Talk:Tatars/@comment-43356519-20191109150122/@comment-2003:DB:F709:7F0F:8D1A:B396:229:59FD-20191121163026

Actually, that second video gets worse as it drags on, also. His reasoning is so illogical: the Tatars should feel insulted by being called "TaRtars" by europeans, despite the fact, that the word this is modelled after (tartaros = hell) is latin, and thus totally unknown to the Tatars. Where do the europeans derive their "Tatar" or "Tartar" from, if not from the name the invading forces gave to themselves? (it would be the strangest coincidence of history, that they called them "Tartars" just to say "they are develish forces", without ever having heard of the name "Tatars" -- again: a title that can be attested earlier with the persians, and even before he conquest within chinese sources.

And his reasoning for "why would the hate the name, if they weren't in fact non-Tatars" is equally pitiable. If the name referred to wild, uncivilized, nomadic people (by themselves and others), why would the better educated, rich, later rulers(!) not mind being called that, same way as MANY ruling classes gave themselves names distinct from their [peoples] etonyms, and felt insulted when being associated with those "common people" (the mean tone of "commoner" shows that pretty nicely; even the term "mean" itself at some point describes "pesky commoners" (etymologically speaking), and thus it's pejorative "meaning"). On some occasions throughout history, individual dynasties didn't even speak the language of the people they ruled, like the Norman kings of England, which spoke french, while the commoners spoke some Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) tongue.

For what it's worth, the "Tatar language" (see Tatarstan, part of the russian federation, located losely in the region that the golden horde and self-acclaimed "Tatars" once were to be found) is classified as a west-turkish language; whilst Mongolian belongs to the Altaic languages, which Turk languages (including Tatar Language) are often associated with also, but their genetic familarity is havily disputed, as many of the similarities may stem from contact and exchange rather than a common origin. For instance, when the "Mongolians", as they started to become an empire, adopted a script, it was taken from the uyghurish language (if I remember correctly) for their own scriptures, as they still did not have a script of their own. The uyghurs were a turk people, and some heavy influencing may have occured.