Editing Xiongnu (section)

=== Iranian theories ===
{{See also|Iranian languages}}
[[File:Noin-Ula carpet.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|An embroidered rug from the Xiongnu [[Noin-Ula burial site]]. This luxury item was imported from [[Bactria]], and is thought to represent [[Yuezhi]] figures.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Betts |first1=Alison |last2=Vicziany |first2=Marika |last3=Jia |first3=Peter Weiming |last4=Castro |first4=Angelo Andrea Di |title=The Cultures of Ancient Xinjiang, Western China: Crossroads of the Silk Roads |date=19 December 2019 |publisher=Archaeopress Publishing Ltd |isbn=978-1-78969-407-9 |page=104 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rxUSEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA104 |quote="In Noin-Ula (Noyon Uul), Mongolia, the remarkable elite Xiongnu tombs have revealed textiles that are linked to the pictorial tradition of the Yuezhi: the decorative faces closely resemble the [[Khalchayan]] portraits, while the local ornaments have integrated elements of Graeco-Roman design. These artifacts were most probably manufactured in Bactria"}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Francfort |first1=Henri-Paul |author-link= Henri-Paul Francfort |title=Sur quelques vestiges et indices nouveaux de l'hellénisme dans les arts entre la Bactriane et le Gandhāra (130 av. J.-C.-100 apr. J.-C. environ) |language=fr |trans-title=On some vestiges and new indications of Hellenism in the arts between Bactria and Gandhāra (130 BC-100 AD approximately) |journal=Journal des Savants |date=1 January 2020 |pages=26–27, Fig.8 ''"Portrait royal diadémé Yuezhi"'' ("Diademed royal portrait of a Yuezhi") |url=https://www.academia.edu/45042820}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Polos'mak |first1=Natalia V. |last2=Francfort |first2=Henri-Paul |last3=Tsepova |first3=Olga |title=Nouvelles découvertes de tentures polychromes brodées du début de notre ère dans les "tumuli" n o 20 et n o 31 de Noin-Ula (République de Mongolie) |journal=Arts Asiatiques |date=2015 |volume=70 |pages=3–32 |doi=10.3406/arasi.2015.1881 |jstor=26358181 |issn=0004-3958 |quote=Considered as Yuezhi-Saka or simply Yuezhi, and p.3: "These tapestries were apparently manufactured in Bactria or in Gandhara at the time of the Saka-Yuezhi rule, when these countries were connected with the Parthian empire and the "Hellenized East." They represent groups of men, warriors of high status, and kings and/ or princes, performing rituals of drinking, fighting or taking part in a religious ceremony, a procession leading to an altar with a fire burning on it, and two men engaged in a ritual."}}</ref><ref name="LN">{{cite journal |last1=Nehru |first1=Lolita |title=KHALCHAYAN |journal=Encyclopaedia Iranica Online |date=14 December 2020 |url=https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-iranica-online/*-COM_215?lang=en |publisher=Brill |quote=About "[[Khalchayan]]", "site of a settlement and palace of the nomad Yuezhi": "Representations of figures with faces closely akin to those of the ruling clan at Khalchayan (PLATE I) have been found in recent times on woollen fragments recovered from a nomad burial site near Lake Baikal in Siberia, Noin Ula, supplementing an earlier discovery at the same site), the pieces dating from the time of Yuezhi/Kushan control of Bactria. Similar faces appeared on woollen fragments found recently in a nomad burial in south-eastern Xinjiang ([[Sampul tapestry|Sampula]]), of about the same date, manufactured probably in Bactria, as were probably also the examples from Noin Ula."}}</ref>]]

Most scholars agree that the Xiongnu elite may have been initially of [[Sogdian language|Sogdian]] origin, while later switching to a Turkic language.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Neumann |first1=Iver B. |last2=Wigen |first2=Einar |title=The Steppe Tradition in International Relations: Russians, Turks and European State Building 4000 BCE–2017 CE |date=19 July 2018 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-108-42079-2 |page=103 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=huRfDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA103 |language=en |via=[[Google Books]] |quote=While most scholars hold the Xiongnu to have originally had a leadership from a Sogdian kinship line, Kim (2023: 28-29) argues that during their migration west, they seem to have undergone a transformation from having had a Yeniseian leadership, which ruled over various Iranic, Alanic and Turko-Mongol to developing a Turkic royal line.}}</ref> [[Harold Walter Bailey]] proposed an [[Iranian peoples|Iranian]] origin of the Xiongnu, recognizing all of the earliest Xiongnu names of the 2nd century BC as being of the [[Iranian languages|Iranian]] type.{{sfn|Bailey|1985|pp=21–45}} Central Asian scholar [[Christopher I. Beckwith]] notes that the Xiongnu name could be a cognate of [[Scythians|Scythian]], [[Saka]] and [[Sogdia]], corresponding to a name for [[Eastern Iranian languages|Eastern Iranian Scythians]].{{sfn|Beckwith|2009|pp=71–73}}<ref name="Beckwith405">{{harvnb|Beckwith|2009|p=405}}: "Accordingly, the transcription now read as Hsiung- nu may have been pronounced * Soγdâ, * Soγlâ, * Sak(a)dâ, or even * Skla(C)da, etc."</ref> According to Beckwith the Xiongnu could have contained a leading Iranian component when they started out, but more likely they had earlier been subjects of an Iranian people and learned the Iranian nomadic model from them.{{sfn|Beckwith|2009|pp=71–73}}

In the 1994 [[UNESCO]]-published ''History of Civilizations of Central Asia'', its editor [[János Harmatta]] claims that the royal tribes and kings of the Xiongnu bore Iranian names, that all Xiongnu words noted by the Chinese can be explained from a [[Scythian languages|Scythian language]], and that it is therefore clear that the majority of Xiongnu tribes spoke an Eastern Iranian language.<ref name="Harmatta488"/>

According to a study by Alexander Savelyev and Choongwon Jeong, published in 2020 in the journal Evolutionary Human Sciences, "The predominant part of the Xiongnu population is likely to have spoken Turkic". However, important cultural, technological and political elements may have been transmitted by Eastern Iranian-speaking Steppe nomads: "Arguably, these Iranian-speaking groups were assimilated over time by the predominant Turkic-speaking part of the Xiongnu population".<ref name="Savelyev & Jeong, 2020">{{cite journal |last1=Savelyev |first1=Alexander |last2=Jeong |first2=Choongwoon |date=7 May 2020 |title=Early nomads of the Eastern Steppe and their tentative connections in the West |journal=[[Evolutionary Human Sciences]] |volume=2 |issue=E20 |doi=10.1017/ehs.2020.18 |pmc=7612788 |pmid=35663512 |s2cid=218935871 |hdl=21.11116/0000-0007-772B-4}} [[File:CC-BY_icon.svg|50x50px]] Text was copied from this source, which is available under a [[creativecommons:by/4.0/|Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License]]. "Such a distribution of Xiongnu words may be an indication that both Turkic and Eastern Iranian-speaking groups were present among the Xiongnu in the earlier period of their history. Etymological analysis shows that some crucial components in the Xiongnu political, economic and cultural package, including dairy pastoralism and elements of state organization, may have been imported by the Eastern Iranians. Arguably, these Iranian-speaking groups were assimilated over time by the predominant Turkic-speaking part of the Xiongnu population. ... The genetic profile of published Xiongnu individuals speaks against the Yeniseian hypothesis, assuming that modern Yeniseian speakers (i.e. Kets) are representative of the ancestry components in the historical Yeniseian speaking groups in southern Siberia. In contrast to the Iron Age populations listed in Table 2, Kets do not have the Iranian-related ancestry component but harbour a strong genetic affinity with Samoyedic-speaking neighbours, such as Selkups (Jeong et al., 2018, 2019)."</ref>