| Tocharian languages | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spoken in | Tarim Basin in Central Asia | |||
| Extinct | 9th century AD | |||
| Language family |
Indo-European
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| Writing system | Tocharian script | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | either: xto – Tocharian A txb – Tocharian B |
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Tocharian (or Tokharian) is an extinct branch of the Indo-European language family. The name comes from Greek (Ptolemy VI, 11, 6, 2nd cent. AD) Tócharoi (Ancient Greek: Τόχαροι), itself taken from Indo-Iranian (cf. Old Persian tuxāri-, Khotanese ttahvāra, and Sanskrit tukhāra). The Tocharians are sometimes identified with the Yuezhi and the Kushans. The term Tokharistan usually refers to 1st millennium Bactria, which the Kushans ruled. A Turkic text refers to the Turfanian language (Tocharian A) as toxrï (twγry). Interpretation is difficult, but Friedrich W. K. Müller has associated this with the name of the Bactrian Tokharoi.
Two branches of Tocharian are known from documents dating from the 3rd to 9th centuries AD:
Both languages were once spoken in the Tarim Basin in Chinese Turkestan, now known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. They became extinct when their speakers were either absorbed or exterminated by the expanding Uyghur tribes.
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Phonetically, Tocharian is a "centum" Indo-European language, meaning that it merges the palatovelar consonants (*ḱ, *ǵ, *ǵʰ) of Proto Indo-European with the plain velars (*k, *g, *gʰ). Centum languages are mostly found in western and southern Europe (Greek, Italic, Celtic, Germanic) and the number of isoglosses between Tocharian and several Western European languages is stunning, considering the geographical separation and total lack of cultural contact. In that sense, Tocharian (to some extent like the Greek and the Anatolian languages) seems to have been an isolate in the "satem" (i.e. palatovelar to sibilant) phonetic regions of Indo-European-speaking populations. The discovery of Tocharian contributed to doubts that Proto-Indo-European had originally split into western and eastern branches.[1][2]
Note that the above consonantal values are largely based on the writing of Sanskrit/Prakrit loanwords. A retroflex value for /ʂ/ is particularly suspect as it is derived from palatalized /s/; it was probably a low-frequency sibilant /ʃ/ (like German spelling sch), as opposed to the higher-frequency sibilant /ɕ/ (like Mandarin Pinyin spelling x).
Tocharian is documented in manuscript fragments, mostly from the 8th century (with a few earlier ones) that were written on palm leaves, wooden tablets and Chinese paper, preserved by the extremely dry climate of the Tarim Basin. Samples of the language have been discovered at sites in Kucha and Karasahr, including many mural inscriptions.
Tocharian A and B are not intercomprehensible. Properly speaking, based on the tentative interpretation of toxrï as related to Tocharoi, only Tocharian A may be referred to as Tocharian, while Tocharian B could be called Kuchean (its native name may have been kuśiññe), but since their grammars are usually treated together in scholarly works, the terms A and B have proven useful. A common Proto-Tocharian language must precede the attested languages by several centuries, probably dating to the 1st millennium BC. Given the small geographical range of and the lack of secular texts in Tocharian A, it might alternatively have been a liturgical language, the relationship between the two being similar to that between Classical Chinese and Mandarin. However, the lack of a secular corpus in Tocharian A is by no means definite, due to the fragmentary preservation of Tocharian texts in general.
Most of the script in Tocharian was a derivative of the Brahmi alphabetic syllabary (abugida) and is referred to as slanting Brahmi, However a smaller amount was written in the Manichaean script in which Manichaean texts were recorded.[3][4] It soon became apparent that a large proportion of the manuscripts were translations of known Buddhist works in Sanskrit and some of them were even bilingual, facilitating decipherment of the new language. Besides the Buddhist and Manichaean religious texts, there were also monastery correspondence and accounts, commercial documents, caravan permits, medical and magical texts, and one love poem.
In 1998, Chinese linguist Ji Xianlin published a translation and analysis of fragments of a Tocharian Maitreyasamiti-Nataka discovered in 1974 in Yanqi.[5][6][7]
Tocharian has completely re-worked the nominal declension system of Proto-Indo-European. The only cases inherited from the proto-language are nominative, genitive, and accusative; in Tocharian the old accusative is known as the oblique case. In addition to these three cases, however, each Tocharian language has six cases formed by the addition of an invariant suffix to the oblique case. For example, the Tocharian A word käṣṣi "teacher" is declined as follows:
| Case | Suffix | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | käṣṣi | käṣṣiñ | |
| Genitive | käṣṣiyāp | käṣṣiśśi | |
| Oblique | käṣṣiṃ | käṣṣis | |
| Instrumental | -yo | käṣṣinyo | käṣṣisyo |
| Perlative | -ā | käṣṣinā | käṣṣisā |
| Comitative | -aśśäl | käṣṣinaśśäl | käṣṣisaśśäl |
| Allative | -ac | käṣṣinac | käṣṣisac |
| Ablative | -äṣ | käṣṣinäṣ | käṣṣisäṣ |
| Locative | -aṃ | käṣṣinaṃ | käṣṣisaṃ |
The existence of the Tocharian languages and alphabet was not even suspected until archaeological exploration of the Tarim basin by Aurel Stein in the early 20th century brought to light fragments of manuscripts in an unknown language.[8]
This language, now known as Tocharian, turned out to belong to a hitherto unknown branch of Indo-European. The discovery of Tocharian has upset some theories about the relations of Indo-European languages and revitalized their study.
The Tocharian languages are a major geographic exception to the usual pattern of Centum branches, being the only one that spread directly east from the theoretical Indo-European starting point in the Pontic steppe. One theory, following the "wave" theory of Johannes Schmidt, suggests that the Satem isogloss represents a linguistic innovation within the heart of the Proto-Indo-European home range, which would thus see the distribution of the Centum languages as simply representing linguistic conservatism along the eastern and western peripheries of the Proto-Indo-European home range.
Tocharian probably died out after 840, when the Uyghurs were expelled from Mongolia by the Kyrgyz, retreating to the Tarim Basin. This theory is supported by the discovery of translations of Tocharian texts into Uyghur. During Uyghur rule, the peoples mixed with the Uyghurs to produce much of the modern population of what is now Xinjiang.
The Afanasevo culture is a strong candidate for being the earliest attested representative for speakers of the Tocharian languages.
| Tocharian vocabulary (sample) | ||||||||||||
| Tocharian A | Tocharian B | Ancient Greek | Sanskrit | Latin | Gothic | Old Irish | Proto-Indo-European | English | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| sas | ṣe | heĩs, hen | sakṛ́t | semel | simle | samail | PToch *sems ← *sḗm | one/once (cf. simple) | ||||
| wu | wi | duo | dvā́ | duo | twái | dá | *duoh₁ | two | ||||
| tre | trai | treis | tráyas | trēs | þreis | trí | *tréi̯es | three | ||||
| śtwar | śtwer | téssares | catvā́ras, catúras | quattuor | fidwōr | cethair | *kʷetu̯óres | four | ||||
| päñ | piś | pénte | páñca | quīnque | fimf | cóic | *pénkʷe | five | ||||
| ṣäk | ṣkas | héx | ṣáṣ | sex | saihs | sé | *su̯éḱs | six | ||||
| ṣpät | ṣukt | heptá | saptá | septem | sibun | secht | *septḿ̥ | seven | ||||
| okät | okt | oktṓ | aṣṭáu, aṣṭá | octō | ahtau | ocht | *h₃eḱtéh₃(u) | eight | ||||
| ñu | ñu | ennéa | náva | novem | niun | noí | *h₁néun̥ | nine | ||||
| śäk | śak | déka | dáśa | decem | taihun | deich | *déḱm̥t | ten | ||||
| känt | kante | hekatón | śatām | centum | hund | cét | *ḱm̥tóm | hundred | ||||
| pācar | pācer | patḗr | pitā́ | pater | fadar | athair | *ph₂tḗr | father | ||||
| mācar | mācer | mḗtēr | mātā́ | mater | mōdar | máthair | *méh₂tēr | mother | ||||
| pracar | procer | phrā́tēr[* 1] | bhrātar- | frāter | brōþar | bráthair | *bʰréh₂tēr | brother | ||||
| ṣar | ṣer | héor[* 1] | svásar- | soror | swistar | siur | *swésōr | sister | ||||
| yuk | yakwe | híppos | áśva- | equus | aiƕs | ech | *h₁éḱʷos | (horse)[* 2] | ||||
| ko | keu | boũs | gaúṣ | bōs[* 3] | (OE cū) | bó | *gʷeh₃us ~ *gʷh₃eum̥ | cow | ||||
| vak | vek | épos[* 1] | vāk | vōx | (Du gewag) | foccul[* 1] | *u̯ṓkʷs | (voice)[* 3] | ||||
| ñom | ñem | ónoma | nāman- | nōmen | namō | ainmm | *h₃néh₃-mn | name | ||||
| mālkā | mālkant | amélgein | — | mulgēre | miluks | bligid (MIr) | *h₂melǵ-ei̯e | to milk | ||||