Uzbeks () are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, and the largest Turkic ethnic group in the region. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, alongside minorities of Tajiks and Karakalpaks, and also form minority groups in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Russia, and China. Uzbek diaspora communities also exist in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Ukraine, and other countries.
Etymology
The name Uzbek seems to have become widely adopted as an ethnonym under the rule of Ozbeg Khan, who converted the Golden Horde to Islam.
The origin of the word Uzbek is disputed. One view holds that it is eponymously named after Oghuz Khagan, also known as Oghuz Beg, from which the word Uzbeg or Uzbek is derived.A. H. Keane, A. Hingston Quiggin, A. C. Haddon, Man: Past and Present, p.312, Cambridge University Press, 2011, Google Books, quoted: "Who take their name from a mythical Uz-beg, Prince Uz (beg in Turki=a chief, or hereditary ruler)." Another theory states that the name means 'independent', 'genuine man', or 'the lord himself', from öz (self) and the Turkic title bek/bey/beg.
The personal name Uzbek is found in Arabic and Persian historical writings. The historian Usama ibn Munqidh (d. 1188), describing events in Iran under the Seljuk Empire, notes that one of the leaders of Bursuk's troops in 1115–1116 was the "emir of the troops" Uzbek, the ruler of Mosul.Usama ibn Munkyz. Kniga nazidaniya. per. Yu. I. Krachkovskogo. Moscow, 1958, p.134 According to Rashid al-Din, the last representative of the Oghuz dynasty of Ildegizids, who ruled in Tabriz, was Uzbek Muzaffar (1210–1225).Rashid ad-din. Sbornik letopisey. T.1., kn.1. Moscow, 1952
Origins
Uzbeks are a Central Asian people primarily associated with Uzbekistan. They emerged through the mixing of settled Iranian populations with various Turkic and Mongol nomadic groups that entered the region between the 11th and 15th centuries. The ethnonym 'Uzbek' became associated with the region following the conquests of Muhammad Shaybani in the early sixteenth century. The Shibanid Uzbeks later founded several powerful Chinggisid and non-Chinggisid dynasties in Transoxiana and formed a ruling elite over local Iranian-speaking populations in the region, while maintaining a Mongol identity.: "The conquering Shibanid Uzbeks expanded their scope by absorbing the Chaghatay and Moghul nomads whom they defeated. Like the Chaghatays, the Shibanid Uzbeks formed the elite class ruling over the Tajiks, the local Iranic-speaking sedentary people of Central Asia, and retained a Mongol identity." The modern Uzbek nation was invented in 1924 by the Soviet Union during the Soviet national delimitation of Central Asia , and included not only the Shibanid Uzbeks, but also Sarts and Tajiks—groups that had not previously identified as Uzbek, either by themselves or by others.: "The Shibanid Uzbeks founded several Chinggisid and non-Chinggisid dynasties in Transoxiana, Khorezm, and Ferghana, some lasting until the Russian conquest of Central Asia in the 1860s. The modern Uzbeks were formed in 1924, when the Soviet Union created the new Uzbek nation, which was made up of not only the Shibanid Uzbeks, but also the Sarts and the Tajiks, neither of whom had previously been regarded as Uzbeks by others and themselves"
Before the 5th century, what is now Uzbekistan was part of Sogdia, Khwarazm, and Bactria, and was mainly inhabited by Sogdians, Bactrians, and Khwarazmians—all Indo-Iranian peoples. It was part of the Achaemenid Empire in the sixth to fourth centuries BC, and by the 3rd century CE, it was part of the Sasanian Empire.
From the fifth to sixth centuries, what is now Uzbekistan was part of the Hephthalite Empire. From the sixth to eighth centuries, it was under the rule of the First Turkic Khaganate.
The Turkic component was part of the Kidarites in the fifth century. The seal of the Kidarites, made in the 5th century in Samarkand, has a Bactrian inscription containing the title of the ruler: "Oglar Khun", of Turkic origin.Etienne de la Vaissiere, Is there a "Nationality of the Hephtalites?" in Bulletin of the Asia institute. New series. Volume 17. 2003. , p. 129—130
Since the entry of Central Asia into the Turkic Khaganate (6th century), the process of Turkicization has intensified. In subsequent centuries, the main ethnocultural process that took place on the territory of the Central Asian interfluve was the convergence and partial merging of the settled, Iranian-speaking and Turkic-speaking, with the nomadic, mainly Turkic-speaking population.Golden, Peter B. "An introduction to the history of the Turkic peoples." Ethnogenesis and state-formation in medieval and early modern Eurasia and the Middle East (1992): 134.
Turkic and Chinese migration into Central Asia occurred during the Chinese Tang dynasty, and Chinese armies commanded by Turkic generals stationed in large parts of Central Asia. But Chinese influence ended with the An Lushan Rebellion. During the ninth and tenth centuries, Transoxiana was ruled by the Persian Samanid Empire. From the 11th century on, Transoxiana was under the rule of the Turkic Kara-Khanid Khanate, their arrival in Transoxiana signalled a definitive shift from Iranian to Turkic predominance in Central Asia. The Kara-Khanid ruler Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan was the first Turkic ruler to convert to Islam, most people of Central Asia soon followed. In the 12th century, Transoxiana was conquered by the Qara Khitai (Western Liao), a sinicized Khitan dynasty, they brought to Central Asia the Chinese system of government. In the 13th century, Kara-Khanid Khanate was destroyed by the Turkic Anushtegin dynasty, a former vassal of the Qara Khitai.
Although Turko-Mongol infiltration into Central Asia had started early, and the influence of the Turkic tribes was felt in Khwarazm before the campaigns of the Mongols, after the beginning of the Chingizid rule, bilingualism became more common.Golden, Peter B. An Introduction to the History of Turkic Peoples (1992) p. 407-408 It is generally believed that these ancient Indo-European-speaking peoples were linguistically assimilated by smaller but dominant Turkic-speaking groups while the sedentary population finally adopted the Persian language, the traditional lingua franca of the eastern Islamic lands.Richard H. Rowland, Richard N. Frye, C. Edmund Bosworth, Bertold Spuler, Robert D. McChesney, Yuri Bregel, Abbas Amanat, Edward Allworth, Peter B. Golden, Robert D. McChesney, Ian Matley, Ivan M. Steblin-Kamenskij, Gerhard Doerfer, Keith Hitchins, Walter Feldman. Central Asia, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, v., Online Edition, 2007, () The language-shift from Middle Iranian to Turkic and New Persian was predominantly the result of an elite dominance process.A. H. Nauta, "Der Lautwandel von a > o and von a > ä in der özbekischen Schriftsprache," Central Asiatic Journal 16, 1972, pp. 104–18.A. Raun, Basic course in Uzbek, Bloomington, 1969. Peter B. Golden listed three basic ethnic elements contributing to the Uzbeks' ethnogenesis: the Turkicized, formerly Iranian-speaking sedentary Sarts, a composite population including both Iranians (Sakas, Sogdians, Khwarzamians, Kushano-Bactrians) and some Arab elements; the pre-Uzbek amalgam of nomadic Türk(î) or Chagatays, who consisted of Karluks, Yaghmas and other tribes of the Göktürks' khaganates, and later of the Kara-Khanid Khanate, Oghuz Turks, the Kangly-Kipchaks (particularly in the western region) and many Turkicized Mongol tribes, who entered Central Asia with the Mongol and Timurid conquests and invasions. The East Kipchak-speaking "Pure Uzbeks" (Taza Özbek).
The modern Uzbek language is largely derived from the Chagatai language which gained prominence in the Timurid Empire. The position of Chagatai (and later Uzbek) was further strengthened after the fall of the Timurids and the rise of the Shaybanid Uzbek Khaqanate that finally shaped the Turkic language and identity of modern Uzbeks, while the unique grammaticalA. von Gabain, "Özbekische Grammatik", Leipzig and Vienna, 1945 and phonetical features of the Uzbek language as well as the modern Uzbek culture reflect the more ancient Iranian roots of the Uzbek people.J. Bečka, "Tajik Literature from the 16th Century to the Present," in Jan Rypka, Hist. Iran. Lit., pp. 520–605A. Jung, Quellen der klassischen Musiktradition Mittelasiens: Die usbekisch-tadshikischen maqom-Zyklen und ihre Beziehung zu anderen regionalen maqam-Traditionen im Vorderen and Mittleren Orient, Ph.D. dissertation, Berlin, 1983.T. Levin, The Music and Tradition of the Bukharan Shashmaqam in Soviet Uzbekistan, Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton, 1984
When the Shaybanids – originally Kipchak-speaking Uzbek nomads – conquered Transoxiana (present-day Uzbekistan) in the 16th century and proclaimed the establishment of Khanate of Bukhara, the Shaybanids faced a huge issue, as they were minorities ruling a majority of the population that were Karluk-speaking Turks (closely related to the Uyghurs) and Chagatais (the urban population of the Timurid Empire). The Shaybanids then opted to assimilate with the Karluk majority and eventually adopted the Karluk language; since the 17th century, their elite designation "Uzbek", inherited by the Janid dynasty, also became an ethnic label for the entire region's Turkic-speaking population, enabled the Uzbeks to proclaim themselves heirs of the Timurid civilisation and reconcile with the Timurid-ruling Mughal Empire in India, dissipating any earlier link with the Kipchaks.
Today, approximately 85–90% of Uzbeks speak a Karluk dialect, while minorities in Khorezm and Surxondaryo retain Kipchak or Oghuz dialects.
Although the Timurids were historically enemies of the early Uzbeks, they are both now considered parts of the Uzbek cultural heritage by Majority of Uzbeks, because:
Chagatai (the language of the Timurids) is a direct predecessor of Uzbek. Majority of Uzbeks descend from Karluks who lived in the region long before the Shaybanid conquest. The Kipchak Shaybanid's assimilation to wider Karluk identity.
This process shows how a political label ("Uzbek") can evolve into an ethnic identity for a broader population with different origins.
Genetic origins Uzbeks share a large portion of their ancestry with nearby Turkic populations, including Kyrgyz people, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Bashkirs. ". In contrast, populations closer to the SSM area (Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Uygurs, and also Bashkirs from the Volga-Ural region) still demonstrated a statistically significant excess of IBD sharing. This spatial pattern can be partly explained by a relative rarity of longer IBD tracts compared to shorter ones and recurrent gene flow events into populations closer to the SSM area."
The western ancestry of Uzbeks includes a Caucasus component (≈35–40%), and a (Northern) European component (≈5–20%), the Uzbeks eastern ancestry includes an Eastern Asian component (≈35%), and a (Central and East) Siberian component (≈5–20%). The best proxy for their western ancestry are modern day Abkhaz people, while the best proxy for their eastern ancestry are Yakuts (or alternatively, Tuvans).
A study on modern Central Asians comparing them to ancient historical samples found that Uzbeks can be modeled as 59.1% Iron Age Indo-Iranians, and 40.9% Eastern Steppe Xiongnu, from the Mongolian Plateau.
Paternal haplogroups Based on the research of several studies, the paternal lineages of Uzbeks have been described: Haplogroup R1a1, a West Eurasian haplogroup, occurs at a rate of 17-32% among Uzbek men, making it the predominant Y-DNA lineage among Uzbeks. It is unclear if this haplogroup in Uzbeks came from local Bronze Age Indo-European pastoralists, or if it originates from Turkic migrants, because despite being considered a diagnostic Indo-Iranian haplogroup, it occurs at a high frequency among Turkic males from Siberia.