kurgan.

There are two principal sources considered for the word Kurgan: * the Old Turkic [script needed] (korgan, “refuge, fortress”) and Chagatai قورغان (qurğan, “fortress, rampart, major shrine”). Both are considered as a sound shifting of Old Turkic [script needed] (korığan), from the word stem korı- ("to protect, defend") with the Old Turkic Suffix -gan forming proper names, a form which has been reintroduced into Turkish during World War II as korugan (“fortification”). * the Old Turkic word stem qur-, of which kurgan is a derivation,* “EWT 302, EDT 643, ЭСТЯ 6, 156-157. There is also a derivative *Kur-gan (see e.g. TMN 3, 542-543), which is sometimes hard to distinguish from *Kōrɨ-kan (see *Kōrɨ-).” is rooted in the reconstructed Proto-Turkic *Kur- ("to erect (a building), to establish"). This word "kurgan" is sometimes hard to distinguish from Proto-Turkic form *Kōrɨ-kan ("fence, protection").