Uzbek

The Uzbeks began as Kipchak-speaking nomads of the eastern Golden Horde, roaming the Desht-i Kipchaq and Zhetysu pastures along the Chu River. The name spread after Khan Ozbeg converted the Golden Horde to Islam in the early fourteenth century. In 1337 these clans pastured in what is now central and eastern Kazakhstan, later counted as the ninety-two Uzbek tribes.

Early in the fifteenth century Abu'l-Khayr Khan united them into the Uzbek Khanate, taking Urganj in 1431. After his death, dissident clans became the Kazakhs, while his grandson Muhammad Shaybani led loyal tribes south. Shaybani invaded Transoxiana in 1501, taking Samarkand in 1505 and Herat in 1507, and founded the Khanate of Bukhara.

The conquerors gradually adopted the Karluk Chagatai tongue of the settled towns and merged with their inhabitants, forging the Uzbek people of Bukhara, Khiva and, from the early eighteenth century, Kokand.