In the 13th century, most of Central Asia, from China and Mongolia to the Caspian Sea, was under the rule of the Mongol Empire and its leader Genghis Khan. However, like the Roman Empire before it, such a large political unit proved impossible to sustain, and the Empire gradually broke down into more localized states, merging with the indigenous cultures of the peoples that were already there. In Central Asia, the Mongol language and the Turkic language were both used, though the only works of literature we have today from that period are written in one of the Turkic dialects, most notably Persian; the famous work (part prose, part poem) titled “The Secret History of the Mongols” which was written in the early Uighur script, was later lost and only survives today as a translation that was made into Chinese in the 14th century.

Some of the words we use in English come from this melding of languages and cultures, and can be traced back to their Turkic roots:

horde
From the Mongolian word ordu, this originally meant “camp.”

kaftan (also spelled caftan)
A long robe or tunic, worn with or without a belt, and originally a man’s garment. In the 1950s the caftan became a popular woman’s dress style.

kiosk
A small pavilion that is open on one or more sides, often situated in a garden and used as a place for relaxation and meditation. Our modern usage, referring to a place where goods and/or services can be obtained, dates from the late 1800s.

lackey
This word comes from the Turkish ulak, meaning “courier,” and refers to someone who runs errands for another person. A lackey is someone who is at one’s beck and call.

yurt
Like horde, this is one of the few words in English that can be traced back to the Mongolian languages of the time of Genghis Khan. Yurt means “dwelling” in the original (ger) and refers to the wood-framed, felt-covered portable houses still used today by herders on the steppes.

Kublai Khan, Genghis Khan’s grandson, was well known to the Europeans because of the travel and trade along the Silk Road to China, and Marco Polo brought word back of the elaborate and beautiful buildings of Kublai Khan’s capital city in what is now Shangdu, China. The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was inspired by these descriptions, and by the stories that later travelers brought back of the wonders of the East. In 1797 he wrote the poem “Kubla Khan” in which he refers to the city of Shangdu, which he called Xanadu:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

You can find the full text of Coleridge’s poem here.