Kara-Khitan Khanate - Names

Names

Kara Khitan (Hala Qidan) was the name used by the Khitans to refer to themselves. The phrase is often translated as the Black Khitans in Turkish, but its original meaning is unclear today. On the same line, "Kara-Khitan" literally means in Mongolian "Khar (Хар) Kidan(Хятан), Since no direct records from the empire survive today, the only surviving historical records about the empire come from outside sources. Since the empire took on trappings of a Chinese state, Chinese historians generally refer to the empire as the Western Liao Dynasty, emphasizing its continuation from the Liao Dynasty in North and Northeast China. The Jurchens referred to the empire as Dashi or Dashi Linya (after its founder), to reduce any claims the empire may have had to the old territories of the Liao Dynasty. Muslim historians initially referred to the state simply as Khitay or Khitai; they may have adopted this form of "Khitan" via the Uyghurs of Kocho in whose language the final -n or -ń became -y. It was only after the Mongol conquest that the state began to be referred to in the Muslim world as the Kara-Khitai or Qara-Khitai.