Tatars (Kimek)
The Tatar was one of seven Turkophone original tribes that made up the Kimek confederation, along with the Īmī, Īmāk, Bayāndur, Khifchāq, Nilqāz and Ajlad. The Tatār were the third in order. The Kimek tribes originated in the Central Asian steppes, and had migrated to the territory of present-day Kazakhstan. The Tatar, as part of the Kimek, were mentioned by Gardizi.
According to R. Fakhroutdinov, these Tatars 'were a branch of the ancient Tatar population that went to the west after the collapse of the Eastern Turkic kaganate'.. Mahmud al-Kashgari noted that the Tatars are bilingual, speaking in Türkic alongside their own language. Golden proposed that Tatars were Turkified Mongolic speakers.
