Tocharian languages

Formerly spoken in

• Indo-European languages Tocharian language

Xto ( Tocharian A) txb ( Tocharian B)

The extinct Tocharian language (see also Tocharians ) belongs to the Indo-European language family and is in written documents mostly from the second half of the 1st millennium AD in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region handed.

Since 1890, about 7,000 manuscript fragments were mainly detected from the 5th to the 8th century, which are written to 90% translations and adaptations of Buddhist Sanskrit works and how the original texts in the northern Indian Brahmi syllabary. C14 - datings show that Tocharian texts have been written yet in the 12th century.

1908 succeeded the German language scholars Emil Sieg and Wilhelm Siegling first to read the manuscript texts and to identify their language as Indo-European. They proposed the name " Tocharian " before and differentiated the two language variants Tocharian A / East Tocharian and Tocharian B / West Tocharian. Only in Tocharian B are next to religious texts also use texts; there are records of monasteries, commercial documents and medical texts. This led to the theory, Tocharian A was at the time of emergence of the sources of a "dead " purely been a liturgical language, Tocharian B living everyday language.

According to another theory, the two variants spatially separate dialects, with East Tocharian was (A) spoken in the oasis of Turfan, West Tocharian (B ) is mainly expressed in the region of Kucha. ( On the connection between Tocharian Kushan and see below). It is still controversial whether East and West Tocharian than two dialects of the same language or as two separate languages ​​are to be designated.

The existence of a third variant of the Tocharian, Tocharian C called, is suspected as the source of loan words in Prakrit texts from the region around Loulan; but it is not certain whether this was really different from the used options.

The Tocharian forms a separate branch within the Indo-European language family and has no close relationship to the neighboring Indo-European languages ​​on him. Tocharian heard regarding the splitting of the Indo-European palatal sounds to the so-called Kentumsprachen: This is the name relevant for the distinction numeral hundred on Tocharian A and B känt or edge ( cf. Latin centum, Sanskrit Satam ). This discovery has contributed a lot to that previously used classification has lost its importance in Kentum and satem languages.

Phonology

The Tocharian differs from almost all other Indo-European languages ​​by the collapse of all plosives in the three voiceless plosives p, t and k It has the following consonants:

The Tocharian has the vowels ( in transcription): (. Altslaw about ь ) a, ā, ä, e, ē, i, o, ō, u

Grammar

Grammatically, the verb corresponds to the parent education and the personal endings clearly the Indo-European structure; the noun has traces of five inherited case - nominative, genitive, accusative, ablative and vocative - on. A number of other case probably added from neighboring linguistic influences out. There are at the Numbers next to singular and plural also a dual and parallel, the Westtocharische also still has a distributive, which is also called Plurativ.

The vocabulary has influences of the Iranian and Sanskrit (mainly through the acquisition of Buddhist terms ). Had less influence the Chinese language (weight designations and, a month ).

Word examples:

Denominations and ethnic mapping

The term " Tocharian " was proposed by Emil Sieg and Wilhelm Siegling following FWK Müller. It refers to a people that in Greek and Latin sources as Τόχαροι ( Tócharoi ) or Tochari is mentioned. It moved from the 2nd century BC on the upper reaches of the river Oxus ( Amu Darya ). This people is usually identified with the Yuezhi of Chinese sources, which had been driven from his previous settlement area in Gansu immediately east of Xinjiang. Subsequent written sources of their alleged descendants of Kushan are written in an Iranian language; beyond its original language is not known.

This ethnic association is, however, speculative. It is based on disclosure in a written in Old Turkish ( Uighur ) Buddhist text ( Maitrisimit ), after which this twgry from the Indian in the language, and from this Turkish in the ( old ) language ( Turkic Tili ) should be translated; since the same text otherwise present only in Tocharian A, the assumption was obvious that twgry just called that Tocharian A. The conclusion twgry was the language of the Τόχαροι or Tochari, but based solely on the phonetic similarity of the two names. As a proper noun of Tocharian A spokesman the name Arsi was identified.

This identification is WB Henning countered, who explained that with twgry the country was described by Bišbaliq - Qarašahr in Uighur texts and is inseparable from Tocharian. In addition, he read the origin of the first translator not as Nagaradeśa ( in the area of Kabul / Afghanistan ), but as Agnideśa ( Qarašahr, so the distribution area of Tocharian A).

In a bilingual source in Tocharian B and Sanskrit, the Sanskrit word tokharika apparently corresponds to the Tocharian B word kucanne. The latter word was brought to both the Kushan in connection like the oasis Kuča, home of Tocharian B in combination.

The name of the Yuezhi in reconstructed ancient Chinese phonetics was the same footing as the so-called Herodotus Königsskythen.

Given the confusing names was proposed, especially in the English literature, the terms Tocharian A and B by Turfanisch ( Turfanian ), which was derived from the oasis of Turfan, or Kuchisch ( Kuchean ), whose term was formed to Kucha to replace. However, since the assignment of the two variants to these two different regions is also speculative, this proposal has not been enforced and the confusion rather aggravated.

To differentiate the Yuezhi and the Τόχαροι ( Tócharoi ) or Tochari therefore been referred to as "real Tocharians " and the speakers of the Tocharian languages ​​as "false Tocharians ".

Relationship

In the traditional Indo-European itself been able to establish any hypothesis about close relative of the Tocharian.

However, all lexicostatistical and glottochronologischen work see the Tocharian as next of kin of the Hittite (or the Anatolian languages). The linguistics based on kinship statements in particular adopted common innovations compared to the other languages ​​and especially the predecessor language ( here Urindogermanisch ). Such an innovation could be the reconstruction of only these two languages ​​common word for ' wheel ' from Indo-European * h ₂ wrg ( ʰ ) -> toch. yerkwanto, Hitt. hurki represent.