Etymology
The oldest name of the city according to historical evidence is Isfijab (Espijâb, Isfījāb, Asfījāb), which remained until the Mongol conquest. Mahmud Kashgari mentioned it as the "White City which is called Isbījāb," suggesting its connection with the Soghdian/Persian word for white, sipīd or ispīd. Kashgari also mentioned that the city was known as Sayram at that time, the name which the town bears today. The Russian Orientalist N. S. Lykoshin suggested that Sayram's correct name was Sar-i ayyām, or 'Ancient of Days'. His editor held, however, that instead of ayyām, it was instead the Arabic yamm, 'sea, river' and referred to the source of a stream. If the name Sayrām is actually Turkic, it probably refers to 'a place of shallow water.' To wit, al-Kāshgharī gives, alongside his entry on Sayrām as the name of Isfijāb, the phrase seyrem sūw, 'shallow water,' which coincidentally is the name of the river running east of the center of the city. Kāsgharī also later notes the verb seyremlen-, 'to become shallow,' with the phrase sūw seyremlendī, 'the water became shallow (or scanty)'.
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