to that Santiago Chinese coins case)

[trien27]

not Turks but one of many ethnic groups in Zhou dynasty.

[mrkarahan]

I dont know the meaning of that word or who translated that word but

I can easily tell you that we are not the same.

Chinese didnt came from Turkish race. Although we had many wars before and

many relationships before, it wont make chinese came from Turkish race.

we also came from another race but I dont remember now but it was not chinese :D:D

[Quest]

Chinese didnt came from Turkish race. Although we had many wars before and

many relationships before, it wont make chinese came from Turkish race.

I don't think anyone is saying the Chinese came from the Turkish race. Chin/秦 was but one of the many Chinese kingdoms at that time and happened to be from the direction where people generally associate with Turks. Also, ancient Turks might have been more asiatic and there were different Turks. They were by no means the same as the present day Turkish people

[bhchao]

Li Bai was part Turkish. But of course does not mean part of his blood came from the people we associate with modern-day Turkey.

Li Shimin's mother and grandmother were of Turkish or semi-Turkish origins.

[Quest]

Li Shimin's mother and grandmother were of Turkish or semi-Turkish origins.

鲜卑 is Turkish?

[bhchao]

鲜卑 is Turkish?

You are right. 鲜卑 is not Turkish. I often confuse the two as being equivalent to each other because their languages are in the same Altaic family. Ethnically they are distinct from each other.

[xianu]

I looked up 西戎 in the histories (using sinica.edu.tw), mostly paid atention to just Shi ji and Jiu Tang shu. It seems that, at least by the Tang, the Xirong were identified as the ancestors of the ethnic group who lived in the tufan 吐蕃 area, which I believe is still modern Tufan in Xinjiang. My guess is that they are extrapolating from this fact, and associating all tribes coming from the west were eventually ancestors of the Uighurs, who are considered of Turkish descent. As far as the Qin being part of this group? I didn't think they were that far west, and the impression of the Qin was that they were ethnically Han (or proto-Han?) I mean, linguistically, and more or less culturally, The Qin were what we think of as Chinese.

[zozzen]

"秦本西戎" is a claim laid by the eastern chinese tribes at the time, but it's possible that eastern chinese tribes falsely categorized Qin and Xiyong into the same tribe because they lived so close.

Before Qin conquered Xiyong for the Zhou Dynasty, Jingshu (甘肅) was the motherland of Qin and Xiyong.

[zozzen]

And 西戎 would be "huns" more than turk. Speaking 西戎 (Xiyong) fast, it become "匈" (xiong).