The Rashīdī History 8.1.5

8.1.5

As the Roman power declined, their own increased till, in the fifth century, they had extended it over the whole of northern Gaul. Here they adapted themselves to the conditions of their new territory, and gradually spread over the entire surface of what is now France. Their numbers were so small that they were overlaid by the large Gallic population, yet the new-comers succeeded eventually in imposing their name on the larger nation, and originated the names of France and French, which entirely displaced those of the ancient inhabitants. But Moghulistan was not the only name the new land of the Mongols acquired, for in many books of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we find both country and people alluded to under the name of Jatah—a name that, in translating, has been made to assume several unnecessary forms. Thus Pétis de la Croix, who put the Zafar-Náma into French, as far back as the end of the seventeenth century, transliterated the word Getah, and many subsequent authors followed his example. From the name mis-spelled in this way, much speculation arose among European writers, some of whom were able to derive from it the designation of the Jats of India, and others to recognise the Getæ, or Massagetæ, of classical authors. It is fair to say that most modern Orientalists have hesitated to accept these speculative conjectures, though the meaning and origin of the name, have been hidden from them.