Talk:Tatars/@comment-43356519-20191109150122/@comment-2003:DB:F709:7F0F:8D1A:B396:229:59FD-20191121155046

...for what it's worth, the Term "Mongols" seem to be what the rulers called themselves (no earlier than 1240/1250?), "Tata" (and thus "Tatar") what the general people called themselves (but also the preferred description by other peoples they came into contact with, like the chinese, persians, Novgorod/Russians and central europeans, etc.; hence medieval-latin(!) "Tartars"); compare "Ottomans" vs. "Turks". Depending on what you look at, cultural heritage and customs (people) vs. ruling class and political system (mongols) one name or the other may take precedence. But the name "Tatar" seems to have been recorded by chinese sources even bevor the "Mongolian" conquest. It reminds me a lot of the term "Huns", which may infact be a name for a variety of tribes, connected only via power-structures, rather than ethnical/"cultural" background.

Generally it's very diffictult to reconstruct the history of many, many Peoples from the Eurasian Steppes (including turk-peoples, Mongols/Tatars, Huns, Skythians etc.) throughout the ages,as nomadic peoples tend to not write down their own history. Likewise the self-described "mongols" told their history via writing only AFTER their conquest, from historians that were directly advised by the royal family.