Tocharian_languages

Tocharian languages

Tocharian or Tokharian is one of the branches of the Indo-European language family. The name of the language is taken from people known to the Greek historians (Ptolemy VI, 11, 6) as the Tocharians (Τόχαροι, "Tokharoi"). These are sometimes identified with the Yuezhi and the Kushans, while 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. Müller has associated this with the name of the Bactrian Tokharoi.

Tocharian 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 sixth to ninth centuries; before they became extinct, their speakers were absorbed into the expanding Uyghur tribes. Both languages were once spoken in the Tarim Basin in Central Asia, now the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China.

Phonemes

Phonetically, Tocharian is a "centum" Indo-European language, characterized by the merging of palato-velar consonants with plain velars (*k, *g, *gh), which is generally associated with Indo-European languages of the West European area (Italic, Celtic, Germanic). In that sense, Tocharian, along with Greek and the Anatolian languages, seems to have been an isolate in the "Satem" phonetic world of Indo-European-speaking East European and Asian populations.

Vowels

(transcribed <ā>) (transcribed <ä>), /ə/ (transcribed )

Diphthongs (Tocharian B only): /əi/ (transcribed ), /oi/ (transcribed ), /əu/ (transcribed ), /au/ (transcribed <āu>)

Consonants

Stops: (transcribed )

Affricates: /ts/

Fricatives: (transcribed <ś>), /ʂ/ (transcribed )

Approximants: (transcribed [y])

Trills: /r/

Nasals: (transcribed word-finally), /ɲ/ (transcribed <ñ>)

Lateral approximants: (transcribed )

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 ), as opposed to the higher-frequency sibilant /ɕ/ (like Mandarin Pinyin spelling ).

Writing system

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 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 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. It must be noted however that the lack of a secular corpus in Tocharian A is by no means definite, due to the fragmentary preservation of Tocharian texts in general.

The alphabet the Tocharians were using is derived from the Brahmi alphabetic syllabary (abugida) and is referred to as slanting Brahmi. 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, and medical and magical texts, and one love poem. Many Tocharians embraced Manichaean duality or Buddhism.

In 1998, Chinese linguist Ji Xianlin published a translation and analysis of fragments of a Tocharian Maitreyasamiti-Nataka discovered in 1974 in Yanqi.,,

Morphology

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 "teacher" is declined as follows:

Case	Suffix	Singular	Plural
Nominative
Genitive
Oblique
Instrumental	-yo
Perlative	-ā
Comitative	-aśśäl
Allative	-ac
Ablative
Locative

Cultural significance

The existence of the Tocharian languages and alphabet was not even guessed at, 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 .

This language, now known as Tocharian, turned out to belong to a hitherto unknown branch of the Indo-European family of languages. 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, however, 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.

Comparison to other Indo-European languages

Modern English	Tocharian A	Tocharian B	Irish	Latin	Ancient Greek	Vedic Sanskrit	Proto-Indo-European
Tocharian vocabulary (sample)
one	sas	ṣe	aon	ūnus	heis	eka	oynos, sems
two	wu	wi	dó	duo	duo	dva	*d(u)woh₁
three	tre	trai	trí	trēs	treis	tri	*treyes
four	śtwar	śtwer	ceathair	quattuor	téssares	catur	*k^wetwores
five	päñ	piś	cúig	quīnque	pente	pañca	*penk^we
six	ṣäk	ṣkas	sé	sex	héx	ṣáṣ	*(s)weḱs
seven	ṣpät	ṣukt	seacht	septem	heptá	saptá	*septm
eight	okät	okt	hocht	octō	októ	aṣṭa	*oḱtoh₃
nine	ñu	ñu	naoi	novem	ennéa	náva	*newn
ten	śäk	śak	deich	decem	deka	dáśa	*deḱm
hundred	känt	kante	cead	centum	hekatón	śatám	*ḱmtom
father	pācar	pācer	athair	pater	patēr	pitár-	*ph₂tēr
mother	mācar	mācer	máthair	mater	mētér	mātar-	*meh₂tēr
brother	pracar	procer	bráthair	frāter	phrátēr	bhrātar-	*bhreh₂tēr
sister	ṣar	ṣer	siúr	soror	éor	svasṛ-	*swesor
(horse)	yuk	yakwe	each	equus	híppos	áśva-	*eḱwo-
cow	ko	keu	bó	bos	boûs	gáus	*g^wow-
(voice)	vak	vek	focal	vōx	épos	vāk	*wek^w-
name	ñom	ñem	ainm	nōmen	ónoma	nāman-	*nomn
to milk	malk	mälk	bligh	mulgēre	amélgein	marjati	*melg-

References

" Tokharian Pratimoksa Fragment Sylvain Levi". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 1913, pp. 109-120.
Mallory, J.P. and Victor H. Mair. The Tarim Mummies. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000. (ISBN 0-500-05101-1)
Schmalsteig, William R. " Tokharian and Baltic" Lituanus. v. 20, no. 3, 1974.
Krause, Wolfgang and Werner Thomas. Tocharisches Elemantarbuch. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1960.
Malzahn, Melanie (Ed.). Instrumenta Tocharica. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 2007. (ISBN 978-3-8253-5299-8)