Karakalpak (also Kara Kalpak; Qara-Qalpaq; and other variants.)
A region and ethnic group situated southeast of the Aral Sea, around the delta of the Amu Darya River, and east of the Kyzyl Kum Desert. Speak Karakalpak language.
The word derives for the Turkic for "Black Hat", a reference to the historic national dress of this tribe. It is not clear whether the Karakalpaks of today, a Turkic-speaking people (their dialect is of the same subgroup of Turkish as the Cuman language), are connected to the "Karakalpaks" (in Russian, "Cherniye Klobuki") of the Middle Ages, a group of Turkic tribes who served as border guards for various Russian principalities.
They may have broken off from the Kazakh Horde sometime in the 1600's. An alternative theory is that they are an offshoot of the Nogai Horde.
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