kurgan

Where does the word "kurgan" come from? It comes from Turkic qorğan, passing through Russian before entering English (1800s).

Kurgan’s story begins in Turkic: qorğan meant “fortification, mound.” A fortress or earthwork; the Siberian city of Kurgan is named after a large mound nearby. By 1500s-1800s, the word had taken hold in Russian as kurgan. Used for the thousands of ancient burial mounds scattered across the Ukrainian and Russian steppe. It reached English by 1800s as kurgan. Marija Gimbutas's 1956 'Kurgan hypothesis' placed the early Indo-Europeans among the mound-builders of the Pontic steppe. Today, kurgan means a prehistoric burial mound of the Eurasian steppe.

1. Stage 1 · Turkic · medieval qorğan "fortification, mound", a fortress or earthwork; the Siberian city of Kurgan is named after a large mound nearby.
2. Stage 2 · Russian · 1500s-1800s kurgan "burial mound", used for the thousands of ancient burial mounds scattered across the Ukrainian and Russian steppe.
3. Stage 3 · English · 1800s kurgan "a steppe burial mound", Marija Gimbutas's 1956 'Kurgan hypothesis' placed the early Indo-Europeans among the mound-builders of the Pontic steppe.