Xianbei - Language

Language

It is generally accepted that the Shiwei branch of the Xianbei spoke a Mongolic language. The core Borjigid Mongols of Genghis Khan are the Mengwu Shiwei. The Proto-Mongolic language, archaic features of 13th century written Mongolian as well as Mongolic loanwords in Old Turkic reflect the early Shiwei language. The Khitan language, a Mongolic language, has several closed systems of lexical items for which systematic information is available and which show that the language was Mongolic. These include seasons, numbers, animals, directions and natural objects. The fact that these two major Xianbei branches spoke Mongolic is enough for some to acknowledge that the Xianbei spoke Mongolic. Two more branches showing evidence of being Mongolic are the Murong (included in the core of the Xianbei during Tanshihuai's reign) and the Tuoba. According to the Dunhuang Documents (P. 1283, in Tibetan) the "language of the Khitan and that of the Tuyuhun could generally communicate with each other". This shows that the Murong spoke a language closely related to Khitan. The earliest attestation of the Mongolic title 'Khagan' is among the Murong Xianbei between 283 to 289. The Mongolic word 'Agan' (elder brother) is also attestable from a Murong Xianbei song composed in 285. Many Tuoba words are Mongolic such as holan (many), eulen (cloud), ezhen (owner), akan (brother), shilu (high mountain), chino (wolf), kapagchin (doorkeeper), tapagchin (infantryman), bitigchin (scribe), kelmorchin (interpreter), sagdagchin (quiver-bearer), qitgaichin (executioner), portogchin (post-office clerk) and tawusun (dust). Of these the most important is the Tuoba word for cloud 'eulen' (Pinyin: youlian) which is not only exclusively Mongolic (i.e. not found in Turkic or Tungusic) but can also be directly compared to the Khitan word for cloud (eu.ul) and the Shiwei word for cloud (e'ule). This makes possible an accurate reconstruction of the Xianbei word for cloud as spoken in the time of Tanshihuai (141-181) and before. These four important branches, the Shiwei, Khitan, Murong and Tuoba all arose as discernible entities in the middle of the 3rd century just after the Xianbei Empire had fallen in 235. They were continuations of the original Xianbei populations. The fact that the Rouran branch of the Xianbei used the title 'Khagan' independently of the Murong shows their close continuity with the early Xianbei. Certain words and names of the Rouran also indicate a Mongolic identity. The fact that the Weishu states the Kumo Xi spoke the same language as the Khitan and that the Hou Hanshu states the Wuhuan spoke the same language as the Xianbei indicate relative linguistic homogeneity within the Xianbei and a common Mongolic identity of the Wuhuan and Xianbei as remnants of the Donghu confederation.

Anti-Altaicist Claus Schönig says in The Mongolic Languages (2003)

Opinions differ widely as to what the linguistic impact of the Xianbei period was. Some scholars (like Clauson) have preferred to regard the Xianbei and Tabghach (Tuoba) as Turks, or even as Bulghar Turks, with the implication that the entire layer of early Turkic borrowings in Mongolic would have been received from the Xianbei, rather than from the Xiongnu. However, since the Mongolic (or Para-Mongolic) identity of the Xianbei is increasingly obvious in the light of recent progress in Khitan studies, it is more reasonable to assume (with Doerfer) that the flow of linguistic influence from Turkic (or Bulghar Turkic) into Mongolic was at least partly reversed during the Xianbei period, yielding the first identifiable layer of Mongolic (or Para-Mongolic) loanwords in Turkic. Items with Mongolic roots and/or suffixes and apparently borrowed into Turkic in this period include Old Turkic balbal ‘statue (of a slain enemy)’ < Mongolic *bari.mal ‘structure’ (from *bari- ‘to grab; to construct’), kertü ‘true’ < Mongolic *gere.tü ‘evident’ (from *gere ‘light’), qarghu ‘watchtower’ < Mongolic *kara.xu (from *kara- ‘to watch’), and yalawac ‘envoy’ (< *yala.ba.ci ‘invitee’, from Mongolic jala- ‘to invite’). In many other cases criteria for the direction of borrowing are missing, as in Turko-Mongolic *kom (qom) ‘a piece of felt placed under the pack on a camel’.