Talk:Nikudari

The only one?

Are you sure this is "THE" archaic form of the Mongolian language? I would expect there to be several lines that have survived (eg. including the Moghol language). --Latebird 18:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Good point, I changed to "an" archaic. Scythian1 02:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Hopelessly inaccurate article

First: what does Morgan state:

"It is intriguing to note that in parts of Afghanistan today, especially in villages near the city of Harat [second a long] in the west of the country, there still exist groups of MONGOLIAN SPEAKERS. THEY DO NOT LOOK IN THE LEAST MONGOLOID, having (unlike the Hazaras [second a long]) intermarried with the local indigenous population. But they have retained the Mongolian language in an ARCHAIC form that has been lost in Mongolia itself. The odd feature is that they apparently call themselves Nikudaris (all vowels long) - to say the least a very curious coincidence." (footnote 96) and "The Qaraunas were a group of marauding Mongols who operated in the area between eastern Persia and the borderlands of India - in effect, modern Afghanistan ... Aubin's [J. Aubin (1969): L'ethnogénèse des Qaraunas. In: Turcica 1: 65-94] examination of the sources showed that they were in origin a tamma formation, sent first of all in the reign of Ögedei, and stationed on the Indian borders. The names of some of their commanders can be identified. They prove to have come from a very wide diversity of tribes - an interesting illustration of the reconstruction by Chingiz Khans [a long] of tribal allegiances into military formations whic was discussed earlier. The Qaraunas became, in fact, one of the newly minted synthetic tribes. Their appearances in the sources of the history of Persia in the thirteenth century usually show them as enemies of the Ilkhanate. This APPEARS to be so because they contained a section, commanded by a Golden Horde gneral called Negüder (Nikudar [all vowels long] in Persian), which had been joined by the survivors of the Golden Horde's contigent in the Mongol army allotted to Hülegü's expedition. When in 1261 or 1262 warfare broke out between Hülegü and Berke of the Golden Horde, the Qaraunas (or Nikudaris [all vowels long], as the Persians usually call them) formed as it were an independent section of the Golden Horde's army in the enemy's rear. In due course some Qaraunas became loyal to the Ilkhanate, and others to the Chaghatai khanate of Central Asia; but the details of the story are too complex to pursue here." (95-96)

So Morgan fails to give any sources himself except an analysis of Aubin that seems to pertain to a detail and not to the matter itself. But worse, he was hopelessly misquoted. He neither ever said that it was the Hazara (no, he said it was NOT the Hazara) who constitute the Nikudari nor that Nikudari was actually a language which it isn't.

Then, is there actual knowledge concerning this question? One would suppose to find relevant information in Michael Weiers (1971): Die Sprache der Moghol der Provinz Herat in Afghanistan. Göttingen: Opladen, and there it is. Morgan fails to notice this source as he fails to notice any source that is not in English or in French. While I'm not a historian myself, I would hold that not to refute Weiers on the following matter is a scientific shortcoming. Weiers notices (15) the story about the contingent alloted to Hülegü's expedition (15). He then analyses and refutes a source that identifies the Hazara and Nikudari (with which Morgan agrees) (15-20). He procedes to reconstruct the history of the other tribal entity that once lived in the vinicity of the Hazara, the Nikudari. In order to do so, he first refutes the story of general Nigudar as sent to the help of Hülegü which is from a later source, Ain-i Akbari [last two vowels long]. Using older sources Weiers shows that Nigudar Agul was a high-ranking official and descendant of Chagatai who rose agaist his king Abaga Khan and then tried to flee, leaving behind his forces that continued to exist as a military unit. Alientated from the Ilkhanate, they seem to have assumed a marauding existence, retaining Mongolian military structure and the Mongolian language (that is, what became Moghol(i)). (20-24)

While I’m not gonna state that Weiers is correct on this matter, the fact that he isn’t cited by Morgan and his better use of primary sources let his research appear better-founded than that of Morgan. But even so, only by effectively misquoting poor Morgan could this hopelessly flawed article come about. G Purevdorj (talk) 10:24, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Merger

Seems to be the same, but I wouldn't bet on that. It would be desirable if someone not yet involved with this stuff ordered the relevant history books and looked into the matter so as to know how much the good scholars are just speculating around, and that Weiers' account should be included in this survey. But that will probably not happen. The Nikudari article is bad enough; if someone could at least verify that Nikudari und Qara'unas are the same in the opinion of most historicans, then I would certainly support that it is merged away. G Purevdorj (talk) 22:01, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that they should be merged. It would be great if artcile "Nikudari" becomes the section of Qara'unas (Neguderis) e.g. as "Modern descendants" or... --Enerelt (talk) 05:55, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

While I think mergin is the right idea (I placed the merge tags after all), having two articles with identical text is not quite the right way to go about it. I'll turn this one into a redirect pointing to the other one. --Latebird (talk) 23:13, 16 September 2008 (UTC)