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NOGAI Increasing assimilation by Russian culture appears to be threatening
the survival of Islam among the Nogai. They are a scattered people in the Soviet
Union, numbering 65,000, although they may still be classified as Muslims of
the Volga. The Nogai are also referred to as the Nogailar, Nogaitsy and Mangkyt.
There are also small groups in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, for whom no
valid population estimates exist but who number probably no more than 50,000.
In the Soviet Union, there are Nogai in the Volga steppe region between the
Terek and Kuma rivers; others live in the Crimea near the town of Perekop. In
Romania, Nogai are found in the Dobruja.
The Nogai are found in two loose federations: the Kara-Nogai (Black Nogai)
and Ak-Nogai (White Nogai). They speak two dialects that differ widely from
each other but are both usually classified as Kipchak-Turkic. For a time both
dialects were classified as literary languages by the Soviet authorities, but eventually
a single literary Nogai was established, based on the Crimean Nogai dialect.
The use of Nogai is declining in the Soviet Union today.
The name "Nogai" is often linked with the historical name "Nogai," an
identification that is of dubious validity. Nogai ("dog" in Mongol) seems to be
derived from the Emir Nogai, a general of the Golden Horde at the end of the
thirteenth century. His territory, centered on the Ponto-Caspian steppes between
the Caspian and the Dobruja, acquired his name in the traditional fashion of
steppe nomads, who used a heroic name to identify an entire federation of loosely
united tribes. In further traditional fashion, whatever unity existed seems not to
have long survived the death of the Emir in 1300. Two large, loosely organized
groups emerged, the northern, "lesser" Nogai and the southern, "greater"
Nogai. It is out of this division of peoples that today's Nogai emerge. The
difficulty lies in identifying what role the later groups calling themselves Nogai
played in the earlier confederation. The "lesser" Nogai seem to have formed
the nucleus out of which the present-day Nogai of the Dobruja emerged, while
the "greater" Nogai seem to have been the antecedents of the more nomadic
Nogai of the Volga steppes. There is thus great diversity among the modern
Nogai, especially in terms of their dialects.