Så här säger Oxford English dictionary (
http://www.oed.com) om Tatar:
Definition
A native inhabitant of the region of Central Asia extending eastward from the Caspian Sea, and formerly known as Independent and Chinese Tartary. First known in the West as applied to the mingled host of Mongols, Tartars, Turks, etc., which under the leadership of Jenghiz Khan (1202-1227) overran and devastated much of Asia and Eastern Europe; hence vaguely applied to the descendants of these now dwelling in Asia or Europe; more strictly and ethnologically, to any member of the Tâtar or Turkic branch of the Ural-Altaic or Turanian family, embracing the Turks, Cossacks, and Kirghiz Tartars. (In all these uses, but esp. the last, now often written Tatar, Tâtar.)
Etymologi
The original name (by which the people in question either called themselves or were designated by their neighbours) is generally held to have been, as in Persian, etc., Tātār, as to the language and meaning of which various conjectures have been put forth; but in Western Europe, they appear from the first as Tartari, Tartares, or Tartars, their name being apparently associated with Tartarus, hell. See the saying attributed by many historians to St. Louis of France a 1270, in Littré, s.v. Tartare, and a translation in quot. 1842 below. The form Tâtar and its derivatives are now often used in ethnological works in sense 1, but the long-established Tartar is always used in the derived senses, and is also held by some to have been the original name: see quot. 1885, and its context.
här är det åsyftade citatet:
1885 E. PEARS Fall Constantinople 15 note, I write Tartar instead of Tatar because I agree with Dr. Koelle that the first is the form which the Tartars themselves used until they came into contact with foreigners, like the Chinese and Russians, who had changed the form of the word.
Hellquist anger också att den ursprungliga formen var en utan r, "sedermera med ett av folketymologiska grunder inskjutet r" (Band 2, s. 1169; uppslagsord
tattare).
Ne:
"HIST.: sedan yngre fornsvensk tid; fornsv. tartar; ur persiska tatar med samma bet"
http://www.ne.se/jsp/search/article.jsp ... id=O357400
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Om man väljer att lita på de auktoriteter som finns, har man i detta läge samstämmiga uppgifter. I vilket fall som helst bör man, både på engelska och svenska, använda ordet
tatar och inte något annat.
