The Ancient Onym “Karkar” and Its Historical Connection with the Kyrgyz and Kimak-Kipchaks
DOI: 10.23951/2307-6119-2026-4-84-97
This article examines the onym “karkar”, whose semantics are historically associated with the Kyrgyz and Kimak-Kipchaks. Eleven regions are recorded within the Kimak Khaganate, including one named Q.rq.rkhān, whose inhabitants were subject to Kyrgyz cultural influence. Linguistic research interprets this name as reflecting “kyrkyr”, an ancient form of the ethnonym “Kyrgyz”. In the earliest version of the Kyrgyz epic Manas, preserved in the sixteenth-century Majmuʿ at-Tawarikh, the legendary hero Manas’s grandfather is a khan named Karkara, or Karkara Khan. Manas himself is called a “Karkara Kipchak”. The work recounts Tokhtamysh Khan’s construction of the city of Manassiya. The present-day city and river named Manas are located in the Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture of China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Sources also record a river, a city, and a district named Kur-kara-usu near this city. The Karkaraly Mountains lie in central Kazakhstan, where Kazakhs have preserved legends about the hero Manas and his famous steed. These examples show how the stem “karkar/kyrkyr” has changed across cultural and historical contexts while retaining a clear association with the Kyrgyz and Kimak-Kipchaks. The study thus investigates onomastic evidence containing “karkar” in the context of Kyrgyz and Kimak-Kipchak history.
Keywords: Karkarkhan, Karkara Khan, Kimaks, Kipchaks, Kyrgyz, Kimak Khaganate, Manas, Majmuʿ at-Tawarikh
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Issue: 4, 2026
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: ANTHROPOLOGY
Pages: 84 — 97
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