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The Tuhsis were a medieval Turkic-speaking tribe, who lived alongside the Chigil, Yagma, and other tribes, in Zhetysu and today southern Kazakhstan.[1] Tuhsi were also considered remnants of the Türgesh people.[2][3] Turkologist Yury Zuev noted a nation (國) named 觸水昆 (Mand. Chùshuǐkūn < *t͡ɕʰɨok̚-ɕˠiuɪX-kuən) in Jiu Tangshu,[4][5] so he reconstructed 觸水昆 as *Tuhsi-kun; however, Nurlan Kenzheakhmet noted that Tongdian's authors[6] transcribed the same ethnonym as 觸木昆 (Mand. Chùmùkūn < *t͡ɕʰɨok̚-muk̚-kuən), the name of a Duolu Turk tribe, also transcribed as 處木昆 (Chǔmùkūn < t͡ɕʰɨʌX-muk̚-kuən).[7] Even so, it's unclear whether the ethnonym Tuhsi is of Turkic origin.[8] Tuhsi may be connected to Cuman clan Toqsoba, if Toqsoba did not derive from Common Turkic toquz "nine" and oba "clan".[a][10] Hungarian orientalist Karoly Czeglédy compares the name Tuhsi to that of a medieval Eastern Iranian-speaking Alano-As[11][12] tribe Duχs-Aṣ, located in the North Caucasusbyibn Rustah, and proposes that Tuhsis had been of Iranian-speaking As origins.[13][b]
By the 11-century, Tuhsis led a nomadic lifestyle amongst the Turkic peoples and on the steppe, possessed a Turkic culture, and their language belonged to the Turkic language family. According to Karakhanid lexicographer Mahmud of Kashgar, contemporary Tuhsis were Turkic-speaking monoglots; after carefully analyzing linguistic materials collected from Tuhsi dialect, he praised the Tuhsi Turkic dialect, among others, for being "pure" and "most correct", both in terms of accent and vocabulary.[15]
