seconded by Hungarian researcher András Róna-Tas, who finds it plausible "that we are dealing with a royal family and clan of Saka origin". Findley also said that the term böri, used to identify the ruler's retinue as 'wolves', probably also derived from one of the Iranian languages. H. W. Haussig and S. G. Kljyashtorny suggest an association between the name and the compound "kindred of Ashin" ahşaẽna (in Old Persian). This is so even in East Turkestan; then the desired form would be in the Sogdian xs' yn' k (-әhšēnē) "blue, dark"; Khotan-Saka (Brahmi) āşşeiņa (-āşşena) "blue", where a long -ā- emerged as development ahş-> āşş-; in Tocharian A āśna- "blue, dark" (from Khotan-Saka and Sogdian). There is textual support for either of these versions in the Göktürk Orkhon inscriptions, in which the Göktürks are described as the "Blue Turks"; being descended from the marriage between Blue Sky and the Brown Earth. According to Kuastornyj, the perfect translation of "Ashina" as an Indo-European word meaning "blue" indicates that the Türks of the First Turkic Khaganate period were aware of the non-Türkic origin of the name "Ashina", and of the dual ethnic origin of the early Türks. In the view of Louis Bazin, this knowledge was being suppressed in the Second Turkic Khaganate period by the Türkic nationalist policies of Bilge Qaghan. The name "Ashina" was recorded in ancient Muslim chronicles in these forms: Aś(i)nas (al-Tabari), Ānsa (Hudud al-'Alam), Śaba (Ibn Khordadbeh), Śana, Śaya (Al-Masudi).P. B. Golden, "Irano-Turcica: The Khazar sacral kingship revisited," in Acta Orientalia Hungarica 60:2 (2007) p. 165, 172, n. 33 Alternative etymologies Based on Chinese sources' testament that the Ashina, upon becoming the head of Göktürks, exhibited a tuğ banner with a wolf head over their gate in reminiscence of its origins,Zhoushu, vol. 50: quote: "旗纛之上，施金狼頭。侍衞之士，謂之附離，夏言亦狼也。蓋本狼生，志不忘舊。" the name "Ashina" is translated by some researchers as "wolf", cf. Tuoba 叱奴 *čino, Middle Mongol činua, Khalkha čono.Boodberg, 1936, p. 182 However, Golden contends that derivation from Mongolic is mistaken. On the Khor-Asgat inscription, the form Ašїnas is written and is similar to the Sogdian form Ašinas from the Bugut and Karabalgasun steles and the Arabic forms Ašinās and Ašnās from medieval Islamic sources. Chinese editors usually avoided the coda /-s/. Takashi Ōsawa hypothtically derives the family name Ašїnas from their tribal ancestress's name *A-ši-na and the final element -as, which he explains as a plural suffix (similar to the