Tocharian

enUK

To·char·i·an

also To·khar·i·an T0245400 (tō-kâr′ē-ən, -kär′-)n.1. A member of a people living in Chinese Turkistan until about the tenth century.2. Either of the two Indo-European languages of this people, called Tocharian A and Tocharian B, recorded from the seventh to the ninth century.3. A branch of the Indo-European language family consisting of the two Tocharian languages.

[From Latin Tocharī, a people of ancient Central Asia (originally identified with the Tocharians by modern scholars after the first discovery of Tocharian texts), from Greek Tokharoi.]

Tocharian

(tɒˈkɑːrɪən) or

Tokharian

n1. (Historical Terms) a member of an Asian people with a complex material culture, sometimes thought to be of European origin, who lived in the Tarim Basin until overcome by the Uighurs around 800 ad2. (Languages) the language of this people, known from records in a N Indian script of the 7th and 8th centuries ad. It belongs to the Indo-European family, is regarded as forming an independent branch, and shows closer affinities with the W or European group than with the E or Indo-Iranian group. The language is recorded in two dialects, known as Tocharian A and Tocharian B[C20: ultimately from Greek Tokharoi, name of uncertain origin]

To•char•i•an

(toʊˈkɛər i ən, -ˈkɑr-)

n. 1. an extinct Indo-European language spoken in the NE Tarim Basin of W China c500–800 a.d., having an eastern dialect (Tocharian A) and a western dialect (Tocharian B). 2. a speaker of Tocharian. adj. 3. of or pertaining to Tocharian or its speakers. [1925–30; < Greek Tóchar(oi) a Central Asian people + -ian]

Thesaurus

Noun

Tocharian - a branch of the Indo-European language family that originated in central Asia during the first millennium A.D.Indo-European language, Indo-Hittite, Indo-European - the family of languages that by 1000 BC were spoken throughout Europe and in parts of southwestern and southern AsiaEast Tocharian, Turfan, Turfan dialect - a dialect of TocharianKuchean, Kuchean dialect, West Tocharian - a dialect of Tocharian

Translations

tocario

Tocharian

enUK

Tocharian

the name for two closely related extinct languages comprising a separate branch in the Indo-European language family; their relationship to the other Indo-European languages was demonstrated in 1908 by the German scholars E. Sieg and W. Siegling.

In the sixth and seventh centuries, the Tocharian languages were spoken in Eastern Turkestan (Sinkiang Province). Their name is arbitrary, coming from the name of the Tochari, who spoke an Eastern Iranian language. The self-designation of the Tocharian speakers is not known. Therefore, one of the two Tocharian languages has come to be known as Tocharian A (East Tocharian) and the other as Tocharian B (West Tocharian); they are sometimes also called Turfanian and Kuchean, respectively, after the principal cities in which texts were found. Manuscripts and a certain number of inscriptions from the fifth to eighth centuries, consisting of translations of Buddhist literature, were written in Brahmi, a special type of Indian syllabic writing. Few of the original texts have been discovered.

The Tocharian languages are characterized by isoglosses, which associate them with the western Indo-European languages. The Indo-European voiced and voiceless consonants coincide in a single series of voiceless consonants. Other features of the Tocharian languages include a pronounced ramification of the verb system; the development of a multicase agglutinative paradigm, possibly under the influence of a local substratum; the existence of group inflection in the noun; and the presence in the nominal system of a dual, paired, and plurative in addition to the singular and plural. Adjectives in Tocharian do not have degrees of comparison. There are many borrowings from Indian and Iranian languages.

By the ninth and tenth centuries the Turkic Uighurs had assimilated the speakers of the Tocharian languages. The first texts were published in Russia in 1892 by S. Ol’denburg. Other texts, which have been preserved mainly in France and the Federal Republic of Germany, have not been published in full.

REFERENCES

Tokharskie iazyki. Moscow, 1959.
Sieg, E., and W. Siegling. Tocharische Grammatik. Göttingen, 1931.
Krause, W., and W. Thomas. Tocharisches Elementarbuch, vols. 1–2. Heidelberg, 1960–64.

A. A. KOROLEV

Tocharian

To·char·i·an

Tocharian

Tokharian

To•char•i•an

Tocharian

Tocharian

REFERENCES

Tocharian

Words related to Tocharian

noun a branch of the Indo-European language family that originated in central Asia during the first millennium A

Related Words