‘Middle Turkic’, a term which is often used by Turcologists to describe the Turkic languages of the 5th–8th/11th–14th centuries, comprised two branches of written languages: West (Kipchak and Oghuz) and East (Kh^wārazmī, used by the Golden Horde or Altın Ordu, and its close relative, Early Chaghatay). Chaghatay thus became the third Turkic literary language used by Muslims in Central Asia, after that of the Qarakhānids (written mainly in Arabic script, 4th–6th/10th–12th centuries), and that of the Kh^wārazmī Turks (Eckman…