Tatar (; ; Middle Mongol: ) was one of the five major tribal confederations (khanlig) in the Mongolian Plateau in the 12th century. Name and origin The name "Tatar" was first transliterated in the Book of Song as 大檀 Dàtán (MC: *daH-dan) and 檀檀 Tántán (MC: *dan-dan) as another name for the Rourans, who were of Proto-Mongolic Donghu ancestry. The Book of Song and Book of Liang connected Rourans to the earlier Xiongnu while the Book of Wei traced the Rouran's origins back to the Donghu. Xu proposed that "the main body of the Rouran were of Xiongnu origin" and Rourans' descendants, namely Da Shiwei (aka Tatars), contained Turkic-speaking Xiongnu elements to a great extent. Even so, the Xiongnu's language is still unknown, and Chinese historians routinely ascribed Xiongnu origins to various nomadic groups, yet such ascriptions do not necessarily indicate the subjects' exact origins: for examples, Xiongnu ancestry was ascribed to Turkic-speaking Göktürks and Tiele as well as Para-Mongolic-speaking Kumo Xi and Khitans. The first precise transcription of the Tatar ethnonym was written in Turkic on the Orkhon inscriptions, specifically, the Kul Tigin (CE 732) and Bilge Khagan (CE 735) monuments as and referring to the Tatar confederation. In historiography, the Proto-Mongolian Shiwei tribes are usually identified with Dada or Thirty Tatars, whereas the sources often refer to the actual Tatars as Nine Tatars, in which nine large clans are traditionally distinguished. Ethnic and linguistic affiliations The Toquz-Tatars and Otuz-Tatars were often proposed to be Mongolic speakers. In contrast, Soviet and Russian orientalist argues that the Toquz Tatars and Otuz Tatars were instead Turkic-speaking, as the Persian-authored 10th century geographical treatise Hudud al-Alam stated that Tatars were part of the Toghuzghuz, whom Minorsky identified with the Qocho kingdom in eastern Tianshan, founded by Uyghur refugees following the collapse of the Uyghur Khaganate, whose founders belonged to the Toquz Oghuz confederation. At the same time, Kyzlasov is against the identification of the Tatars of the Orkhon inscriptions with Dada from Chinese sources. Writing in the 11th century, Kara-Khanid scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari included Tatars among the Turkic peoples. He located the Tatars west of the Kyrgyzes. When listing the 20 Turkic tribes, Kashgari also included non-Turks such as Kumo Xi, Khitans, Tanguts, and Chinese (the last one rendered as < Karakhanid *Tawğaç). In the extant manuscript's text, the Tatars are located west of the Kyrgyzes; however, the manuscript's world-map shows that