Karluks

The Karluks (also Qarluqs, Qarluks, Karluqs, Old Turkic: , Qarluq,Persian: خَلُّخ (Khallokh), Arabic قارلوق "Qarluq") were a prominent nomadic Turkic tribal confederacy residing in the regions of Kara-Irtysh (Black Irtysh) and the Tarbagatai Mountains west of the Altay Mountains in Central Asia. They were also known as the Gelolu (simplified Chinese: 葛逻禄; traditional Chinese: 葛邏祿; pinyin: Géluólù, customary phonetic: Gelu, Khololo, Khorlo or Harluut). They were closely related to the Uyghurs. Karluks gave their name to the distinct Karluk group of the Turkic languages, which also includes the Uyghur, Uzbek, and Ili Turki languages.

Karluks were known as a coherent ethnic group with autonomous status within the Göktürk kaganate and the independent states of the Karluk Yabgu and Karakhanids, before being absorbed in the Chagatai Khanate of the Mongol empire.

Etymology

The most ancient reference to the etymology of the Karluk name is recorded in the Chinese dynastic history Old Book of Tang, which names Karluks as "Ko-lo-lu" and traces the name to the word "Karlik" (Turkic "snow piles"). "Kar" means "snow", as in the name of the Kar Sea. N. Aristov noted the river Kerlyk, a tributary of the Charysh River, proposing that the tribal name originated from the toponym with a Turkic meaning of "wild millet".