The language of the Xiongnu has been the subject of the most varied hypotheses based on the few words, mainly titles or names of persons, which have been preserved in the Chinese sources. Here the eminent Iranologist H.W. Bailey breaks down the etymology and relates it to an East Iranian language of the Saka type.
H.W. Bailey, Indo-Scythian Studies: being Khotanese Texts, VII, Cambridge, 1985, pp. 25-41.