Oil Quest in Taklamakan (Xinjiang,China) discussion

[metinorsel]

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Oil Quest in Taklamakan (Xinjiang,China)

The Taklamakan (also Taklimakan) is a desert of Central Asia, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. It is known as the largest sand-only desert in the world. Some references fancifully state that Taklamakan means "if you go in, you won't come out"; others state that it means "Desert of Death" or "Place of No Return". "Makan" is a Turkic word meaning "place", of Arabic origin: the word may mean something different if treated as original pre-Islamic native Turkic.



Today it's a geant oil quest...



http://www.cctv.com/english/special/C14808/20051020/101485.shtml

[metinorsel]

'Takla' means 'turn, roll' (head over heels) in Turkish, and 'kan' means 'blood'. 'ma' is the negation prefix, however, it's Arabic. I don't know if 'ma' meant anything in old Turkish, but 'Takla-ma-kan' might have meant something like 'No live return'.