The Yemek or Kimek were a Turkic peoples tribeMaħmūd al-Kašğari. "Dīwān Luğāt al-Turk". Edited & translated by Robert Dankoff in collaboration with James Kelly. In Sources of Oriental Languages and Literature. (1982). Part I. p. 82-83 constituting the Kimek-Kipchak confederation, whose other six constituent tribes, according to Abu Said Gardizi (d. 1061), were the Ayrums (or Imi), Tatars, Bayandur, Kipchaks, Lanikaz, and Ajlad.Minorsky, V. (1937) "Commentary" on "§18. The Kimäk" in Ḥudūd al'Ālam. Translated and Explained by V. Minorsky. p. 304-305
Mahmud al-Kashgari did not mention any Kimek, but Yamāk, and further remarked that Kara-Khanids like him considered Yemeks to be "a tribe of the Kipchaks", though contemporary Kipchaks considered themselves a different party.Maħmūd al-Kašğari. "Dīwān Luğāt al-Turk". Edited & translated by Robert Dankoff in collaboration with James Kelly. In Sources of Oriental Languages and Literature. (1982). Part II. p. 161Minorsky (1937) p. 305Golden, Peter B. "Qıpčaq" in Turcology and Linguistics Hacettepe University, Ankara (2014). p. 188 The ethnonym Yemäk might have been transcribed in the mid 7th century by Chinese authors as 鹽莫 Yánmò < Middle Chinese * jiäm-mâk,Kumekov, B.E. (1972) "Gosudarstvo kimakov IX-XI vv. po arabskim istočnikam" Alma-Ata. p. 40, 45; cited in Golden (1992) p. 202, n. 84 referring a Tiele people group who initially inhabited northwestern Mongolia before migrating to north of Altay Mountains and Irtysh river zone.Golden, Peter B. (2017) "Qıpčak" in Turcology and Linguistics. p. 187 Tongdian, Vol. 200
Initially, Golden (1992:202, 227, 263) has accepted the identification of Kimeks with Imeks/Yimeks/Yemeks, because the /k/ > ∅, resulting in Kimek > İmek, was indeed attested in several Medieval Kipchak dialects; Golden has also thought Yemeks unlikely to be 鹽莫 * jiäm-mâk > Yánmò in Chinese source. However, Golden later changes his mind; he reasons that, as the Medieval Kipchak dialectal sound-change /k/ > ∅ had not yet happened in the mid-7th century Old Turkic, the identification of Yemeks with Kimeks is disputed. As a result, Golden (2002:660-665) later abandons the Kimeks > Yemeks identification and becomes more amenable to the identification of 鹽莫 Yánmò with Yemeks, by scholars such as Hambis, Yury Zuev, and Kumekov, cited in Golden (1992:202).Golden, P.B. (2002) “Notes on the Qïpchaq Tribes: Kimeks and Yemeks”, in The Turks, I, p. 662
According to Tishin (2018), Yemeks were simply the most important of the seven constituent tribes whose representatives met at the Irtysh river valley, where the diverse Kimek tribal union emerged, as related by Gardizi.Tishin, V.V (2018). "Kimäk p. 111
After the disintegration in 743 AD of the Western Turkic Kaganate, a part of the Chuy tribes remained in its successor, the Uyghur Kaganate (740-840), and another part retained their independence.Faizrakhmanov, G. "Ancient Turks in Siberia and Central Asia" During the Uyghur Khaganate period, the Chuy tribes consolidated into the nucleus of the tribes known as Kimaks in the Arab and Persian sources.S.A. Pletneva, "Kipchaks", p.26 Lev Gumilyov associated one Duolu Chuy tribe, Chumukun 處木昆 (< * čomuqun "immersed in water, drowned")Tishin, V.V (2018). "Kimäk. p. 107-113 with the Kimeks as both coincidentally occupied the same territory, i.e. Jetisu, and that Chumukun were known only to Chinese and Kimek only to Persians and Arabs.Gumilyov, L. (2009) Searches for an Imaginary Kingdom: The Legend of the Kingdom of Prester John ch. 14 (in English; translated by R.E.F. Smith)Gumilyov, L.N. Drevnie tyurki (1993:380-381). Moscow: Klyshnikov, Komarov i K°. p. cited in Tishin, V.V (2018). "Kimäk p. 107, 111 The head of the Kimek confederation was titled Shad Tutuq, "Prince Governor"Faizrakhmanov, G. "Ancient Turks in Sibiria and Central Asia" ( tutuk being from Middle Chinese tuo-tuok 都督 "military governor");Ecsedy, H. (1965) “Old Turkic Titles of Chinese Origin”, in Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, volume 18, issue 1/2, Akadémiai Kiadó, p. 84 of pp. 83-91 as well as Yinal Yabghu, according to Gardizi.Golden (1992) p. 203 By the middle of the eighth century, the Kimeks occupied territory between the Ural River and Emba River, and from the Aral Sea and Caspian Sea steppes, to the Zhetysu area.
In the beginning of the eleventh century the Kipchak Khanlyk moved west, occupying lands that had earlier belonged to the Oguz. After seizing the Oguz lands, the Kipchaks grew considerably stronger, and the Kimeks became dependents of the Kipchaks. The fall of the Kimek Kaganate in the middle of the 11th century was caused by the migration of Central Asian Mongolian-speaking nomads, displaced by the Mongolian-speaking Khitan people state of Liao Dynasty, which formed in 916 AD in Northern China. The Khitan nomads occupied the Kimek and Kipchak lands west of the Irtysh. In the eleventh to twelfth centuries a Mongol-speaking Naimans tribe displaced the Kimeks and Kipchaks from the Mongolian Altai and Upper Irtysh as it moved west.
Between the ninth and thirteenth centuries Kimek tribes were nomadizing in the steppes of the modern Astrakhan Oblast of Russia. A portion of the Kimeks that left the Ob River-Irtysh interfluvial region joined the Kipchak confederation that survived until the Mongol invasion, and later united with the Nogai people confederation of the Kipchak descendants. The last organized tribes of the Nogai in Russian sources were dispersed with the Russian construction of zaseka bulwarks in the Don and Volga regions in the 17th-18th centuries, which separated the cattle breeding populations from their summer pastures. Another part of the Nogai were deported from the Budjak steppes after Russian conquest of Western Ukraine and Moldova in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
According to R. Preucel and S. Mrozowki (2010)
Josef Markwart proposed that Kimeks were Turkicized Tatars, who were related to the para-Mongolic-speaking Tatabï, known to Chinese as Kumo Xi.Golden, P.B. (2002) p. 662
Sümer associates the Kimeks with the ChiksSümer, F. (1980) Oğuzlar 3rd rev. ed. p.31, citedin Golden (1992) p. 202, n. 78 (who were mentioned in Tang HuiyaoTang Huiyao, Vol. 72 " 赤馬。與迴紇(契)苾餘沒渾同類。印行。" tr. "Horse of the Chiks, same stock as Uyghur Khaganate', Qibi tribe', Yumei-Huns'. Tamga (resembles) (character) 行." (in Chinese)Zuev, Yu. Horses Tamgas from Vassal Princedoms (Translation of Chinese composition "Tanghuiyao" of 8-10th centuries), Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences, Alma-Ata, 1960, p. 98, 113 of 93-139 (in Russian) and Bilge Qaghan inscription "Bilge Qaghan inscription" line 26. at Türik Bitig); however, Golden sees little evidence for this.Giolden (1992). p. 202
The majority of researchers (Bakikhanov, S.A. Tokarev, A.I. Tamay, S. Sh. Gadzhieva) derive the Kumyks' name from Kimak, or from another name for Kipchaks — Cumans.
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