Khatun
Khatun (Mongolian: ᠬᠠᠲᠤᠨ, khatun, хатан khatan; Persian: خاتون khātūn; Urdu: خاتون khātūn, plural خواتين khavātīn; Turkish: hatun) is a female title of nobility and counterpart to "khan" prominently used in the Turkic Khaganate and in the subsequent Mongol Empire. It is equivalent to "queen regnant" or "empress regnant", approximately.
History[edit]
Before the advent of Islam in Central Asia, Khatun was the title of the queen of Bukhara. According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, "Khatun [is] a title of Sogdian origin borne by the wives and female relatives of the T'u-chüeh and subsequent Turkish rulers."[1]
Peter Benjamin Golden observed that the title qatun appeared among the Göktürks as the title for the khagan's wife and was borrowed from Sogdian xwāten "wife of the ruler"[2] Earlier, British Orientalist Gerard Clauson (1891–1974) defined xa:tun as "'lady' and the like" and says there is "no reasonable doubt that it is taken from Sogdian xwt'yn (xwatēn), in Sogdian xwt'y ('lord, ruler') and xwt'yn 'lord's or ruler's wife'), "which is precisely the meaning of xa:tun in the early period."[3]
Modern usage[edit]
In Turkish, it is written hatun. The general Turkish word for 'woman', kadın, is a doublet derived from the same origin.[4]
In Urdu, the word khatun is used commonly to refer to any woman. The female title khanum is also used as the feminine counterpart of khan.
Notable Khatuns[edit]
- Börte
- Buluqhan Khatun
- Bulugan
- Despina Khatun
- Doquz Khatun
- Mandukhai Khatun
- Momine Khatun
- Po Beg
- Töregene Khatun
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Mernissi, Fatima (1993). The Forgotten Queens of Islam. University of Minnesota Press. p. 21.
- ^ Peter Benjamin Golden (1998), "Turks and Iranians: An historical sketch" in Johanson, Lars; Csató, Éva Ágnes (2015). The Turkic Languages. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-136-82534-7., page 5
- ^ Clauson, Gerard (1972). An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 602–603.
- ^ Clauson, p. 602.
Works cited[edit]
- Clauson, Gerard; Róna-Tas, András (1981). An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-thirteenth-century Turkish. Index. Universitas Szegediensis de Attila Jószef Nominata.
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