Etymology
The most ancient reference to the etymology of the Karluk name is recorded in the Chinese dynastic history Book of Tang, which names Karluks as "Ko-lo-lu" and traces the name to the word "Karlik" (Turkic "snow piles"). "Kar" means "snow", as in the name of the Kar Sea. N. Aristov noted the river Kerlyk, a tributary of the Charysh River, proposing that the tribal name originated from the toponym with a Turkic meaning of "wild millet".
The reverse is equally possible; the toponyms were named after an ethnonym of the native people. Another version cites the homonym of the Karluk valley in Altai. The derivation of Karluk from Kara (Turkic "Great", "Northern", "black") is considered to be philologically impossible, and incompatible with the well-documented Arabic form of the ethnonym "Halluh".
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