Indo-European Languages
Tocharian Family
Carol Justus and Jonathan Slocum
Tocharian manuscripts dating to the 8th century AD were found at sites surrounding the Tarim Basin west of China and north of Tibet early in the twentieth century. Most of these manuscripts related to Buddhism. The language of these texts proved to an Indo-European language, one however that was quite separate from the neighboring Iranian and Indic languages.
As the manuscripts were deciphered, it turned out that they contained two different Tocharian languages. The older one in the east, called Agnean (or Turfanian), was designated Tocharian A; the younger one in the west (which was also attested in the east), called Kuchean, was designated Tocharian B.
Recent discoveries of Caucasian mummies dating to as early as the second millennium BC in areas known to have been inhabited later by Tocharian speakers have occasioned much controversy and speculation.
Recommended Reading
- Adams, Douglas Q. 1984. "The Position of Tocharian among the Other Indo-European Languages," Journal of the American Oriental Society 104, 3: pp. 395-402.
- Barber, Elizabeth J.W. 1999. The Mummies of Ürümchi. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
- Mallory, J.P. & Douglas Q. Adams, eds. 1997. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London and Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. (As the name suggests, a large encyclopedia; cf. "Tocharian Languages" article)
See Online:
- Indo-European Languages: Evolution and Locale Maps;
- Tocharian Online (language lessons);
- Web Links to Tocharian resources (incl. languages & texts).