Comments (Meaning / History Only)

A footnote on page 10 of the book "Genghis Khan: The History of the World Conqueror" (written by Ala al-Din and Ata-Malik Juvayni) has something more to say about the etymology of Genghis. It acknowledges that 'Genghis Khan' means "universal ruler", but it also says the following: according to Ramstedt and Pelliot, 'chingiz' is a palatalized form of Turkic 'tengiz' ('tängiz') meaning "sea". Here is the link to the relevant page:http://books.google.nl/books?id=NWW7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10Modern Turkic languages have similar words that mean "sea", such as Turkish 'deniz' and Uzbek 'dengiz'. They all ultimately derive from Proto-Turkic *teŋiŕ.http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/denizNot all scholars are convinced about this etymological relation of Genghis-Tengiz, but it might be worth mentioning in the Genghis entry as 'possibly derived from'.
Actually Mongolians pronounce it "Chingis Khaan". Khaan means 'king' in Mongolian. Chingis means 'ocean' in Chinese, I think. Chinese people gave this name to Temujin when he became the king of Mongols. Temujin is the original name of Chingis Khaan. Many Mongolians and Turkish people have both these names: Chingis and Temujin.

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