Origin of The Name "Kalmyk"
The name "Kalmyk" is a word of Turkic origin that means "remnant" or "to remain." Turkic tribes may have used this name as early as the thirteenth century. Arab geographer Ibn al-Wardi is documented as the first person to use the term in referring to the Oirats in the fourteenth century (Khodarkovsky, 1992:5 citing Bretschneider, 1910:2:167). The khojas of Kashgaria applied the name to Oirats in the fifteenth century (Grousset, 1970:506). Russian written sources mentioned the name "Kolmak Tatars" as early as 1530, and cartographer Sebastian Muenster (1488–1552) circumscribed the territory of the "Kalmuchi" on a map in his Cosmographia, which was published in 1544. The Oirats themselves, however, did not accept the name as their own.
Read more about this topic: Kalmyk People
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