A Central Asian people living near the frontier of Iran, since they brought with them several Irani loan words that have crept into general European usage (cf. "Ban" as a Balkan title for military governor). There is still an ethno-linguistic group called Avar within the Caucasus who may be related to them. They penetrated the Balkans in the wake of the Huns and established a Dark Ages empire within the western and central Balkans. Always challanged by Franks to the West as well as their own Slavonic subjects, their state lost cohesion in the latter 8th century, and was largely absorbed by Charlemagne at the beginning of the 9th.