National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

370. TURCOMANIE

torcomanie Fr turchumannia TA²r turcumayne O
turchia V, Z turcia P, P⁵ turquemanie FA, FB
turchimania LT turcomania L, VL, Z turquemenie FA
turchomania TA¹, TA³, V, turcomanie F
VA, Z; G, R

Theoretically, the land of the Turcomans (French plural) or Türkmān, a name of wide and
changeable application. The origin of the name Türkmān is not clear; the explanation by Persian
Türk mānānd, « Turk-like », although already given in 1076 by Kāšγarī, cannot be accepted linguis-
tically, but it is not contrary to the facts, as the Türkmān seem to have been from the first Turks
who had undergone strong Iranian influence, and perhaps in some cases iranicized Turks. The
name appears for the first time in Maqdisī (10th cent.), and is soon applied to the Qarluq and parti-
cularly to the Oγuz; it is used in the 12th cent. for the Qarakhanid dynasty of the Ili region, and it is
there that « Turcomani » are mentioned one century later by Rubrouck (Wy, 226; Barthold, 12
Vorlesungen, 77, 191, 278). Plan Carpini had used it some years before Rubrouck («Turcomani»,
in Wy, 89), but in a list of nations without any precision as to its application.
This is not the value of the name in Polo; his Turcomanie is Anatolia, particularly the Central
and Southern part of Anatolia. Some of Polo's contemporaries use the name Turchia for the land,
and that of Türkmān (in Ricold, « Thurchimanni ») for the people. The nomad Türkmān of Ana-
tolia still exist, but do not have the same importance as in the Middle Ages (cf. Y, I, 44). Through
R and Z, we know that Polo was aware of a wider range of application of the name « Turcomans »,
as he specifies that the Turcomans of Turcomanie (i. e. Anatolia) are those named « Caramans »
(q. v.).
Polo also speaks of the Turcoman horses; the abnormal « Turquans » adopted in Pa, 37, and
Y, I, 43, is certainly a clerical error.


371. TURQUIE

torqie, turchie F turchia L, LT, P, TA¹, TA³, V, turchya Z
torquie F, Fr VA, VB, VL, Z; G, R turquie F, Fr, FA, FB

While Polo's contemporaries often use « Turquie » for that part of Anatolia which Polo himself
calls « Turcomanie », Polo reserves the name for both Turkestans, but, being aware of a possible
confusion, then speaks always of « Gran Turchie », Great Turkey, meaning the Čayataï empire or
Medium Imperium, particularly that of Qaidu. Before Polo, Benedict the Pole had used « Turkya »
alone for what is now Russian Turkestan (cf. Wy, 138). Nevertheless the name of Turkestan