ABSTRACT
As one of a number of groups to emerge out of the ancient and medieval world of Inner Asia, Turks appear, from the earliest mentions of their name in sixth-century Chinese sources, not to have had a particularly homogeneous identity. The preservation of at least three different myths of origin in the Chinese sources supports the idea that the people who came together under the ethnic name Türk (Tujue in Chinese) around this time were probably sizable and diverse enough that different traditions about their origins co-existed. The earliest historical texts that attest to the self-identification of the Türk Empire (552–744) as well as the names of many of their key leaders suggest that the process of state formation owed as much to native (‘tribal-nomadic’) traditions of the Altai region as to the close and necessary interchange with Chinese and Iranian elements. The latter was effected especially through the agency of Sogdian merchants and advisors who played a key role in the earliest instance of Turco-Iranian encounter and synthesis which would have a long history in the later medieval and early modern periods. It is undoubtedly a result of Sogdian cultural prominence on the Silk Roads that the Orkhon inscriptions of the early eighth century which constitute the earliest writings in the Turkic language were written in an adaptation of the Sogdian script which in turn was based on the Aramaic script.
