Tocharian is one of the most obscure branches of the Indo-European language group. It consisted of two languages, Tocharian A (Turfanian, Arsi, or East Tocharian) and Tocharian B (Kuchean or West Tocharian). These languages were spoken roughly from the 6th century to 8th century centuries, before they became extinct, their speakers being assimilated by the expanding Uighur tribes. Both languages were once spoken in the Tarim Basin in Central Asia, now the Xinjiang province of China. The name of the language is taken from the Tocharians (Greek: Τόχαροι, "Tokharoi") of the Greek historians (Ptolemy VI, 11, 6). These are sometimes identified with the Yuezhi and the Kushans, and the term ''Tokharistan'' usually refers to 1st millennium Bactria. A Turkic text refers to the Turfanian language (Tocharian A) as ''twqry''. Interpretation is difficult, but F. W. K. Mller has associated this with the name of the Bactrian Tokharoi. ==Phonetics== Phonetically, Tocharian belonged to the "Centum" (pronounced [kentum]) branch of Indo-European languages, characterized by the merging of palato-velar consonants with plain velars (*k, *g, *gh), which is generally associated with Indo-European languages of the European area (Italic languages, Celtic languages, Germanic language, Greek language). In that sense, Tocharian seems to have been an isolate in the "Satem" phonetic world of Indo-European-speaking Asian populations. ==Writing system== Tocharian is documented in manuscript fragments, mostly from the 7th century and 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. [[Image:Tocharian.JPG|thumb|350px|Wooden plate with inscriptions in Tocharian. Kucha, China, 5th-8th century. Tokyo National Museum.]] Tocharian A and B are not intercomprehensible, and properly speaking, based on the tentative interpretation of ''twqry'' as related to ''Tokharoi'', only Tocharian A may be referred to as ''Tocharian'', while Tocharian B could be called ''Kuchean'' (its native name may have been ''kuśie''), but since their grammars are usually treated together, the terms A and B have proven useful. The common Proto-Tocharian language must precede the attested languages by several centuries, probably dating to the 1st millennium BC. The alphabet the Tocharians were using is derived from the North Indian Brahmi alphabetic syllabary and is referred to as ''slanting Brahmi''. It soon became apparent that a large proportion of the manuscripts were translations of known Buddhism works in Sanskrit and some of them were even bilingual, facilitating decipherment of the new language. Besides the Buddhist and Manichaeism religious texts, there were also monastery correspondence and accounts, commercial documents, caravan permits, and medical and magical texts, and one love poem. Many Tocharians embraced Manichaean duality or Buddhism. ==Cultural significance== [[Image:QizilDonors.jpg|thumb|300px|"Tocharian donors", with light hair and light eye color, dressed in Sassanian style, 6th century CE fresco, Qizil, Tarim Basin. These frescoes are associated with annotations in Tocharian and Sanskrit made by their painters.]] The existence of the Tocharian languages and alphabet was not even guessed at, until chance discoveries in the early 20th century brought to light fragments of manuscripts in a then-unknown alphabetic syllabary that turned out to belong to a hitherto unknown branch of the Indo-European family of languages, which has been named 'Tocharian'. The one Indo-European language that seems to hold the most similarity to Tocharian is the ancient Hittite language, which ceased to be spoken around 1000 BC. Tocharian has upset some theories about the relations of Indo-European languages and is revitalizing linguistic studies. The Tocharian languages are a major geographic exception to the usual pattern of Indo-European branches, being the only one that spread directly east from the theoretical Indo-European starting point in the Kurgan. Tocharian probably died out after 840, when the Uighurs were expelled from Mongolia by the Kirghiz, retreating to the Tarim Basin. This theory is supported by the discovery of translations of Tocharian texts into Uighur. During Uighur rule, the peoples mixed with the Uighurs to produce much of the modern population of Xinjiang. {| style="margin:0 auto;" class="toccolours" colspan="2" cellpadding="3" |- |align=center colspan=13 style="background:#ccf"| Tocharian vocabulary (sample) |- |- bgcolor="#cdcdcd" !Modern English !! Tocharian A !! Tocharian B !! Ancient Greek !! Latin !! Sanskrit !! *Proto-Indo-European |- valign="top" style="font-size: 90%;" | one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
hundred
father
mother
brother
sister
(horse)
cow
(voice)
| sas
wu
tre
śtwar
p
şk
şpt
okt
u
śk
knt
pācar
mācar
pracar
şar
yuk
ko
vak
| şe
wi
trai
śtwer
piś
şkas
şukt
okt
u
śak
kante
pācer
mācer
procer
şer
yakwe
keu
vek
| heis
dyo
treis
tessares
pente
hex
hepta
okto
ennea
deka
hekaton
pater
meter
(phrater)¹
(eor)¹
hippos
bous
(epos)¹
| ūnus
duo
trēs
quattuor
quīnque
sex
septem
octō
novem
decem
centum
pater
mater
frāter
soror
equus
bos
vox
| eka
dvi
tri
catur
paca
ṣaṣ
sapta
aṣṭa
nava
daśa
śata
pitṛ
mātṛ
bhrātṛ
svasṛ
aśva
go
vāc
| *oinos
*duwo
*treyes
*qwetwor
*penkwe
*sweks
*septm
*oktou
*newn
*dekm
*kmtom
*p@2ter
*mater
*bhrater
*swesor
*ekwo
*gwou
*wekw
|} ¹ = Cognate, with shifted meaning = Borrowed cognate, not native. = English meaning, unrelated word ==See also== *Language families and languages *Tocharians ==References== *"The Tarim Mummies", J.P. Mallory and Victor H.Mair, Thames&Hudson, ISBN 0500051011 ==External links == *[http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tocharian.htm Tocharian alphabet.] *[http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/idg/toch/tochbr.htm Tocharian alphabet] *[http://www.wordgumbo.com/ie/cmp/toch.htm Modern studies are developing a Tocharian dictionary.] *[http://www.oxuscom.com/eyawtkat.htm Mark Dickens, 'Everything you always wanted to know about Tocharian'.] Extinct languages Indo-European languages Languages of China Central Asia
What would Tocharian be called in Tocharian itself? User:Meursault2004 01:25, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC) According to J.P. Mallory: possibly "Kuchean" (''kuśie''), "of the kingdom of Kucha and Agni." The native name of Agni was possibly ''ārśi'', and one Toch A text has ''ārśi-kntwā'', "In the tongue of Arsi". (''ārśi'' is probably cognate to argenteus, i.e. "shining, brilliant"). According to D.Q.Adams, ''āki'' may be how the Tocharians may have referred to themselves, meaning "borderers, marchers" (c.f. Ukraine). User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 16:27, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC) :Thanks! User:Meursault2004 14:37, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC) ==What evidence for Tocharian-speaking Kushans?== The page as it now stands states that Tocharian was the language of the Kushan empire. But as far as I know: * the Kushans used the Bactrian language on their coins and inscriptions. [http://www.gengo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~hkum/bactrian.html] Bactrian is an Iranian languages, and thus not even in the same branch as Tocharian; the Bactrian language was also, apparently, in use till about the eighth century AD, thus contemporaneously with Tocharian; ::The Kushans first essentially used Greek on their coins (Vima Takto, Kujula Kadphises, Heraios) and progressively introduced language in the Kharoshthi script from the time of Vima Kadphises. User:PHG 22:58, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) :::True about the coins—the titles (though not the names, except perhaps Heraios) are clearly Greek: tyrranos, soter megas, etc. But there are other inscriptions in Bactrian in a variant of the Greek alphabet, e.g. [http://www.gengo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~hkum/images/bact_b03.jpg]. —User:Muke 05:38, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) * The earliest records of the Tocharian language are, even according to this article, from at least five hundred years ''after'' the time of the Kushan empire... ::By the time of the first known artifacts (6th century), Tocharian had already split in 3 groups with rather strong differenciations. The divergence point is roughly estimated to be anterior by about 1000 years (cf "The Tarim mummies" Mallory).User:PHG 22:58, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) :::All right, but where's the evidence that ''any'' language of Kushan was one of these branches of Tocharian? —User:Muke 05:38, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) I'm not going to remove it directly, on the off chance I'm wrong, but I think this is a misunderstanding—possibly by mixing up Kuchean and Kushan? I'm willing to concede that the Kushan rulers may have been ''ethnically'' Tocharian, but what evidence states that the Kushan empire was ''linguistically'' Tocharian? —User:Muke 17:23, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC) :User:Muke presents very sensible points. --User:Wetman 21:23, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC) As far as I know, the Kushan were a tribe of the Yuezhi, who lived in the Tarim Basin around 200 BCE (Chinese historical sources, the Shiji) before their migration to the south, and are often considered to be the same as the Tocharian, who were also of the Indo-European type and resided in the same geographical area. [http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:5OIHyT2a09cJ:web.mit.edu/smore/www/tocharian-paper.ps+Yuezhi+Tocharian&hl=ja], [http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/20/006.html]. I don't think the link is 100% confirmed, so it is necessary to keep slightly cautious language. User:PHG 22:04, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC) :definitely a mixup, good catch! It should be ''Kuchean'', not ''Kushan''. The two names may be related, and there may be an ethnic connection, but there is no evidence that would allow a link of the Kushan Empire with the Tocharian language, at all. User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 22:11, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC) Definitely not a mixup. There is a lot of research connecting the Kushans with the Tocharian language (Goggle "Kushan Tocharian" for a quick check + above references). Bactria was only the area of settlement of the Kushans for a century and a half (160-30 BCE) before they moved into India, so calling their language "Bactrian" seems disputable. User:PHG 23:02, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC) :I'm sorry, are we talking about "Kushans" as an ethnic group, or the Kushan Empire? The latter is impossible to connect with the Tocharian language, but I readily believe that "Kushan" and "Kuchean" is ultimately the same word, referring to the same ethnicity, and Tocharian was, in fact the language of the kingdom of Kucha. User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 06:36, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::In this case, the statement about the ''Kushan'' empire on this page should be replaced with an equivalent statement about the ''Kuchean'' one. If it later is shown that the Kushans, too, spoke Tocharian, it can be added additionally... —User:Muke 02:42, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) :::I do not know about the connection between Kushan and Kuchean, but Kushan or Kushan Empire are often connected with the Tocharian language (cf Narain A.K. "On the first Indo-Europeans: the Tokharian-Yuezhi and their Chinese homeland", also extensive discussion in "The Tarim mummies" by Mallory). Since most of these things are conjectures, maybe the phrase in the article could be more cautious, like "Tocharian ''may have been'' the language of the short-lived, yet influential Kushan empire."User:PHG 13:06, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) :ah, wait a minute, there is another mixup. The Kushan empire corresponds indeed to the people that the Greeks called ''Tokharoi''. These are, however, not identical with the speakers of what we now call the Tocharian languages. This was a misinterpretation a century ago, when these languages were discovered. We need to cleanly unravel the terminology involved. This is similar to the Hittites who did not call themselves, or their language, Hittite at all. User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 06:41, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::And in this case, perhaps the statements on the Kushan Empire that refer to "Tocharian languages" should be emended as well. Actually, if the timespans are any indication, it's just as likely that it was ''Kushans'' that went north and became ''Kucheans'', not the other way around—the Kucha article says it may have been ruled by kings from India, no? But I can't press this, as my studies are in linguistics, not ethnography. —User:Muke 02:42, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) :::The Kushans originated from the Tarim Basin, where they were known to the Chinese as the Yuezhi (the name for the larger tribal group of which the Kushans were a part). They left the Tarim Basin in the 2nd century BCE as they were chased by the Xiongnu. After they built an empire in India in the 1st-3rd century, they expanded north again and occupied the western part of the Tarim Basin, including Kucha.User:PHG 13:06, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::::Kuchean refers to Kucha, the town in the Tarim Basin/Taklamakan. The Kushans may have been of the same ethnic stock as the Kucheans, they may be the ''Tokharoi'' of Greek sources, but they were not Tocharians in the linguistic sense, since the language of the Kushan Empire was the Bactrian language. The Kushan rulers (Kanishka) ''adopted'' the Bactrian language, and it is not impossible that their ''former'' language was Tocharian, but it is not attested, afaik. Kings before Kanishka seem to have used Greek, though (c.f. Sapadbizes). It is therefore misleading to say, "the Kushans were Tocharians" leading to the false statement that the language of the Kushan Empire was Tocharian. I think it would be correct to say that the Kushan ''rulers were of Saka and Tocharian stock, ruling over an essentially Iranian kingdom. It would be interesting if the names of the rulers have Tocharian etymologies, but I no nothing to indicate that they do. User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 14:20, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) :::::Hi Dab. Do you have sources for "The Kushans adopted the Bactrian language"?. Professor Williams-Sims indeed says that "A crucial moment in the history of this language was the decision of the Kushan ruler Kanishka to adopt Bactrian as the language of his coinage. After the first issues of Kanishka, Greek disappears from the coinage once and for all, to be replaced by Bactrian." However, the reign of Kanishka is actually around 120 CE, a long time after the Kushans had moved their center of power to the Indian subcontinent (around 20 CE). Isn't hard to believe that the Kushans, a succesfull conquering people, would abandon their own original "Yuezhi" language from the Tarim Basin (probably Tocharian), and adopt the Bactrian language, more than a century after they had essentially left their temporary settlement in Bactria to move to India? I would be interested if somebody has references to a study showing that the language on later Kushan coins is indeed equivalent to Bactrian, and if there are some proof that the Kushan abandoned their original tongue for the Bactrian language. User:PHG 22:51, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::::::I do think the claim is based on the coins. They used Greek first and Bactrian later. I don't think anyone can say what language they spoke in their homes, privately. But my impression is that they were "foreign rulers" who had to adopt the local language for their everyday dealings. I don't know of any texts of the time, but they would invariably have been either in Greek or in Bactrian, and the Tocharian language is not attested, not even in fragments, until centuries later. User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 07:27, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::::::fr-Wiki has a pretty good summary, :fr:Tokhariens#Les_Tokhariens_s.27appelaient-ils_vraiment_ainsi_.3F, I think if we paraphrase that, we're good (or at least better off than now) User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 08:09, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) == Word list == Maybe the word list should include a sixth column, featuring reconstructed PIE. : I added it now. I had to use the HTML encoding for the first asterisk, since it messed up the table. I used http://www.bartleby.com/61/IEroots.html and http:/www.etymonline.com for sources. Feel free to edit, if you think the words given are way too sloppy and imprecise. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Yuezhi" == Speaking of Hittite == I don't have much Tocharian vocab in my notes, and I'm not sure if these samples are A or B dialect. (Note some of the similarities of some words here with Hittite; also a couple curious parallels with Telugu, a Dravidian language, possibly a coincidence) :Earth - Tikam (Hittite ''Tekan'') :Water - Wer, War (Hittite ''Watar''; Thracian ''Warios'') :Air - Eprer (Hittite ''Paras'') :Wisdom - Knanmune (cf. Telugu ''Gnyanmem'') :Joy - Suk (cf. Telugu ''Suqem'', Sanskrit ''Suqa'') :Life - Shol :Love (n) - Tunk :Work (n) - Wles (These are some words I have collected samples of in as many languages as possible, for comparative purposes.) User:Codex Sinaiticus 16:30, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC) * By the way, if anyone is interested, I have just added a similar list of most of these same words in Saka Scythian, over at Talk:Scythian_languages. It should be apparent just from these small samples, that Scythian (Saka) and Tocharian are quite unrelated. User:Codex Sinaiticus 05:17, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) ==Judging dead people by appearance is not always accurate== mtDNA of Scytho-Siberian skeleton Human Biology 76.1 (2004) 109-125 Genetic Analysis of a Scytho-Siberian Skeleton and Its Implications for Ancient Central Asian Migrations Franois-X. Ricaut et al. Abstract The excavation of a frozen grave on the Kizil site (dated to be 2500 years old) in the Altai Republic (Central Asia) revealed a skeleton belonging to the Scytho-Siberian population. DNA was extracted from a bone sample and analyzed by autosomal STRs (short tandem repeats) and by sequencing the hypervariable region I (HV1) of the mitochondrial DNA. The resulting STR profile, mitochondrial haplotype, and haplogroup were compared with data from modern Eurasian and northern native American populations and were found only in European populations historically influenced by ancient nomadic tribes of Central Asia. ... The mutations at nucleotide position 16147 C→A, 16172 T→C, 16223 C→T, 16248 C→T, and 16355 C→T correspond to substitutions characteristic of the Eurasian haplogroup N1a (Richards et al. 2000). The haplotype comparison with the mtDNA sequences of 8534 individuals showed that this sequence was not found in any other population. ... The N1a haplogroup was not observed among the native American, east Asian, Siberian, Central Asian, and western European populations. The geographic distribution of haplogroup N1a is restricted to regions neighboring the Eurasian steppe zone. Its frequency is very low, less than 1.5% (Table 6), in the populations located in the western and southwestern areas of the Eurasian steppe. Haplogroup N1a is, however, more frequent in the populations of the southeastern region of the Eurasian steppe, as in Iran (but only 12 individuals were studied) and southeastern India (Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh territories). More precisely, in India haplogroup N1a is absent from the Dravidic-speaking population and is present in only five Indo-Aryan-speaking individuals, four of whom belonged to the Havik group, an upper Brahman caste (Mountain et al. 1995). ... The absence of the Eurasian haplogroup N1a in the 490 modern individuals of Central Asia (Shields et al. 1993; Kolman et al. 1996; Comas et al. 1998; Derenko et al. 2000; Yao et al. 2000; Yao, Nie et al. 2002) suggests changes in the genetic structure of Central Asian populations, probably as a result of Asian population movements to the west during the past 2500 years. AAPA 2004 East of Eden, west of Cathay: An investigation of Bronze Age interactions along the Great Silk Road. B.E. Hemphill. The Great Silk Road has long been known as a conduit for contacts between East and West. Until recently, these interactions were believed to date no earlier than the second century B.C. However, recent discoveries in the Tarim Basin of Xinjiang (western China) suggest that initial contact may have occurred during the first half of the second millennium B.C. The site of Yanbulaq has been offered as empirical evidence for direct physical contact between Eastern and Western populations, due to architectural, agricultural, and metallurgical practices like those from the West, ceramic vessels like those from the East, and human remains identified as encompassing both Europoid and Mongoloid physical types. Eight cranial measurements from 30 Aeneolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and modern samples, encompassing 1505 adults from the Russian steppe, China, Central Asia, Iran, Tibet, Nepal and the Indus Valley were compared to test whether those inhabitants of Yanbulaq identified as Europoid and Mongoloid exhibit closest phenetic affinities to Russian steppe and Chinese samples, respectively. Differences between samples were compared with Mahalanobis generalized distance (d2), and patterns of phenetic affinity were assessed with cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling, and principal coordinates analysis. Results indicate that, despite identification as Europoid and Mongoloid, inhabitants of Yanbulaq exhibit closest affinities to one another. No one recovered from Yanbulaq exhibits affinity to Russian steppe samples. Rather, the people of Yanbulaq possess closest affinities to other Bronze Age Tarim Basin dwellers, intermediate affinities to residents of the Indus Valley, and only distant affinities to Chinese and Tibetan samples
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Tocharian_languages
Tocharian_languages
Tocharian languages
Tocharian is one of the most obscure branches of the Indo-European language group. It consisted of two languages, Tocharian A (Turfanian, Arsi, or East Tocharian) and Tocharian B (Kuchean or West Tocharian). These languages were spoken roughly from the 6th century to 8th century centuries, before they became extinct, their speakers being assimilated by the expanding Uighur tribes. Both languages were once spoken in the Tarim Basin in Central Asia, now the Xinjiang province of China. The name of the language is taken from the Tocharians (Greek: Τόχαροι, "Tokharoi") of the Greek historians (Ptolemy VI, 11, 6). These are sometimes identified with the Yuezhi and the Kushans, and the term ''Tokharistan'' usually refers to 1st millennium Bactria. A Turkic text refers to the Turfanian language (Tocharian A) as ''twqry''. Interpretation is difficult, but F. W. K. Mller has associated this with the name of the Bactrian Tokharoi. ==Phonetics== Phonetically, Tocharian belonged to the "Centum" (pronounced [kentum]) branch of Indo-European languages, characterized by the merging of palato-velar consonants with plain velars (*k, *g, *gh), which is generally associated with Indo-European languages of the European area (Italic languages, Celtic languages, Germanic language, Greek language). In that sense, Tocharian seems to have been an isolate in the "Satem" phonetic world of Indo-European-speaking Asian populations. ==Writing system== Tocharian is documented in manuscript fragments, mostly from the 7th century and 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. [[Image:Tocharian.JPG|thumb|350px|Wooden plate with inscriptions in Tocharian. Kucha, China, 5th-8th century. Tokyo National Museum.]] Tocharian A and B are not intercomprehensible, and properly speaking, based on the tentative interpretation of ''twqry'' as related to ''Tokharoi'', only Tocharian A may be referred to as ''Tocharian'', while Tocharian B could be called ''Kuchean'' (its native name may have been ''kuśie''), but since their grammars are usually treated together, the terms A and B have proven useful. The common Proto-Tocharian language must precede the attested languages by several centuries, probably dating to the 1st millennium BC. The alphabet the Tocharians were using is derived from the North Indian Brahmi alphabetic syllabary and is referred to as ''slanting Brahmi''. It soon became apparent that a large proportion of the manuscripts were translations of known Buddhism works in Sanskrit and some of them were even bilingual, facilitating decipherment of the new language. Besides the Buddhist and Manichaeism religious texts, there were also monastery correspondence and accounts, commercial documents, caravan permits, and medical and magical texts, and one love poem. Many Tocharians embraced Manichaean duality or Buddhism. ==Cultural significance== [[Image:QizilDonors.jpg|thumb|300px|"Tocharian donors", with light hair and light eye color, dressed in Sassanian style, 6th century CE fresco, Qizil, Tarim Basin. These frescoes are associated with annotations in Tocharian and Sanskrit made by their painters.]] The existence of the Tocharian languages and alphabet was not even guessed at, until chance discoveries in the early 20th century brought to light fragments of manuscripts in a then-unknown alphabetic syllabary that turned out to belong to a hitherto unknown branch of the Indo-European family of languages, which has been named 'Tocharian'. The one Indo-European language that seems to hold the most similarity to Tocharian is the ancient Hittite language, which ceased to be spoken around 1000 BC. Tocharian has upset some theories about the relations of Indo-European languages and is revitalizing linguistic studies. The Tocharian languages are a major geographic exception to the usual pattern of Indo-European branches, being the only one that spread directly east from the theoretical Indo-European starting point in the Kurgan. Tocharian probably died out after 840, when the Uighurs were expelled from Mongolia by the Kirghiz, retreating to the Tarim Basin. This theory is supported by the discovery of translations of Tocharian texts into Uighur. During Uighur rule, the peoples mixed with the Uighurs to produce much of the modern population of Xinjiang. {| style="margin:0 auto;" class="toccolours" colspan="2" cellpadding="3" |- |align=center colspan=13 style="background:#ccf"| Tocharian vocabulary (sample) |- |- bgcolor="#cdcdcd" !Modern English !! Tocharian A !! Tocharian B !! Ancient Greek !! Latin !! Sanskrit !! *Proto-Indo-European |- valign="top" style="font-size: 90%;" | one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
hundred
father
mother
brother
sister
(horse)
cow
(voice)
| sas
wu
tre
śtwar
p
şk
şpt
okt
u
śk
knt
pācar
mācar
pracar
şar
yuk
ko
vak
| şe
wi
trai
śtwer
piś
şkas
şukt
okt
u
śak
kante
pācer
mācer
procer
şer
yakwe
keu
vek
| heis
dyo
treis
tessares
pente
hex
hepta
okto
ennea
deka
hekaton
pater
meter
(phrater)¹
(eor)¹
hippos
bous
(epos)¹
| ūnus
duo
trēs
quattuor
quīnque
sex
septem
octō
novem
decem
centum
pater
mater
frāter
soror
equus
bos
vox
| eka
dvi
tri
catur
paca
ṣaṣ
sapta
aṣṭa
nava
daśa
śata
pitṛ
mātṛ
bhrātṛ
svasṛ
aśva
go
vāc
| *oinos
*duwo
*treyes
*qwetwor
*penkwe
*sweks
*septm
*oktou
*newn
*dekm
*kmtom
*p@2ter
*mater
*bhrater
*swesor
*ekwo
*gwou
*wekw
|} ¹ = Cognate, with shifted meaning = Borrowed cognate, not native. = English meaning, unrelated word ==See also== *Language families and languages *Tocharians ==References== *"The Tarim Mummies", J.P. Mallory and Victor H.Mair, Thames&Hudson, ISBN 0500051011 ==External links == *[http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tocharian.htm Tocharian alphabet.] *[http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/idg/toch/tochbr.htm Tocharian alphabet] *[http://www.wordgumbo.com/ie/cmp/toch.htm Modern studies are developing a Tocharian dictionary.] *[http://www.oxuscom.com/eyawtkat.htm Mark Dickens, 'Everything you always wanted to know about Tocharian'.] Extinct languages Indo-European languages Languages of China Central Asia
Tocharian languages
What would Tocharian be called in Tocharian itself? User:Meursault2004 01:25, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC) According to J.P. Mallory: possibly "Kuchean" (''kuśie''), "of the kingdom of Kucha and Agni." The native name of Agni was possibly ''ārśi'', and one Toch A text has ''ārśi-kntwā'', "In the tongue of Arsi". (''ārśi'' is probably cognate to argenteus, i.e. "shining, brilliant"). According to D.Q.Adams, ''āki'' may be how the Tocharians may have referred to themselves, meaning "borderers, marchers" (c.f. Ukraine). User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 16:27, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC) :Thanks! User:Meursault2004 14:37, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC) ==What evidence for Tocharian-speaking Kushans?== The page as it now stands states that Tocharian was the language of the Kushan empire. But as far as I know: * the Kushans used the Bactrian language on their coins and inscriptions. [http://www.gengo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~hkum/bactrian.html] Bactrian is an Iranian languages, and thus not even in the same branch as Tocharian; the Bactrian language was also, apparently, in use till about the eighth century AD, thus contemporaneously with Tocharian; ::The Kushans first essentially used Greek on their coins (Vima Takto, Kujula Kadphises, Heraios) and progressively introduced language in the Kharoshthi script from the time of Vima Kadphises. User:PHG 22:58, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) :::True about the coins—the titles (though not the names, except perhaps Heraios) are clearly Greek: tyrranos, soter megas, etc. But there are other inscriptions in Bactrian in a variant of the Greek alphabet, e.g. [http://www.gengo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~hkum/images/bact_b03.jpg]. —User:Muke 05:38, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) * The earliest records of the Tocharian language are, even according to this article, from at least five hundred years ''after'' the time of the Kushan empire... ::By the time of the first known artifacts (6th century), Tocharian had already split in 3 groups with rather strong differenciations. The divergence point is roughly estimated to be anterior by about 1000 years (cf "The Tarim mummies" Mallory).User:PHG 22:58, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) :::All right, but where's the evidence that ''any'' language of Kushan was one of these branches of Tocharian? —User:Muke 05:38, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) I'm not going to remove it directly, on the off chance I'm wrong, but I think this is a misunderstanding—possibly by mixing up Kuchean and Kushan? I'm willing to concede that the Kushan rulers may have been ''ethnically'' Tocharian, but what evidence states that the Kushan empire was ''linguistically'' Tocharian? —User:Muke 17:23, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC) :User:Muke presents very sensible points. --User:Wetman 21:23, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC) As far as I know, the Kushan were a tribe of the Yuezhi, who lived in the Tarim Basin around 200 BCE (Chinese historical sources, the Shiji) before their migration to the south, and are often considered to be the same as the Tocharian, who were also of the Indo-European type and resided in the same geographical area. [http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:5OIHyT2a09cJ:web.mit.edu/smore/www/tocharian-paper.ps+Yuezhi+Tocharian&hl=ja], [http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/20/006.html]. I don't think the link is 100% confirmed, so it is necessary to keep slightly cautious language. User:PHG 22:04, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC) :definitely a mixup, good catch! It should be ''Kuchean'', not ''Kushan''. The two names may be related, and there may be an ethnic connection, but there is no evidence that would allow a link of the Kushan Empire with the Tocharian language, at all. User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 22:11, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC) Definitely not a mixup. There is a lot of research connecting the Kushans with the Tocharian language (Goggle "Kushan Tocharian" for a quick check + above references). Bactria was only the area of settlement of the Kushans for a century and a half (160-30 BCE) before they moved into India, so calling their language "Bactrian" seems disputable. User:PHG 23:02, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC) :I'm sorry, are we talking about "Kushans" as an ethnic group, or the Kushan Empire? The latter is impossible to connect with the Tocharian language, but I readily believe that "Kushan" and "Kuchean" is ultimately the same word, referring to the same ethnicity, and Tocharian was, in fact the language of the kingdom of Kucha. User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 06:36, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::In this case, the statement about the ''Kushan'' empire on this page should be replaced with an equivalent statement about the ''Kuchean'' one. If it later is shown that the Kushans, too, spoke Tocharian, it can be added additionally... —User:Muke 02:42, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) :::I do not know about the connection between Kushan and Kuchean, but Kushan or Kushan Empire are often connected with the Tocharian language (cf Narain A.K. "On the first Indo-Europeans: the Tokharian-Yuezhi and their Chinese homeland", also extensive discussion in "The Tarim mummies" by Mallory). Since most of these things are conjectures, maybe the phrase in the article could be more cautious, like "Tocharian ''may have been'' the language of the short-lived, yet influential Kushan empire."User:PHG 13:06, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) :ah, wait a minute, there is another mixup. The Kushan empire corresponds indeed to the people that the Greeks called ''Tokharoi''. These are, however, not identical with the speakers of what we now call the Tocharian languages. This was a misinterpretation a century ago, when these languages were discovered. We need to cleanly unravel the terminology involved. This is similar to the Hittites who did not call themselves, or their language, Hittite at all. User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 06:41, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::And in this case, perhaps the statements on the Kushan Empire that refer to "Tocharian languages" should be emended as well. Actually, if the timespans are any indication, it's just as likely that it was ''Kushans'' that went north and became ''Kucheans'', not the other way around—the Kucha article says it may have been ruled by kings from India, no? But I can't press this, as my studies are in linguistics, not ethnography. —User:Muke 02:42, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) :::The Kushans originated from the Tarim Basin, where they were known to the Chinese as the Yuezhi (the name for the larger tribal group of which the Kushans were a part). They left the Tarim Basin in the 2nd century BCE as they were chased by the Xiongnu. After they built an empire in India in the 1st-3rd century, they expanded north again and occupied the western part of the Tarim Basin, including Kucha.User:PHG 13:06, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::::Kuchean refers to Kucha, the town in the Tarim Basin/Taklamakan. The Kushans may have been of the same ethnic stock as the Kucheans, they may be the ''Tokharoi'' of Greek sources, but they were not Tocharians in the linguistic sense, since the language of the Kushan Empire was the Bactrian language. The Kushan rulers (Kanishka) ''adopted'' the Bactrian language, and it is not impossible that their ''former'' language was Tocharian, but it is not attested, afaik. Kings before Kanishka seem to have used Greek, though (c.f. Sapadbizes). It is therefore misleading to say, "the Kushans were Tocharians" leading to the false statement that the language of the Kushan Empire was Tocharian. I think it would be correct to say that the Kushan ''rulers were of Saka and Tocharian stock, ruling over an essentially Iranian kingdom. It would be interesting if the names of the rulers have Tocharian etymologies, but I no nothing to indicate that they do. User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 14:20, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) :::::Hi Dab. Do you have sources for "The Kushans adopted the Bactrian language"?. Professor Williams-Sims indeed says that "A crucial moment in the history of this language was the decision of the Kushan ruler Kanishka to adopt Bactrian as the language of his coinage. After the first issues of Kanishka, Greek disappears from the coinage once and for all, to be replaced by Bactrian." However, the reign of Kanishka is actually around 120 CE, a long time after the Kushans had moved their center of power to the Indian subcontinent (around 20 CE). Isn't hard to believe that the Kushans, a succesfull conquering people, would abandon their own original "Yuezhi" language from the Tarim Basin (probably Tocharian), and adopt the Bactrian language, more than a century after they had essentially left their temporary settlement in Bactria to move to India? I would be interested if somebody has references to a study showing that the language on later Kushan coins is indeed equivalent to Bactrian, and if there are some proof that the Kushan abandoned their original tongue for the Bactrian language. User:PHG 22:51, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::::::I do think the claim is based on the coins. They used Greek first and Bactrian later. I don't think anyone can say what language they spoke in their homes, privately. But my impression is that they were "foreign rulers" who had to adopt the local language for their everyday dealings. I don't know of any texts of the time, but they would invariably have been either in Greek or in Bactrian, and the Tocharian language is not attested, not even in fragments, until centuries later. User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 07:27, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::::::fr-Wiki has a pretty good summary, :fr:Tokhariens#Les_Tokhariens_s.27appelaient-ils_vraiment_ainsi_.3F, I think if we paraphrase that, we're good (or at least better off than now) User:Dbachmann User_talk:Dbachmann 08:09, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) == Word list == Maybe the word list should include a sixth column, featuring reconstructed PIE. : I added it now. I had to use the HTML encoding for the first asterisk, since it messed up the table. I used http://www.bartleby.com/61/IEroots.html and http:/www.etymonline.com for sources. Feel free to edit, if you think the words given are way too sloppy and imprecise. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Yuezhi" == Speaking of Hittite == I don't have much Tocharian vocab in my notes, and I'm not sure if these samples are A or B dialect. (Note some of the similarities of some words here with Hittite; also a couple curious parallels with Telugu, a Dravidian language, possibly a coincidence) :Earth - Tikam (Hittite ''Tekan'') :Water - Wer, War (Hittite ''Watar''; Thracian ''Warios'') :Air - Eprer (Hittite ''Paras'') :Wisdom - Knanmune (cf. Telugu ''Gnyanmem'') :Joy - Suk (cf. Telugu ''Suqem'', Sanskrit ''Suqa'') :Life - Shol :Love (n) - Tunk :Work (n) - Wles (These are some words I have collected samples of in as many languages as possible, for comparative purposes.) User:Codex Sinaiticus 16:30, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC) * By the way, if anyone is interested, I have just added a similar list of most of these same words in Saka Scythian, over at Talk:Scythian_languages. It should be apparent just from these small samples, that Scythian (Saka) and Tocharian are quite unrelated. User:Codex Sinaiticus 05:17, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC) ==Judging dead people by appearance is not always accurate== mtDNA of Scytho-Siberian skeleton Human Biology 76.1 (2004) 109-125 Genetic Analysis of a Scytho-Siberian Skeleton and Its Implications for Ancient Central Asian Migrations Franois-X. Ricaut et al. Abstract The excavation of a frozen grave on the Kizil site (dated to be 2500 years old) in the Altai Republic (Central Asia) revealed a skeleton belonging to the Scytho-Siberian population. DNA was extracted from a bone sample and analyzed by autosomal STRs (short tandem repeats) and by sequencing the hypervariable region I (HV1) of the mitochondrial DNA. The resulting STR profile, mitochondrial haplotype, and haplogroup were compared with data from modern Eurasian and northern native American populations and were found only in European populations historically influenced by ancient nomadic tribes of Central Asia. ... The mutations at nucleotide position 16147 C→A, 16172 T→C, 16223 C→T, 16248 C→T, and 16355 C→T correspond to substitutions characteristic of the Eurasian haplogroup N1a (Richards et al. 2000). The haplotype comparison with the mtDNA sequences of 8534 individuals showed that this sequence was not found in any other population. ... The N1a haplogroup was not observed among the native American, east Asian, Siberian, Central Asian, and western European populations. The geographic distribution of haplogroup N1a is restricted to regions neighboring the Eurasian steppe zone. Its frequency is very low, less than 1.5% (Table 6), in the populations located in the western and southwestern areas of the Eurasian steppe. Haplogroup N1a is, however, more frequent in the populations of the southeastern region of the Eurasian steppe, as in Iran (but only 12 individuals were studied) and southeastern India (Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh territories). More precisely, in India haplogroup N1a is absent from the Dravidic-speaking population and is present in only five Indo-Aryan-speaking individuals, four of whom belonged to the Havik group, an upper Brahman caste (Mountain et al. 1995). ... The absence of the Eurasian haplogroup N1a in the 490 modern individuals of Central Asia (Shields et al. 1993; Kolman et al. 1996; Comas et al. 1998; Derenko et al. 2000; Yao et al. 2000; Yao, Nie et al. 2002) suggests changes in the genetic structure of Central Asian populations, probably as a result of Asian population movements to the west during the past 2500 years. AAPA 2004 East of Eden, west of Cathay: An investigation of Bronze Age interactions along the Great Silk Road. B.E. Hemphill. The Great Silk Road has long been known as a conduit for contacts between East and West. Until recently, these interactions were believed to date no earlier than the second century B.C. However, recent discoveries in the Tarim Basin of Xinjiang (western China) suggest that initial contact may have occurred during the first half of the second millennium B.C. The site of Yanbulaq has been offered as empirical evidence for direct physical contact between Eastern and Western populations, due to architectural, agricultural, and metallurgical practices like those from the West, ceramic vessels like those from the East, and human remains identified as encompassing both Europoid and Mongoloid physical types. Eight cranial measurements from 30 Aeneolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and modern samples, encompassing 1505 adults from the Russian steppe, China, Central Asia, Iran, Tibet, Nepal and the Indus Valley were compared to test whether those inhabitants of Yanbulaq identified as Europoid and Mongoloid exhibit closest phenetic affinities to Russian steppe and Chinese samples, respectively. Differences between samples were compared with Mahalanobis generalized distance (d2), and patterns of phenetic affinity were assessed with cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling, and principal coordinates analysis. Results indicate that, despite identification as Europoid and Mongoloid, inhabitants of Yanbulaq exhibit closest affinities to one another. No one recovered from Yanbulaq exhibits affinity to Russian steppe samples. Rather, the people of Yanbulaq possess closest affinities to other Bronze Age Tarim Basin dwellers, intermediate affinities to residents of the Indus Valley, and only distant affinities to Chinese and Tibetan samples
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
T
TA | TB | TC | TD | TE | TF | TG | TH | TI | TJ | TK | TL | TŁ | TM | TN | TO | TP | TR | TS | TU | TW | TX | TY | TZ |Words begining with Tocharian_languages:
Tocharian_languages
Tocharian_languages
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