Inner Asia has a range of meanings among different researchers and in different countries.
Denis Sinor defined Inner Asia broadly (synonymous with Central Eurasia) as the homelands of the
Altaic peoples (
Mongolian,
Turkic, and
Manchu-Tungus) and the
Uralic peoples (
Finno-Ugrian and
Samoyed).
Russian "
Tsentral'naia Aziia" (Inner, literally "Central," Asia) denotes Mongolia and Tibet. Thus, our term "Inner Asia" corresponds to Russian "Sredniaia i Tsentral'naia Aziia" (however, under the influence of Western languages since 1991, Russian "Tsentral'niaia Aziia" is now sometimes used to mean "
Central Asia" or "Inner Asia" in general).
German makes a distinction between "
Zentralasien", meaning Mongolia, Tibet,
Eastern Turkistan, and Manchu lands, and "Mittelasien," meaning the republics of Central Asia. The less common term "
Innerasien" corresponds to our sense of "Inner Asia."
In
French, "
Asie Centrale" can mean both "Central Asia" and "Inner Asia"; Mongolia and Tibet by themselves are termed "
Haute Asie" (High Asia).
The terms meaning "Inner Asia" in the languages of Inner Asian peoples are all modern loan translations of European, mostly Russian, terms.
"Central Asia" normally denotes the western, Islamic part of Inner Asia, but it is sometimes used as a synonym for Inner Asia.
The Library of Congress subject classification system is organized in this way, so that readers in academic libraries who are looking for materials on both Inner Asia and Central Asia should search under the subject heading "Asia, Central."
See also
