Global Information Lookup Global Information

Tocharian languages information


Tocharian
EthnicityTocharians
Geographic
distribution
Tarim Basin
Extinct9th century AD
Linguistic classificationIndo-European
  • Tocharian
Proto-languageProto-Tocharian
Subdivisions
  • Agnean (Tocharian A)
  • Kuchean (Tocharian B)
  • Kroränian (Tocharian C)[1]
Glottologtokh1241
Tocharian languages overview map.svg
  directly attested (Tocharian A and B)
  loanword traces (Tocharian C)

The Tocharian (sometimes Tokharian) languages (/təˈkɛəriən/ or /təˈkɑːriən/), also known as Arśi-Kuči, Agnean-Kuchean or Kuchean-Agnean, are an extinct branch of the Indo-European language family spoken by inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, the Tocharians.[2] The languages are known from manuscripts dating from the 5th to the 8th century AD, which were found in oasis cities on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (now part of Xinjiang in Northwest China) and the Lop Desert. The discovery of these languages in the early 20th century contradicted the formerly prevalent idea of an east–west division of the Indo-European language family as centum and satem languages, and prompted reinvigorated study of the Indo-European family. Scholars studying these manuscripts in the early 20th century identified their authors with the Tokharoi, a name used in ancient sources for people of Bactria (Tokharistan). Although this identification is now believed to be mistaken, "Tocharian" remains the usual term for these languages.[3][2]

The discovered manuscripts record two closely related languages, called Tocharian A (also East Tocharian, Agnean or Turfanian) and Tocharian B (West Tocharian or Kuchean). The subject matter of the texts suggests that Tocharian A was more archaic and used as a Buddhist liturgical language, while Tocharian B was more actively spoken in the entire area from Turfan in the east to Tumshuq in the west. A body of loanwords and names found in Prakrit documents from the Lop Nor basin have been dubbed Tocharian C (Kroränian). A claimed find of ten Tocharian C texts written in Kharoṣṭhī script has been discredited.[4]

The oldest extant manuscripts in Tocharian B are now dated to the 5th or even late 4th century AD, making it a language of Late Antiquity contemporary with Gothic, Classical Armenian, and Primitive Irish.[5]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference mallory-expedition was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Diringer, David (1953) [First published 1948]. The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind (Second and revised ed.). London: Hutchinson's Scientific and Technical Publications. pp. 347–348.
  3. ^ Walter, Mariko Namba (1998). "Tokharian Buddhism in Kucha: Buddhism of Indo-European Centum Speakers in Chinese Turkestan before the 10th Century C.E." (PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers. 85: 2–4.
  4. ^ Adams, Douglas Q. (25 September 2019). "'Tocharian C' Again: The Plot Thickens and the Mystery Deepens". Language Log. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
  5. ^ Kim, Ronald I. (2018). "One Hundred Years of Re-Reconstruction: Hittite, Tocharian, and the Continuing Revision of Proto-Indo-European". In Rieken, Elisabeth (ed.). 100 Jahre Entzifferung des Hethitischen. Morphosyntaktische Kategorien in Sprachgeschichte und Forschung. Akten der Arbeitstagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft vom 21. bis 23. September 2015 in Marburg. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. p. 170 (footnote 44). Retrieved 13 September 2019.

and 18 Related for: Tocharian languages information

Request time (Page generated in 0.8464 seconds.)

Tocharian languages

Last Update:

mistaken, "Tocharian" remains the usual term for these languages. The discovered manuscripts record two closely related languages, called Tocharian A (also...

Word Count : 7254

Tocharians

Last Update:

The Tocharians, or Tokharians (US: /toʊˈkɛəriən/ or /toʊˈkɑːriən/; UK: /tɒˈkɑːriən/), were speakers of Tocharian languages, Indo-European languages known...

Word Count : 7682

Tocharian

Last Update:

Tocharian languages, two (or perhaps three) Indo-European languages spoken by those people Tocharian script, the script used to write the Tocharian languages...

Word Count : 77

Tocharian script

Last Update:

called these languages "Tocharian". This naming has remained, although the names Agnean and Kuchean have been proposed as a replacement. Tocharian A and B...

Word Count : 1191

Tarim mummies

Last Update:

are frequently associated with the presence of the Indo-European Tocharian languages in the Tarim Basin, although the evidence is not totally conclusive...

Word Count : 5305

Kuchean language

Last Update:

Kuchean (also known as Tocharian B or West Tocharian) was a Western member of Tocharian branch of Indo-European languages, extinct from ninth century....

Word Count : 1123

Kucha

Last Update:

Indo-Iranian languages, the Tocharian languages (as they became known by modern scholars) belong to the centum group of Indo-European languages, which are otherwise...

Word Count : 4021

Bactrian language

Last Update:

the Tarim "Tocharian" languages were "centum" languages within the Indo-European family, whereas Bactrian was an Iranian, thus "satem" language. Bactrian...

Word Count : 2115

Gutian language

Last Update:

different endings of the king names resembled case endings in the Tocharian languages, a branch of Indo-European known from texts found in the Tarim Basin...

Word Count : 618

Centum and satem languages

Last Update:

Tocharian B kante. In the Germanic languages, the /k/ developed regularly by Grimm's law to become /h/, as in Old English hund(red). Centum languages...

Word Count : 5809

Yuezhi

Last Update:

the Tarim Basin, such as the Tarim mummies and texts recording the Tocharian languages, the evidence for any such link is purely circumstantial. Three pre-Han...

Word Count : 8449

Saka language

Last Update:

documents. Many Prakrit terms were borrowed from Khotanese into the Tocharian languages. The two known dialects of Saka are associated with a movement of...

Word Count : 1406

Western Regions

Last Update:

whereas the people of Kucha, Turpan and Loulan Kingdom spoke the Tocharian languages. Xiyu tudi renwu lüe (Brief Records of the Lands and Peoples in the...

Word Count : 730

Karasahr

Last Update:

قاراشەھەر, romanized: Qarasheher), which was originally known, in the Tocharian languages as Ārśi (or Arshi), Qarašähär, or Agni or the Chinese derivative...

Word Count : 2313

Perlative case

Last Update:

Australian Aboriginal languages such as Kuku-Yalanji and Kaurna, as well as in Aymara, Inuktitut, and the extinct Tocharian languages. Prolative case Article...

Word Count : 103

Manichaean script

Last Update:

found in the Turpan region in the Iranian languages aforementioned, Old Uyghur, and the Tocharian languages. In the 19th century, German expeditions discovered...

Word Count : 790

Languages of Asia

Last Update:

languages such as Hittite of Anatolia and Tocharian of (Chinese) Turkestan. A number of smaller, but important and separately distinguished language families...

Word Count : 931

Anatolian languages

Last Update:

The Anatolian languages are an extinct branch of Indo-European languages that were spoken in Anatolia, part of present-day Turkey. The best known Anatolian...

Word Count : 4505

PDF Search Engine © AllGlobal.net