View source for Tocharian languages

{{Short description|Extinct Indo-European languages in Asia}}
{{Infobox language family
| name          = Tocharian
| region        = [[Tarim Basin]]
| ethnicity     = [[Tocharians]]
| extinct       = 9th century AD
| map           = Tocharian languages overview map.svg
| mapcaption    = {{legend|#f07568|outline=#e0584e|directly attested (Tocharian A and B)}}
{{legend|none|outline=#e0584e|loanword traces (Tocharian C)}}
| familycolor   = Indo-European
| protoname     = [[Proto-Tocharian language|Proto-Tocharian]]
| child1        = [[Tocharian A]] (Agnean)
| child2        = [[Tocharian B]] (Kuchean)
| glotto        = tokh1241
| glottorefname = Tokharian
| altname       = Tokharian
}}

{{Indo-European topics}}

The '''Tocharian''' (sometimes ''Tokharian'') '''languages''' ({{IPAc-en|US|t|oʊ|'|k|ɛər|i|ə|n|,|_|-|ˈ|k|ɑːr|-}} {{respell|toh|KAIR|ee|ən|,_|-|KAR|-}};<ref>{{Citation |mode=cs1 |title=[[:MWOD:Tocharian| Definition of TOCHARIAN]]|work=Merriam–Webster Dictionary<!-- requires url, but for the fans: |access-date=2019-10-18-->}}</ref> {{IPAc-en|UK|t|ɒ|'|k|ɑːr|i|ə|n}} {{respell|to|KAR|ee|ən}}),<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/tocharian |title=Tocharian definition and meaning |website= Collins English Dictionary|access-date=2019-10-18}}</ref> also known as the '''''Arśi-Kuči''''', '''Agnean-Kuchean''' or '''Kuchean-Agnean''' languages, are an extinct branch of the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European language family]] spoken by inhabitants of the [[Tarim Basin]], the [[Tocharians]].<ref name="DD">{{Cite book |last=Diringer |first=David |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.57042/page/n349/mode/2up |title=The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind |date=1953 |publisher=Hutchinson's Scientific and Technical Publications |edition=Second and revised |location=London |pages=347–348 |language=en |orig-date=1948}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walter |first=Mariko Namba |date=1998 |title=Tokharian Buddhism in Kucha: Buddhism of Indo-European Centum Speakers in Chinese Turkestan before the 10th Century C.E. |url=http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp085_tokharian_buddhism_kucha.pdf |journal=Sino-Platonic Papers |language=en |volume=85 |pages=2–4}}</ref><ref name="DD" />

The discovered manuscripts record two closely related languages, called [[Agnean language|Tocharian A]] (also ''East Tocharian'' or ''Turfanian'') and [[Kuchean language|Tocharian B]] (''West Tocharian'' or ''Kuchean'').<ref>{{cite web | url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/prdb/tocharian/0 | title=Tocharian |website =the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism |via= Credo Reference |url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/tokol | title=Introduction to Tocharian }}</ref> The subject matter of the texts suggests that Tocharian A was more archaic and used as a [[Buddhism|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 Nur]] basin have been dubbed Tocharian C (''Kroränian''). A claimed find of ten Tocharian C texts written in [[Kharosthi]] has been discredited.<ref name="adams-tocharian-c-again">{{Cite web |last=Adams |first=Douglas Q. |date=25 September 2019 |title='Tocharian C' Again: The Plot Thickens and the Mystery Deepens |url=https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=44503 |access-date=25 September 2019 |website=Language Log |language=en}}</ref>

The oldest extant manuscripts in Tocharian B are now dated to the fifth or even late fourth century AD, making it a language of [[late antiquity]] contemporary with [[Gothic language|Gothic]], [[Classical Armenian]], and [[Primitive Irish]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kim |first=Ronald I. |title=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 |date=2018 |publisher=Reichert Verlag |editor-last=Rieken |editor-first=Elisabeth |location=Wiesbaden |page=170 (footnote 44) |chapter=One Hundred Years of Re-Reconstruction: Hittite, Tocharian, and the Continuing Revision of Proto-Indo-European |access-date=13 September 2019 |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/37844928}}</ref>

==Discovery and significance==
{{ Annotated image 
| image=Indo-European migrations.jpg
| width=350 | image-width = 350 | image-left=0 | image-top=0| float = right
| annotations =
{{Annotation|260|10|[[Afanasievo culture|Afanasievo<br>culture]]|text-align=center|font-weight=bold|font-style=normal|font-size=10|color=#FF4500}}
{{Annotation|205|60|Tocharians|font-weight=bold|font-style=normal|font-size=10|color=#000000}}
{{Annotation|220|40|[[File:Feather-arrows-arrow-down-left.svg|20px]]}}
{{Annotation|205|113|[[Indo-Aryans]]|text-align=center|font-weight=bold|font-style=normal|font-size=7|color=#FF4500}}
| caption=[[Indo-European migrations]], with location of the [[Afanasievo culture]] (genetically identical to the [[Yamnaya culture]] of the [[Pontic steppes]]) and their probable Tocharian descendants<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Narasimhan |first1=Vagheesh M. |last2=Patterson |first2=Nick |last3=Moorjani |first3=Priya |last4=Rohland |first4=Nadin |last5=Bernardos |first5=Rebecca |date=2019 |title=The Formation of Human Populations in South and Central Asia |journal=Science |language=en |volume=365 |issue=6457 |at=eaat7487 |doi=10.1126/science.aat7487 |pmc=6822619 |pmid=31488661 |doi-access=free}}</ref>
}}
[[File:IE1500BP.png|thumb|350px|upright=1.5|The geographical spread of [[Indo-European languages]]]]

The existence of the Tocharian languages and alphabet was not even suspected 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, dating from the 6th to 8th centuries AD.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Deuel |first=Leo |title=Testaments of Time |date=1970 |publisher=Pelican Books |location=Baltimore |pages=425–455 |language=en |chapter=XXI |orig-date=First published Knopf, NY, 1965}}</ref>

It soon became clear that these fragments were actually written in two distinct but related languages belonging to a hitherto unknown branch of Indo-European, now known as Tocharian:
*'''Tocharian A''' (Turfanian, Agnean, or East Tocharian; natively {{lang|xto|ārśi}}) of [[Karasahr|Qarašähär]] (ancient ''Agni'', Chinese ''Yanqi'' and Sanskrit ''Agni'') and [[Turpan]] (ancient ''Turfan'' and ''Xočo''), and
*'''Tocharian B''' (Kuchean or West Tocharian) of [[Kucha]] and Tocharian A sites.

[[Prakrit]] documents from 3rd-century [[Loulan Kingdom|Krorän]] and [[Niya ruins|Niya]] on the southeast edge of the Tarim Basin contain loanwords and names that appeared to scholars to come from a closely related language, referred to as '''Tocharian C'''.<ref name="mallory-expedition">{{Cite periodical | issn=  0014-4738|last=Mallory |first=J. P. |date=2010 |title=Bronze Age Languages of the Tarim Basin |url=https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/bronze-age-languages-of-the-tarim-basin/ |magazine=Expedition Magazine |language=en |volume=52 |issue=3 |pages=44–53 |access-date=2012-03-21 |archive-date=2021-01-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210109090710/https://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/52-3/mallory.pdf |url-status=live | publisher = Penn Museum}}</ref> However, this was found to be entirely flawed for the [[Loulan Kingdom|Krorän]] part (see below, section "Tocharian C"). Recently, a dissertation authored by Niels Schoubben ([[Leiden University]]) has demonstrated that all the so-called Tocharian loanwords in Niya Prakrit were, in fact, Bactrian and pre-Bactrian loanwords, or resulted from fundamental misunderstandings of specific words and orthographies. His work definitively put an end to the "Tocharian C" hypothesis.<ref>Schoubben, Niels. 2024. ''Traces of language contact in Niya Prakrit Bactrian and other foreign elements''. Leiden University: PhD Dissertation</ref>

The discovery of Tocharian upset some theories about the relations of Indo-European languages and revitalized their study. In the 19th century, it was thought that the division between [[centum–satem isogloss|centum and satem languages]] was a simple west–east division, with centum languages in the west. The theory was undermined in the early 20th century by the discovery of [[Hittite language|Hittite]], a centum language in a relatively eastern location, and Tocharian, which was a centum language despite being the easternmost branch. The result was a new hypothesis, following the [[wave model]] of [[Johannes Schmidt (linguist)|Johannes Schmidt]], suggesting that the satem isogloss represents a linguistic innovation in the central part of the Proto-Indo-European home range, and the centum languages along the eastern and the western peripheries did not undergo that change.{{sfnp|Renfrew|1990|pp=107–108}}

Most scholars identify the ancestors of the Tocharians with the [[Afanasievo culture]] of [[South Siberia]] ({{circa}} 3300–2500 BC), an early eastern offshoot of the steppe cultures of the Don-Volga area that later became the [[Yamnaya culture|Yamnayans]].<ref name="Anthony2010, p=264–265, 308">{{Cite book |last=Anthony |first=David W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0FDqf415wqgC |title=The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World |date=2010 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=978-1400831104 |pages=264–265, 308 |language=en |author-link=David W. Anthony}}</ref>{{sfn|Mallory|Mair|2000}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Klejn |first=L. S. Л. С. Клейн |author-link=Leo Klejn |date=2000 |title=Migratsiya tokharov v svete arkheologii |script-title=ru:Миграция тохаров в свете археологии |trans-title=Migration of Tokharians in the Light of Archaeological Data |url=https://www.e-anthropology.com/English/Catalog/Archaeology/STM_DWL_2u9E_eEPlfIweNNXo.aspx |journal=Stratum Plus |language=ru |volume=2000 |issue=2 |pages=178–187}}</ref> Under this scenario, Tocharian speakers would have immigrated to the [[Tarim Basin]] from the north at some later point.

Most scholars reject [[Walter Bruno Henning]]'s proposed link to [[Gutian language|Gutian]], a language spoken on the [[Iranian plateau]] in the 22nd century BC and known only from personal names.{{sfnp|Mallory|Mair|2000|pp=281–282}}

Tocharian probably died out after 840 when the [[Uyghur Khaganate|Uyghurs]], expelled from Mongolia by the [[Yenisei Kyrgyz|Kyrgyz]], moved into the Tarim Basin.<ref name="mallory-expedition" /> The theory is supported by the discovery of translations of Tocharian texts into Uyghur.

Some modern [[Chinese language|Chinese]] words may ultimately derive from a Tocharian or related source, e.g. [[Old Chinese]] {{lang|och|*mjit}} ({{zh|labels=no|c={{linktext|蜜}} |p=mì}}) "honey", from Proto-Tocharian *''ḿət(ə)'' (where *''ḿ'' is [[Palatalization (phonetics)|palatalized]]; cf. Tocharian B {{lang|txb|mit}}), cognate with [[Old Church Slavonic]] {{lang|cu|медъ}} (transliterated: {{transliteration|cu|medŭ}}) (meaning "honey"), and English ''{{linktext|mead}}''.<ref>{{harvp|Boltz|1999|p=87}}; {{harvp|Schuessler|2007|p=383}}; {{harvp|Baxter|1992|p=191}}; {{harvp|Karlgren|1957|p=405r}}; Proto-Tocharian and Tocharian B forms from {{harvp|Peyrot|2008|p=56}}.</ref>

==Names==
[[File:Royal family, Cave 17, Kizil (family detail, retouched), Hermitage Museum.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Tocharians|Tocharian]] royal family (King, Queen and young blond-haired Princes), Kizil, Cave 17 (entrance wall, lower left panel). [[Hermitage Museum]].<ref>References BDce-888、889, MIK III 8875, now in the Hermitage Museum.{{Cite web |last=Sheng dao wenhua zazhi |date=2020-01-30 |title=É lì ài ěr mǐ tǎ shén bó wù guǎn cáng kè zī ěr shí kū bì huà |script-title=zh:俄立艾爾米塔什博物館藏克孜爾石窟壁畫 |url=https://www.sohu.com/a/369632883_534369 |website=sohu.com |language=zh}}</ref><ref>Image 16 in {{Cite book |last=Yaldiz |first=Marianne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MAV83J8cA5MC&pg=PR15 |title=Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte Chinesisch-Zentralasiens (Xinjiang) |date=1987 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-07877-2 |page=xv |language=de |trans-title=Archeology and Art History of Sino-Central Asia (Xinjiang)}}</ref><ref name="RG">"The images of donors in Cave 17 are seen in two fragments with numbers MIK 8875 and MIK 8876. One of them with halo may be identified as king of Kucha." in {{Cite book |last=Ghose |first=Rajeshwari |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PBnRFQtP7sYC |title=Kizil on the Silk Road: Crossroads of Commerce & Meeting of Minds |publisher=Marg Publications |year=2008 |isbn=978-81-85026-85-5 |page=127, note 22 |language=en}} "The panel of Tocharian donors and Buddhist monks, which was at the MIK (MIK 8875) disappeared during World War II and was discovered by Yaldiz in 2002 in the Hermitage Museum" page 65, note 30</ref><ref name="AVLC68">{{Cite book |last1=Le Coq |first1=Albert von |url=https://archive.org/details/diebuddhistische00leco_0/page/68/mode/2up |title=Die buddhistische spätantike in Mittelasien, VI |last2=Waldschmidt |first2=Ernst |year=1922 |publisher=Berlin, D. Reimer [etc.] |pages=68–70}}</ref>]]
A [[colophon (publishing)|colophon]] to a [[Silk Road transmission of Buddhism|Central Asian Buddhist]] manuscript from the late 8th century states that it was translated into [[Old Turkic]] from Sanskrit, via a ''twγry'' language. In 1907, Emil Sieg and [[Friedrich W. K. Müller]] proposed that ''twγry'' was a name for the newly-discovered language of the Turpan area.{{sfnp|Mallory|Mair|2000|pp=280–281}}
Sieg and Müller, reading this name as ''toxrï'', connected it with the ethnonym ''[[tokharistan|Tócharoi]]'' ({{Langx|grc|Τόχαροι}}, [[Ptolemy]] VI, 11, 6, 2nd century AD), itself taken from [[Indo-Iranian languages|Indo-Iranian]] (cf. [[Old Persian]] ''tuxāri-'', [[Saka language|Khotanese]] ''ttahvāra'', and [[Sanskrit]] ''tukhāra''), and proposed the name "Tocharian" (German ''Tocharisch''). Ptolemy's ''Tócharoi'' are often associated by modern scholars with the [[Yuezhi]] of Chinese historical accounts, who founded the [[Kushan Empire]].{{sfnp|Mallory|Mair|2000|pp=281}}{{sfnp|Beckwith|2009|pp=380–383}} It is now clear that these people actually spoke [[Bactrian language|Bactrian]], an [[Eastern Iranian language]], rather than the language of the Tarim manuscripts, so the term "Tocharian" is considered a misnomer.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Adams |first=Douglas Q. |author-link=Douglas Q. Adams |title=Facts about the World's Languages: An Encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages, Past and Present |publisher=H.W. Wilson |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-8242-0970-4 |page=748 |chapter=Tocharian |quote=Also arguing against equating the Tocharians with the Tocharoi is the fact that the actual language of the Tocharoi, when attested to in the second and third centuries of our era, is indubitably Iranian. |editor1-last=Garry |editor1-first=Jane |editor2-last=Rubino |editor2-first=Carl R. Galvez |editor3-last=Bodomo |editor3-first=Adams B. |editor3-link=Adams Bodomo |editor4-last=Faber |editor4-first=Alice |editor5-last=French |editor5-first=Robert}}</ref><ref>{{harvp|Hansen |2012|p=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195159318/page/72 72]}} "In fact, we know that the Yuezhi used Bactrian, an Iranian language written in Greek characters, as an official language. For this reason, Tocharian is a misnomer; no extant evidence suggests that the residents of the Tocharistan region of Afghanistan spoke the Tocharian language recorded in the documents found in the Kucha region."</ref><ref>{{harvp|Henning|1949|p=161}}: "At the same time we can now finally dispose of the name 'Tokharian'. This misnomer has been supported by three reasons, all of them now discredited."</ref> Nevertheless, it remains the standard term for the language of the Tarim Basin manuscripts.<ref name="Tocharian Online">{{Cite web |last1=Krause |first1=Todd B. |last2=Slocum |first2=Jonathan |title=Tocharian Online: Series Introduction |url=https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/tokol |access-date=17 April 2020 |publisher=University of Texas at Austin}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture |title-link=Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture |publisher=Fitzroy Dearborn |year=1997 |isbn=978-1-884964-98-5 |editor-last=Mallory |editor-first=J.P. |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaindo00mall/page/n537 509] |editor-last2=Adams |editor-first2=Douglas Q.}}</ref>

In 1938, [[Walter Bruno Henning]] found the term "four ''twγry''" used in early 9th-century manuscripts in Sogdian, Middle Iranian, and Uighur. He argued that it referred to the region on the northeast edge of the Tarim, including Agni and [[Karakhoja]], but not Kucha. He thus inferred that the colophon referred to the Agnean language.{{sfnp|Henning|1938|pp=559–561}}{{sfnp|Hansen|2012|pp=71–72}}

Although the term ''twγry'' or ''toxrï'' appears to be the Old Turkic name for the Tocharians, it is not found in Tocharian texts.<ref name="Tocharian Online" />
The apparent self-designation ''ārśi'' appears in Tocharian A texts. Tocharian B texts use the adjective ''kuśiññe'', derived from ''kuśi'' or ''kuči'', a name also known from Chinese and Turkic documents.<ref name="Tocharian Online" /> The historian [[Bernard Sergent]] compounded these names to coin an alternative term ''Arśi-Kuči'' for the family, recently revised to ''Agni-Kuči'',<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sergent |first=Bernard |title=Les Indo-Européens: Histoire, langues, mythes |publisher=Payot |year=2005 |edition=2nd |pages=113–117 |author-link=Bernard Sergent |orig-year=1995}}</ref> but this name has not achieved widespread usage.

==Writing system==
{{Main|Tocharian script}}
[[File:Se pañäkte saṅketavattse ṣarsa papaiykau.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|{{center|1=[[Tocharian B]] inscription from the [[Kizil Caves]], in the Tocharian version of the [[Brahmi script]], reading:<br>𑀲𑁂𑀧𑀜𑀓𑁆𑀢𑁂 𑀲𑀡𑁆𑀓𑁂𑀢𑀯𑀝𑁆𑀲𑁂 𑀱𑀭𑁆𑀲 𑀧𑀧𑁃𑀬𑁆𑀓𑁅<br><small>(Traditional [[Brahmi script|Ashokan Brahmi]])</small><br>''Se pañäkte saṅketavattse ṣarsa papaiykau''<br>"This Buddha, by Sanketava's hand, was painted".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Härtel |first1=Herbert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BLuaphht8XwC&pg=PA107 |title=Along the Ancient Silk Routes: Central Asian Art from the West Berlin State Museums : an Exhibition Lent by the Museum Für Indische Kunst, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany |last2=Yaldiz |first2=Marianne |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |year=1982 |isbn=978-0-87099-300-8 |page=107}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Le Coq |first=Albert von |url=http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/LFB-2/V-5/page-hr/0014.html.en |title=Die Buddhistische Spätantike in Mittelasien : vol.5 |page=10}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=A dictionary of Tocharian B |url=https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/natlang/ie/tochB.html |website=www.win.tue.nl}}</ref>}}]]
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.

Most of attested Tocharian was written in the [[Tocharian alphabet]], a derivative of the [[Brāhmī script|Brahmi]] alphabetic syllabary ([[abugida]]) also referred to as North Turkestan Brahmi or slanting Brahmi. However a smaller amount was written in the [[Manichaean script]] in which [[Manichaeism|Manichaean]] texts were recorded.{{sfnp|Daniels|1996|p=531}}{{sfnp|Campbell|2000|p=1666}} It soon became apparent that a large proportion of the manuscripts were translations of known [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] works in [[Sanskrit]] and some of them were even bilingual, facilitating decipherment of the new language. Besides the Buddhist and [[Manichaeism|Manichaean]] religious texts, there were also monastery correspondence and accounts, commercial documents, caravan permits, medical and magical texts, and one love poem.

In 1998, the Chinese linguist [[Ji Xianlin]] published a translation and analysis of fragments of a Tocharian ''[[Maitreyasamitināṭaka|Maitreyasamiti-Nataka]]'' discovered in 1974 in [[Yanqi Hui Autonomous County|Yanqi]].<ref>"[http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/01/29/fragments_of_the_tocharian/index.html Fragments of the Tocharian]", Andrew Leonard, ''How the World Works'', [[Salon.com]], January 29, 2008. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080201082951/http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/01/29/fragments_of_the_tocharian/index.html |date=2008-02-01 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wright |first=J.C. |year=1999 |title=Review: ''Fragments of the Tocharian A Maitreyasamiti-Nāṭaka of the Xinjiang Museum, China. In Collaboration with Werner Winter and Georges-Jean Pinault'' by Ji Xianlin |journal=[[Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies]] |volume=62 |issue=2 |pages=367–370 |doi=10.1017/S0041977X00017079 |jstor=3107526|s2cid=246638642 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Ji |first1=Xianlin |title=Fragments of the Tocharian A Maitreyasamiti-Nataka of the Zinjiang Museum, China |last2=Winter |first2=Werner |last3=Pinault |first3=Georges-Jean |publisher=Mouton De Gruyter |year=1998 |isbn=978-3-11-014904-3}}</ref>

==Tocharian A and B==
[[File:Tocharian languages.svg|thumb|upright=1.5|Tocharian languages A (blue), B (red) and C (green) in the Tarim Basin.{{sfnp|Mallory|Mair|2000|p=274}} Tarim oasis towns are given as listed in the ''[[Book of Han]]'' ({{circa}} 2nd century BC), with the areas of the squares proportional to population.{{sfnp|Mallory|Mair|2000|pp=67, 68}}]]
Tocharian A and B are significantly different, to the point of being [[mutual intelligibility|mutually unintelligible]]. A common Proto-Tocharian language must precede the attested languages by several centuries, probably dating to the late 1st millennium BC.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kim |first=Ronald |title=Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics |title-link=Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics |publisher=Elsevier |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-08-044299-0 |editor-last=Brown |editor-first=Keith |edition=2nd |chapter=Tocharian}}</ref>

Tocharian A is found only in the eastern part of the Tocharian-speaking area, and all extant texts are of a religious nature. Tocharian B, however, is found throughout the range and in both religious and secular texts. As a result, it has been suggested that Tocharian A was a [[liturgical language]], no longer spoken natively, while Tocharian B was the spoken language of the entire area.<ref name="mallory-expedition" />

The hypothesized relationship of Tocharian A and B as liturgical and spoken forms, respectively, is sometimes compared with the relationship between Latin and the modern [[Romance languages]], or [[Classical Chinese]] and [[Standard Mandarin|Mandarin]]. However, in both of these latter cases, the liturgical language is the linguistic ancestor of the spoken language, whereas no such relationship holds between Tocharian A and B. In fact, from a phonological perspective Tocharian B is significantly more conservative than Tocharian A, and serves as the primary source for reconstructing Proto-Tocharian. Only Tocharian B preserves the following Proto-Tocharian features: stress distinctions, final vowels, diphthongs, and ''o'' vs. ''e'' distinction. In turn, the loss of final vowels in Tocharian A has led to the loss of certain Proto-Tocharian categories still found in Tocharian B, e.g. the vocative case and some of the noun, verb, and adjective declensional classes.

In their declensional and conjugational endings, the two languages innovated in divergent ways, with neither clearly simpler than the other. For example, both languages show significant innovations in the present active indicative endings but in radically different ways, so that only the second-person singular ending is directly cognate between the two languages, and in most cases neither variant is directly cognate with the corresponding [[Proto-Indo-European]] (PIE) form. The agglutinative secondary case endings in the two languages likewise stem from different sources, showing parallel development of the secondary case system after the Proto-Tocharian period. Likewise, some of the verb classes show independent origins, e.g. the class II preterite, which uses reduplication in Tocharian A (possibly from the reduplicated [[aorist]]) but long PIE ''ē'' in Tocharian B (possibly related to the long-vowel perfect found in Latin ''lēgī'', ''fēcī'', etc.).<ref name="Tocharian Online" />

Tocharian B shows an internal chronological development; three linguistic stages have been detected.{{sfnp|Peyrot|2008}} The oldest stage is attested only in Kucha. There are also the middle ("classical") and the late stage.<ref>{{ cite encyclopedia| author=Michaël Peyrot |date=2015| entry = Tocharian Language | entry-url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/tocharian-language | title= Encyclopædia Iranica}}</ref>

== Tocharian C ==
A third Tocharian language was first suggested by [[Thomas Burrow]] in the 1930s, while discussing 3rd-century documents from [[Loulan Kingdom|Krorän]] (Loulan) and [[Niya ruins|Niya]]. The texts were written in [[Gandhari language|Gandhari Prakrit]], but contained loanwords of evidently Tocharian origin, such as ''kilme'' ('district'), ''ṣoṣthaṃga'' ('tax collector'), and ''ṣilpoga'' ('document'). This hypothetical language later became generally known as Tocharian C. It has also sometimes been called Kroränian or Krorainic.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mallory |first=J. P. |title=The Problem of Tocharian Origins: An Archaeological Perspective |url=http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp259_tocharian_origins.pdf |journal=Sino-Platonic Papers |volume=259}}</ref>

In papers published posthumously in 2018, Klaus T. Schmidt, a scholar of Tocharian, presented a decipherment of 10 texts written in the [[Kharosthi|Kharoṣṭhī script]]. Schmidt claimed that these texts were written in a third Tocharian language he called {{lang|de|Lolanisch}}.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Zimmer |first1=Klaus T |title=K. T. Schmidt: Nachgelassene Schriften |last2=Zimmer |first2=Stefan |last3=Dr. Ute Hempen |date=2019 |publisher=Hempen Verlag |isbn=9783944312538 |language=de |oclc=1086566510}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Language Log » Tocharian C: its discovery and implications |url=http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=42318 |access-date=2019-04-04}}</ref> He also suggested that the language was closer to Tocharian B than to Tocharian A.<ref name=":0" /> In 2019 a group of linguists led by [[Georges-Jean Pinault]] and [[Michaël Peyrot]] convened in [[Leiden]] to examine Schmidt's translations against the original texts. They concluded that Schmidt's decipherment was fundamentally flawed, that there was no reason to associate the texts with Krörän, and that the language they recorded was neither Tocharian nor Indic, but Iranian.<ref name="adams-tocharian-c-again" /><ref>{{Cite journal |year=2020 |title=The Formal Kharoṣṭhī script from the Northern Tarim Basin in Northwest China may write an Iranian language |journal=Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae |volume=73 |issue=3 |pages=335–373 |doi=10.1556/062.2020.00015 |doi-access=free |given1=Federico |surname1=Dragoni |given2=Niels |surname2=Schoubben |given3=Michaël |surname3=Peyrot|hdl=1887/139192 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

In 2024, Schoubben conducted a systematic review of Niya Prakrit and the loanwords claimed as evidence for Tocharian C. He argued that most of the words in question could be explained as loanwords from [[Bactrian language|Bactrian]] or other [[Iranian languages]], and found no compelling evidence for a Tocharian substrate.<ref>{{cite thesis |surname=Schoubben |given=Neils |title=Traces of language contact in Niya Prakrit: Bactrian and other foreign elements |type=PhD thesis |publisher=Leiden University |year=2024 |hdl=1887/4108454 }}</ref> For example, Burrow proposed that ''aṃklatsa'', 'a type of camel', corresponded to Tocharian A ''āknats'' and Tocharian B ''aknātsa'' 'stupid, foolish', believing that this would refer to an 'untrained camel', from a Tocharian form *''anknats'' (with the negative prefix *''en-''). Not only does this etymology presuppose an ''ad hoc'' sound change from *-''nkn''- to *-''nkl''-, but the variant ''agiltsa'' also found in Niya becomes aberrant. Schoubben suggests that this is might be a Bactrian word, as camels originally come from Bactria, but could not find a convincing etymology.<ref>Schoubben 2024: 430</ref> He had earlier argued that <ḱ> was used in Niya Prakrit to transcribe Bactrian -''šk''- (spelled ϸκ in the [[Bactrian language#Writing system|Bactrian alphabet]]). For example, Burrow had tentatively connected ''maḱa'', a Niya Prakrit word for an unidentified food produced on farms, with Tocharian A ''malke'' 'milk', but Schoubben derives it from [[Proto-Iranian language|Proto-Iranian]] *''māšaka-'' 'bean'.<ref>{{cite journal |surname=Schoubben |given=Neils |title=Accent sign matters. The Niya Prakrit grapheme <ḱ> and its connection to Bactrian <ϸκ> |journal=Journal Asiatique |volume=309 |year=2021 |pages=47–59 |doi=10.2143/JA.309.1.3289427 |doi-access=free |hdl=1887/3210585 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

==Phonology==
{{multiple image|perrow=2|total_width=330|caption_align=center
| align    = right
| direction =horizontal
| header=
| image1   = QizilDonors.jpg
| image2   = The Painter Tutuka ("Citrakara Tutukasya") Cave of the Painters, Kizil Caves, circa 500 CE.jpg
| footer='''Left:''' So-called "[[Tocharians|Tocharian]] donors" fresco, [[Kizil Caves|Qizil]], [[Tarim Basin]]. These frescoes are associated with annotations in Tocharian and [[Sanskrit]] made by their painters. They were [[carbon dated]] to 432–538 AD.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Muzio|first=Ciro Lo |date=2008 |title=Remarks on the Paintings from the Buddhist Monastery of Fayaz Tepe (Southern Uzbekistan) |journal=Bulletin of the Asia Institute |volume=((22: Zoroastrianism and Mary Boyce with Other Studies))|page=202, note 45 |issn=0890-4464 |jstor=24049243}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Waugh |first=Daniel C. |publisher =University of Washington |title=MIA Berlin: Turfan Collection: Kizil |url=https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/museums/mia/kizil.html |website=Silk Road Seattle}}</ref> The style of the swordsmen is now considered to belong to the [[Hephthalites]], from [[Tokharistan]], who occupied the Tarim Basin from 480 to 560 AD, but spoke [[Bactrian language|Bactrian]], an [[Eastern Iranian language]].<ref name="EK200">{{Cite journal |last=Kageyama |first=Etsuko |date=2016 |title=Change of suspension systems of daggers and swords in eastern Eurasia: Its relation to the Hephthalite occupation of Central Asia |url=https://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433/209942/1/zinbun_46_199.pdf |journal=ZINBUN |volume=46 |pages=200–202}}</ref><ref name="AK324">{{Cite journal |last=Kurbanov |first=Aydogdy |date=2014 |title=The Hephthalites: Iconographical Materials |url=http://oaji.net/articles/2017/4586-1488311404.pdf |journal=Tyragetia |volume=8 |page=324}}</ref><br>
'''Right''': One of the painters, with a label in Tocharian: ''Citrakara Tutukasya'' "The Painter Tutuka". Cave of the Painters, Kizil Caves, circa 500 AD.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hertel |first=Herbert |url=https://archive.org/details/AlongtheAncientSilkRoutesCentralAsianArtfromtheWestBerlinStateMuseums/page/n55/mode/2up |title=Along the Ancient Silk Routes: Central Asian Art from the West Berlin State Museums |year=1982 |pages=55–56}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rowland |first=Benjamin |url=https://www.scribd.com/document/291810602/The-Art-of-Central-Asia-Art-of-the-World |title=The Art of Central Asia |date=1970 |page=104 |access-date=2020-11-19 |archive-date=2023-01-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230115041309/https://www.scribd.com/document/291810602/The-Art-of-Central-Asia-Art-of-the-World |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>The label at his feet reads: "The Painter Tutuka" in {{Cite book |last1=Härtel |first1=Herbert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BLuaphht8XwC&pg=PA74 |title=Along the Ancient Silk Routes: Central Asian Art from the West Berlin State Museums : an Exhibition Lent by the Museum Für Indische Kunst, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany |last2=Yaldiz |first2=Marianne |last3=Kunst (Germany) |first3=Museum für Indische |last4=N.Y.) |first4=Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |year=1982 |isbn=978-0-87099-300-8 |page=74}}</ref>
}}
Phonetically, Tocharian languages are "[[Centum and satem languages|centum]]" Indo-European languages, meaning that they merge the [[palatovelar]] consonants {{PIE|(*ḱ, *ǵ, *ǵʰ)}} of [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] with the plain [[velars]] (*k, *g, *gʰ) rather than palatalizing them to affricates or sibilants. Centum languages are mostly found in western and southern Europe ([[Greek language|Greek]], [[Italic languages|Italic]], [[Celtic languages|Celtic]], [[Germanic language|Germanic]]). In that sense Tocharian (to some extent like the [[Hellenic languages|Greek]] and the [[Anatolian languages]]) seems to have been an isolate in the "[[Centum-Satem isogloss|satem]]" (i.e. [[palatovelar]] to [[sibilant]]) phonetic regions of Indo-European-speaking populations. The discovery of Tocharian contributed to doubts that Proto-Indo-European had originally split into western and eastern branches; today, the centum–satem division is not seen as a real familial division.{{sfnp|Renfrew|1990|p=107}}<ref name="baldi">{{Cite book |last=Baldi |first=Philip |author-link=Philip Baldi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gWY7-DBWPW4C&pg=PA39 |title=The Foundations of Latin |date=1999 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-016294-3 |language=en |page=39}}</ref>

===Vowels===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
! &nbsp;
! [[Front vowel|Front]]
! [[Central vowel|Central]]
! [[Back vowel|Back]]
|-
! [[Close vowel|Close]]
| ''i'' {{IPA|/i/}}
| ''ä'' {{IPA|/ɨ/}}
| ''u'' {{IPA|/u/}}
|-
! [[Mid vowel|Mid]]
| ''e'' {{IPA|/e/}}
| ''a'' {{IPA|/ə/}}
| ''o'' {{IPA|/o/}}
|-
! [[Open vowel|Open]]
| &nbsp;
| ''ā'' {{IPA|/a/}}
| &nbsp;
|}

Tocharian A and Tocharian B have the same set of vowels, but they often do not correspond to each other. For example, the sound ''a'' did not occur in Proto-Tocharian. Tocharian B ''a'' is derived from former stressed ''ä'' or unstressed ''ā'' (reflected unchanged in Tocharian A), while Tocharian A ''a'' stems from Proto-Tocharian {{IPA|/ɛ/}} or {{IPA|/ɔ/}} (reflected as {{IPA|/e/}} and {{IPA|/o/}} in Tocharian B), and Tocharian A ''e'' and ''o'' stem largely from monophthongization of former diphthongs (still present in Tocharian B).

===Diphthongs===
Diphthongs occur in Tocharian B only.
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
! &nbsp;
! Closer component<br />is front
! Closer component<br />is back
|-
! Opener component is [[roundedness|unrounded]]
| ''ai'' {{IPA|/əi/}}
| ''au'' {{IPA|/əu/}}<br>''āu'' {{IPA|/au/}}
|-
! Opener component is rounded
| ''oy'' {{IPA|/oi/}}
| &nbsp;
|}

===Consonants===
[[File:Tocharian.JPG|thumb|upright=1.5|Wooden tablet with an inscription showing Tocharian B in its Brahmic form. [[Kucha]], [[Xinjiang]], 5th–8th century ([[Tokyo National Museum]])]]
The following table lists the reconstructed phonemes in Tocharian along with their standard transcription. Because Tocharian is written in an alphabet used originally for Sanskrit and its descendants, the transcription reflects Sanskrit phonology, and may not represent Tocharian phonology accurately. The Tocharian alphabet also has letters representing all of the remaining Sanskrit sounds, but these appear only in Sanskrit loanwords and are not thought to have had distinct pronunciations in Tocharian. There is some uncertainty as to actual pronunciation of some of the letters, particularly those representing palatalized obstruents (see below).

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|-
!| &nbsp;
! [[Bilabial consonant|Bilabial]]
! [[Alveolar consonant|Alveolar]]
! [[Alveolo-palatal consonant|Alveolo-palatal]]
! [[Palatal consonant|Palatal]]
! [[Velar consonant|Velar]]

|-
!| [[Stop consonant|Plosive]]
| ''p'' {{IPA|/p/}}
| ''t'' {{IPA|/t/}}
|
| &nbsp;
| ''k'' {{IPA|/k/}}
|-
!| [[Affricate consonant|Affricate]]
| &nbsp;
| ''ts'' {{IPA|/ts/}}
| ''c'' {{IPA|/tɕ/}}?<sup>2</sup>
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;
|-
!| [[Fricative consonant|Fricative]]
| &nbsp;
| ''s'' {{IPA|/s/}}
| ''ś'' {{IPA|/ɕ/}}
| &nbsp;''ṣ'' {{IPA|/ʃ/}}?<sup>3</sup>
| &nbsp;
|-
!| [[Nasal consonant|Nasal]]
| ''m'' {{IPA|/m/}}
| ''n'' {{IAST|''ṃ''}} {{IPA|/n/}}<sup>1</sup>
| &nbsp;
| ''ñ'' {{IPA|/ɲ/}}
| ''ṅ'' {{IPA|/ŋ/}}<sup>4</sup>
|-
!| [[Trill consonant|Trill]]
| &nbsp;
| ''r'' {{IPA|/r/}}
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;
|-
!| [[Approximant consonant|Approximant]]
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;
| ''y'' {{IPA|/j/}}
| &nbsp;''w'' {{IPA|/w/}}
|-
!| [[Lateral consonant|Lateral approximant]]
| &nbsp;
| ''l'' {{IPA|/l/}}
| &nbsp;
| ''ly'' {{IPA|/ʎ/}}
| &nbsp;
|}

# {{IPA|/n/}} is transcribed by two different letters in the [[Tocharian alphabet]] depending on position. Based on the corresponding letters in Sanskrit, these are transcribed {{IAST|''ṃ''}} (word-finally, including before certain [[clitic]]s) and ''n'' (elsewhere), but {{IAST|''ṃ''}} represents {{IPA|/n/}}, not {{IPA|/m/}}.
# The sound written {{IAST|''c''}} is thought to correspond to a alveolo-palatal affricate {{IPAslink|tɕ}} in Sanskrit. The Tocharian pronunciation {{IPA|/tɕ/}} is suggested by the common occurrence of the cluster ''śc'', but the exact pronunciation cannot be determined with certainty.
# The sound written {{IAST|''ṣ''}} seems more likely to have been a palato-alveolar sibilant {{IPAslink|ʃ}} (as in English "'''''sh'''ip''"), because it derives from a palatalized {{IPAslink|s}}.<ref name="ringe-proto-tocharian">Ringe, Donald A. (1996). ''On the Chronology of Sound Changes in Tocharian: Volume I: From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Tocharian''. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society.</ref>
# The sound ''ṅ'' {{IPA|/ŋ/}} occurs only before ''k'', or in some clusters where a ''k'' has been deleted between consonants. It is clearly phonemic because sequences ''nk'' and ''ñk'' also exist (from [[Syncope (phonology)|syncope]] of a former ''ä'' between them).

==Morphology==

===Nouns===
Tocharian has completely re-worked the [[declension|nominal declension]] system of Proto-Indo-European.{{sfnp|Beekes|1995|p=92}} The only cases inherited from the proto-language are nominative, genitive, [[accusative case|accusative]], and (in Tocharian B only) vocative; in Tocharian the old accusative is known as the ''oblique'' case. In addition to these primary cases, however, each Tocharian language has six cases formed by the addition of an invariant suffix to the oblique case — although the set of six cases is not the same in each language, and the suffixes are largely non-cognate. For example, the Tocharian word ''{{IAST|yakwe}}'' (Toch B), ''{{IAST|yuk}}'' (Toch A) "horse" < PIE ''*eḱwos'' is declined as follows:<ref name="Tocharian Online" />

{| class=wikitable
|-
! rowspan=2|[[Grammatical case|Case]]
! colspan=3|Tocharian B
! colspan=3|Tocharian A
|-
! [[Suffix]]
! [[Grammatical number|Singular]]
! [[Plural]]
! [[Suffix]]
! [[Grammatical number|Singular]]
! [[Plural]]
|-
| [[nominative case|Nominative]]
| —
| {{IAST|yakwe}}
| {{IAST|yakwi}}
| —
| {{IAST|yuk}}
| {{IAST|yukañ}}
|-
| [[vocative case|Vocative]]
| —
| {{IAST|yakwa}}
| —
| —
| —
| —
|-
| [[genitive case|Genitive]]
| —
| {{IAST|yäkwentse}}
| {{IAST|yäkweṃtsi}}
| —
| {{IAST|yukes}}
| {{IAST|yukāśśi}}
|-
| [[oblique case|Oblique]]
| —
| {{IAST|yakwe}}
| {{IAST|yakweṃ}}
| —
| {{IAST|yuk}}
| {{IAST|yukas}}
|-
| [[instrumental case|Instrumental]]
| —
| —
| —
| -yo
| {{IAST|yukyo}}
| {{IAST|yukasyo}}
|-
| [[Perlative case|Perlative]]
| -sa
| {{IAST|yakwesa}}
| {{IAST|yakwentsa}}
| -ā
| {{IAST|yukā}}
| {{IAST|yukasā}}
|-
| [[comitative case|Comitative]]
| -mpa
| {{IAST|yakwempa}}
| {{IAST|yakweṃmpa}}
| -aśśäl
| {{IAST|yukaśśäl}}
| {{IAST|yukasaśśäl}}
|-
| [[allative case|Allative]]
| -ś(c)
| {{IAST|yakweś(c)}}
| {{IAST|yakweṃś(c)}}
| -ac
| {{IAST|yukac}}
| {{IAST|yukasac}}
|-
| [[ablative case|Ablative]]
| {{IAST|-meṃ}}
| {{IAST|yakwemeṃ}}
| {{IAST|yakweṃmeṃ}}
| {{IAST|-äṣ}}
| {{IAST|yukäṣ}}
| {{IAST|yukasäṣ}}
|-
| [[locative case|Locative]]
| {{IAST|-ne}}
| {{IAST|yakwene}}
| {{IAST|yakweṃne}}
| {{IAST|-aṃ}}
| {{IAST|yukaṃ}}
| {{IAST|yukasaṃ}}
|-
| [[causative case|Causative]]
| {{IAST|-ñ}}
| {{IAST|yakweñ}}
| {{IAST|yakweṃñ}}
| —
| —
| —
|}

The Tocharian A instrumental case rarely occurs with humans.

When referring to humans, the oblique singular of most adjectives and of some nouns is marked in both varieties by an ending ''-(a)ṃ'', which also appears in the secondary cases. An example is ''{{IAST|eṅkwe}}'' (Toch B), ''{{IAST|oṅk}}'' (Toch A) "man", which belongs to the same declension as above, but has oblique singular ''{{IAST|eṅkweṃ}}'' (Toch B), ''{{IAST|oṅkaṃ}}'' (Toch A), and corresponding oblique stems ''{{IAST|eṅkweṃ-}}'' (Toch B), ''{{IAST|oṅkn-}}'' (Toch A) for the secondary cases. This is thought to stem from the generalization of ''n''-stem adjectives as an indication of determinative semantics, seen most prominently in the weak adjective declension in the [[Germanic languages]] (where it cooccurs with definite articles and determiners), but also in Latin and Greek ''n''-stem nouns (especially proper names) formed from adjectives, e.g. Latin ''Catō'' (genitive ''Catōnis'') literally "the sly one" < ''catus'' "sly",<ref>{{cite dictionary |dictionary=A Latin Dictionary |date=1879 |first1=Charlton T. |last1=Lewis |first2=Charles |last2=Short |title=Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, Căto |publisher=Clarendon Press |via=the [[Perseus Project]] |entry=Cato |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3DCato |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220507004317/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3DCato |archive-date=2022-05-07 }}</ref><ref>{{cite dictionary |dictionary=A Latin Dictionary |date=1879 |first1=Charlton T. |last1=Lewis |first2=Charles |last2=Short |title=Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, C , cătillātĭo , cătus |publisher=Clarendon Press |via=the [[Perseus Project]] |entry=catus |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DC%3Aentry+group%3D25%3Aentry%3Dcatus1 |archive-date=2022-05-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220507004733/https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DC%3Aentry+group%3D25%3Aentry%3Dcatus1}}</ref> Greek ''Plátōn'' literally "the broad-shouldered one" < ''platús'' "broad".<ref name="Tocharian Online" />

===Verbs===
[[File:龜茲國 Qiuci Kucha in Wanghuitu 王会图, circa 650 CE.jpg|thumb|upright|Ambassador from [[Kucha]] ({{lang|zh|龜茲國}} ''Qiuci-guo'') at the Chinese [[Tang dynasty]] court. ''[[Wanghuitu]]'' ({{lang|zh|王会图}}), circa 650 AD]]
In contrast, the [[grammatical conjugation|verbal conjugation]] system is quite conservative.{{sfnp|Beekes|1995|p=20}} The majority of Proto-Indo-European verbal classes and categories are represented in some manner in Tocharian, although not necessarily with the same function.<ref>Douglas Q. Adams, "On the Development of the Tocharian Verbal System", ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'', Vol. 98, No. 3 (Jul. – Sep., 1978), pp. 277–288.</ref> Some examples: athematic and thematic present tenses, including null-, ''-y-'', ''-sḱ-'', ''-s-'', ''-n-'' and ''-nH-'' suffixes as well as ''n''-infixes and various laryngeal-ending stems; ''o''-grade and possibly lengthened-grade perfects (although lacking reduplication or augment); sigmatic, reduplicated, thematic, and possibly lengthened-grade aorists; optatives; imperatives; and possibly PIE subjunctives.

In addition, most PIE sets of endings are found in some form in Tocharian (although with significant innovations), including thematic and athematic endings, primary (non-past) and secondary (past) endings, active and mediopassive endings, and perfect endings. Dual endings are still found, although they are rarely attested and generally restricted to the third person. The mediopassive still reflects the distinction between primary ''-r'' and secondary ''-i'', effaced in most Indo-European languages. Both root and suffix ablaut is still well-represented, although again with significant innovations.

====Categories====
Tocharian verbs are conjugated in the following categories:<ref name="Tocharian Online" />
*Mood: indicative, subjunctive, optative, imperative.
*Tense/aspect (in the indicative only): present, preterite, imperfect.
*Voice: active, mediopassive, deponent.
*Person: 1st, 2nd, 3rd.
*Number: singular, dual, plural.
*Causation: basic, causative.
*Non-finite: active participle, mediopassive participle, present gerundive, subjunctive gerundive.

====Classes====
A given verb belongs to one of a large number of classes, according to its conjugation. As in [[Sanskrit]], [[Ancient Greek]], and (to a lesser extent) [[Latin]], there are independent sets of classes in the indicative present, [[subjunctive]], [[perfect (grammar)|perfect]], imperative, and to a limited extent [[optative]] and [[imperfect]], and there is no general correspondence among the different sets of classes, meaning that each verb must be specified using a number of [[principal parts]].

=====Present indicative=====
The most complex system is the present indicative, consisting of 12 classes, 8 thematic and 4 athematic, with distinct sets of thematic and athematic endings. The following classes occur in Tocharian B (some are missing in Tocharian A):
*I: Athematic without suffix < PIE root athematic.
*II: Thematic without suffix < PIE root thematic.
*III: Thematic with PToch suffix ''*-ë-''. [[Mediopassive]] only. Apparently reflecting consistent PIE ''o'' theme rather than the normal alternating ''o/e'' theme.
*IV: Thematic with PToch suffix ''*-ɔ-''. Mediopassive only. Same PIE origin as previous class, but diverging within Proto-Tocharian.
*V: Athematic with PToch suffix ''*-ā-'', likely from either PIE verbs ending in a syllabic laryngeal or PIE derived verbs in ''*-eh₂-'' (but extended to other verbs).
*VI: Athematic with PToch suffix ''*-nā-'', from PIE verbs in ''*-nH-''.
*VII: Athematic with infixed nasal, from PIE infixed nasal verbs.
*VIII: Thematic with suffix ''-s-'', possibly from PIE ''-sḱ-''?
*IX: Thematic with suffix ''-sk-'' < PIE ''-sḱ-''.
*X: Thematic with PToch suffix ''*-näsk/nāsk-'' (evidently a combination of classes VI and IX).
*XI: Thematic in PToch suffix ''*-säsk-'' (evidently a combination of classes VIII and IX).
*XII: Thematic with PToch suffix ''*-(ä)ññ-'' < either PIE ''*-n-y-'' (denominative to n-stem nouns) or PIE ''*-nH-y-'' (deverbative from PIE ''*-nH-'' verbs).

[[Palatalization (phonetics)|Palatalization]] of the final root [[consonant]] occurs in the 2nd singular, 3rd singular, 3rd dual and 2nd plural in thematic classes II and VIII-XII as a result of the original PIE thematic vowel ''e''.

=====Subjunctive=====
The [[subjunctive]] likewise has 12 classes, denoted ''i'' through ''xii''. Most are conjugated identically to the corresponding indicative classes; indicative and subjunctive are distinguished by the fact that a verb in a given indicative class will usually belong to a different subjunctive class.

In addition, four subjunctive classes differ from the corresponding indicative classes, two "special subjunctive" classes with differing suffixes and two "varying subjunctive" classes with root ablaut reflecting the PIE perfect.

Special subjunctives:
*iv: Thematic with suffix ''i'' < PIE ''-y-'', with consistent palatalization of final root consonant. Tocharian B only, rare.
*vii: Thematic (''not'' athematic, as in indicative class VII) with suffix ''ñ'' < PIE ''-n-'' (palatalized by thematic ''e'', with palatalized variant generalized).

Varying subjunctives:
*i: Athematic without suffix, with root ablaut reflecting PIE ''o''-grade in active singular, zero-grade elsewhere. Derived from PIE perfect.
*v: Identical to class i but with PToch suffix ''*-ā-'', originally reflecting laryngeal-final roots but generalized.

=====Preterite=====
The [[preterite]] has 6 classes:
*I: The most common class, with a suffix ''ā'' < PIE ''Ḥ'' (i.e. roots ending in a laryngeal, although widely extended to other roots). This class shows root ablaut, with original ''e''-grade (and palatalization of the initial root consonant) in the active singular, contrasting with zero-grade (and no palatalization) elsewhere.
*II: This class has reduplication in Tocharian A (possibly reflecting the PIE reduplicated aorist). However, Tocharian B has a vowel reflecting long PIE ''ē'', along with palatalization of the initial root consonant. There is no [[ablaut]] in this class.
*III: This class has a suffix ''s'' in the 3rd singular active and throughout the mediopassive, evidently reflecting the PIE sigmatic [[aorist]]. Root ablaut occurs between active and mediopassive. A few verbs have palatalization in the active along with ''s'' in the 3rd singular, but no palatalization and no ''s'' in the mediopassive, along with no root ablaut (the vowel reflects PToch ''ë''). This suggests that, for these verbs in particular, the active originates in the PIE sigmatic aorist (with ''s'' suffix and ''ē'' vocalism) while the mediopassive stems from the PIE perfect (with ''o'' vocalism).
*IV: This class has suffix ''ṣṣā'', with no ablaut. Most verbs in this class are causatives.
*V: This class has suffix ''ñ(ñ)ā'', with no ablaut. Only a few verbs belong to this class.
*VI: This class, which has only two verbs, is derived from the PIE thematic aorist. As in Greek, this class has different endings from all the others, which partly reflect the PIE secondary endings (as expected for the thematic aorist).

All except preterite class VI have a common set of endings that stem from the PIE perfect endings, although with significant innovations.

=====Imperative=====
The [[imperative mood|imperative]] likewise shows 6 classes, with a unique set of endings, found only in the second person, and a prefix beginning with ''p-''. This prefix usually reflects Proto-Tocharian ''*pä-'' but unexpected connecting vowels occasionally occur, and the prefix combines with vowel-initial and glide-initial roots in unexpected ways. The prefix is often compared with the Slavic perfective prefix ''po-'', although the phonology is difficult to explain.

Classes i through v tend to co-occur with preterite classes I through V, although there are many exceptions. Class vi is not so much a coherent class as an "irregular" class with all verbs not fitting in other categories. The imperative classes tend to share the same suffix as the corresponding preterite (if any), but to have root vocalism that matches the vocalism of a verb's subjunctive. This includes the root ablaut of subjunctive classes i and v, which tend to co-occur with imperative class i.

=====Optative and imperfect=====
The [[optative]] and [[imperfect]] have related formations. The optative is generally built by adding ''i'' onto the subjunctive stem. Tocharian B likewise forms the imperfect by adding ''i'' onto the present indicative stem, while Tocharian A has 4 separate imperfect formations: usually ''ā'' is added to the subjunctive stem, but occasionally to the indicative stem, and sometimes either ''ā'' or ''s'' is added directly onto the root. The endings differ between the two languages: Tocharian A uses present endings for the optative and preterite endings for the imperfect, while Tocharian B uses the same endings for both, which are a combination of preterite and unique endings (the latter used in the singular active).

====Endings====
As suggested by the above discussion, there are a large number of sets of endings. The present-tense endings come in both thematic and athematic variants, although they are related, with the thematic endings generally reflecting a theme vowel (PIE ''e'' or ''o'') plus the athematic endings. There are different sets for the preterite classes I through V; preterite class VI; the imperative; and in Tocharian B, in the singular active of the optative and imperfect. Furthermore, each set of endings comes with both active and mediopassive forms. The mediopassive forms are quite conservative, directly reflecting the PIE variation between ''-r'' in the present and ''-i'' in the past. (Most other languages with the mediopassive have generalized one of the two.)

The present-tense endings are almost completely divergent between Tocharian A and B. The following shows the thematic endings, with their origin:

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|+Thematic present active indicative endings
! rowspan=2| !! rowspan=2|Original PIE !! colspan=2|Tocharian B !! colspan=2|Tocharian A !! rowspan=2|Notes
|-
! PIE source !! Actual form !! PIE source !! Actual form
|-
| 1st sing || ''*-o-h₂'' || ''*-o-h₂'' + PToch ''-u'' || ''-āu'' || ''*-o-mi'' || ''-am'' || ''*-mi'' < PIE athematic present
|-
| 2nd sing || ''*-e-si'' || ''*-e-th₂e''? || ''-'t'' || ''*-e-th₂e'' || ''-'t'' || ''*-th₂e'' < PIE perfect; previous consonant palatalized; Tocharian B form should be ''-'ta''
|-
| 3rd sing || ''*-e-ti'' || ''*-e-nu'' || ''-'(ä)ṃ'' || ''*-e-se'' || ''-'ṣ'' || ''*-nu'' < PIE ''*nu'' "now"; previous consonant palatalized
|-
| 1st pl || ''*-o-mos''? || ''*-o-mō''? || ''-em(o)'' || ''*-o-mes'' + V || ''-amäs'' ||
|-
| 2nd pl || ''*-e-te'' || ''*-e-tē-r'' + V || ''-'cer'' || ''*-e-te'' || ''-'c'' || ''*-r'' < PIE mediopassive?; previous consonant palatalized
|-
| 3rd pl || ''*-o-nti'' || ''*-o-nt'' || ''-eṃ'' || ''*-o-nti'' || ''-eñc'' < ''*-añc'' || ''*-o-nt'' < PIE secondary ending
|}

==Comparison to other Indo-European languages==
{{cleanup-lang|date=January 2024}}
{| style="margin:0 auto;font-size: 90%;" class="toccolours" colspan="2" cellpadding="3"
|-
| colspan="14" align="center" style="background:#ccf" | '''Tocharian vocabulary (sample)'''
|-
|- bgcolor="#cdcdcd"
! ''English'' !! Tocharian A !! Tocharian B !! [[Ancient Greek]] 
![[Hittite language|Hittite]]!! [[Vedic Sanskrit|Sanskrit]] !! [[Latin]] !! [[Proto-Germanic language|Proto-Germanic]] !! [[Gothic language|Gothic]] !! [[Old Irish]] !! [[Proto-Slavic language|Proto-Slavic]] !! [[Armenian language|Armenian]] !! [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]]
|-
|''one''||'''sas'''||'''ṣe'''||heîs, hen
|ās||sa(kṛ́t)||semel{{efn|name=shifted|[[Cognate]], with shifted meaning}}||*simla{{efn|name=shifted}}||simle{{efn|name=shifted}}||samail{{efn|name=shifted}}||*sǫ-{{efn|name=shifted|[[Cognate]], with shifted meaning}}||mi||{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*sḗm}} > PToch *sems
|-
|''two''||'''wu'''||'''wi'''||dúo
|dān||dvā́||duo||*twai||twái||dá||*dъva||erku||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*dwóh₁}}''
|-
|''three''||'''tre'''||'''trai'''||treîs
|tēries||tráyas||trēs||*þrīz||þreis||trí||*trьje||erekʻ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*tréyes}}''
|-
|''four''||'''śtwar'''||'''śtwer'''||téttares, téssares
|meyawes||catvā́ras, catúras||quattuor||*fedwōr||fidwōr||cethair||*četỳre||čʻorkʻ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*kʷetwóres}}''
|-
|''five''||'''päñ'''||'''piś'''||pénte
|?||páñca||quīnque||*fimf||fimf||cóic||*pętь||hing||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*pénkʷe}}''
|-
|''six''||'''ṣäk'''||'''ṣkas'''||héx
|?||ṣáṣ||sex||*sehs||saihs||sé||*šestь||vecʻ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*swéḱs}}''
|-
|''seven''||'''ṣpät'''||'''ṣukt'''||heptá
|sipta||saptá||septem||*sebun||sibun||secht||*sedmь||eōtʻn||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*septḿ̥}}''
|-
|''eight''||'''okät'''||'''okt'''||oktṓ
|?||aṣṭáu, aṣṭá||octō||*ahtōu||ahtau||ocht||*osmь||utʻ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*oḱtṓw}}''
|-
|''nine''||'''ñu'''||'''ñu'''||ennéa
|?||náva||novem||*newun||niun||noí||*dȅvętь||inn||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*h₁néwn̥}}''
|-
|''ten''||'''śäk'''||'''śak'''||déka
|?||dáśa||decem||*tehun||taihun||deich||*dȅsętь||tasn||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*déḱm̥t}}''
|-
|''hundred''||'''känt'''||'''kante'''||hekatón
|?||śatām||centum||*hundą||hund||cét||*sъto|| ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*ḱm̥tóm}}''
|-
|''father''||'''pācar'''||'''pācer'''||patḗr
|atta||pitṛ||pater||*fadēr||fadar||athair|| *patr{{efn|name=shifted|[[Cognate]], with shifted meaning}}|| ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*ph₂tḗr}}''
|-
|''mother''||'''mācar'''||'''mācer'''||mḗtēr
|anna|||mātṛ||māter||*mōdēr||mōdar||máthair||*màti|| ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*méh₂tēr}}''
|-
|''brother''||'''pracar'''||'''procer'''||phrā́tēr{{efn|name=shifted}}
|negna/nekna||bhrātṛ||frāter||*brōþēr||brōþar||bráthair||*bràtrъ|| ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*bʰréh₂tēr}}''
|-
|''sister''||'''ṣar'''||'''ṣer'''||éor{{efn|name=shifted}}
|negah||svásṛ||soror||*swestēr||swistar||siur||*sestrà|| ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*swésōr}}''
|-
|''horse''||'''yuk'''||'''yakwe'''||híppos
|ekku||áśva-||equus||*ehwaz||{{lang|got|aiƕs}}||ech||([[Balto-Slavic]] ''*áśwāˀ'')|| ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*h₁éḱwos}}''
|-
|''cow''||'''ko'''||'''keu'''||boûs
|suppal / kuwāu||gaúṣ||bōs{{efn|name=borrowed|Borrowed cognate, not native.}}||*kūz||([[Old English|OE]] ''cū'')||bó||*govę̀do|| ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*gʷṓws}}''
|-
|''voice''{{efn|name=borrowed|Borrowed cognate, not native.}}||'''vak'''||'''vek'''||épos{{efn|name=shifted}}
|?||vāk||vōx||*wōhmaz{{efn|name=shifted}}||([[Dutch language|Du]] ge''wag''){{efn|name=shifted}}||foccul{{efn|name=shifted}}||*vikъ{{efn|name=shifted|[[Cognate]], with shifted meaning}}|| ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*wṓkʷs}}''
|-
|''name''||'''ñom'''||'''ñem'''||ónoma
|halzāi||nāman-||nōmen||*namô||namō||ainmm||*jь̏mę|| ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*h₁nómn̥}}''
|-
|''to milk''||'''mālkā'''||'''mālkant'''||amélgein
|?||–||mulgēre||*melkaną||(OE ''me(o)lcan'')||bligid ([[Middle Irish|MIr]])||*melzti|| ||''{{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*h₂melǵ-eye}}''
|}
{{notelist}}

In traditional Indo-European studies, no hypothesis of a closer genealogical relationship of the Tocharian languages has been widely accepted by linguists. However, [[lexicostatistical]] and [[glottochronological]] approaches suggest the [[Anatolian languages]], including [[Hittite language|Hittite]], might be the closest relatives of Tocharian.<ref>Holm, Hans J. (2008). "The Distribution of Data in Word Lists and its Impact on the Subgrouping of Languages", In: Christine Preisach, Hans Burkhardt, Lars Schmidt-Thieme, Reinhold Decker (Editors): ''Data Analysis, Machine Learning, and Applications. Proc. of the 31st Annual Conference of the German Classification Society (GfKl)'', University of Freiburg, March 7–9, 2007. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg-Berlin.</ref><ref>Václav Blažek (2007), "From August Schleicher to Sergej Starostin; On the development of the tree-diagram models of the Indo-European languages". ''Journal of Indo-European Studies'' '''35''' (1&2): 82–109.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Bouckaert |first1=Remco |last2=Lemey |first2=Philippe |last3=Dunn |first3=Michael |last4=Greenhill |first4=Simon J. |last5=Alekseyenko |first5=Alexander V. |last6=Drummond |first6=Alexei J. |last7=Gray |first7=Russell D. |last8=Suchard |first8=Marc A. |last9=Atkinson |first9=Quentin D. |year=2012 |title=Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language Family |journal=Science |volume=337 |issue=6097 |pages=957–960 |bibcode=2012Sci...337..957B |doi=10.1126/science.1219669 |pmc=4112997 |pmid=22923579}}</ref>
As an example, the same Proto-Indo-European root {{wikt-lang|ine-pro|*h₂wrg(h)-}} (but not a common suffixed formation) can be reconstructed to underlie the words for 'wheel': Tocharian A ''wärkänt'', Tokharian B ''yerkwanto'', and Hittite ''ḫūrkis''.

=== Contact with other languages ===
Michaël Peyrot argues that several of the most striking typological peculiarities of Tocharian are rooted in a prolonged contact of Proto-Tocharian with an early stage of [[Proto-Samoyedic]] in South Siberia. This might explain the merger of [[Proto-Indo-European language#Consonants|all three stop series]] (e.g. *t, *d, *dʰ > *t), which must have led to a huge number of [[homonyms]], restructuring of the vowel system, development of [[Agglutinative language|agglutinative]] case marking, the loss of the [[dative case]], and others.{{sfnp|Peyrot|2019}}

In historic times, the Tocharian language stood in contact with various surrounding languages, including [[Iranian languages|Iranian]], Turkic, and [[Sinitic languages]]. Tocharian borrowings, and other Indo-European loanwords transmitted to Uralic, Turkic and Sinitic speakers, have been confirmed.{{sfnp|Bjørn|2022}} Tocharian had a high social position within the region, and influenced the [[Turkic languages]], which would later replace Tocharian in the [[Tarim Basin]].{{sfnp|Bjørn|2022}}

==Notable example==
Most of the texts known from the Tocharians are religious, but one noted text is a fragment of a love poem in Tocharian B (manuscript B-496, found in [[Kizil Caves|Kizil]]):<ref>{{Cite web |last=Carling |first=Gerd |website=Georg-August-Universität|place= Göttingen |title=Tocharian: Introduction — Part 3 | at= p.16|type= slide deck |url=https://spw.uni-goettingen.de/projects/aig/doc/TOC-INT-003.pdf}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable centre"
|+ Tocharian B manuscript B-496
|-
! scope="col" align=left| Translation<br><small>(English)</small>!!Transliteration!!Inscription<br><small>([[Tocharian script]])</small>
|-
|align=center |
{{blockquote|
I.<br>
... for a thousand years however, Thou wilt tell the story Thy (...) I announce,<br>
Heretofore there was no human being dearer to me than thee; likewise hereafter there will be no one dearer to me than thee.<br>
Love for thee, affection for thee—breath of all that is life—and they shall not come to an end so long as there lasts life.<br>
III.<br>
Thus did I always think: "I will live well, the whole of my life, with one lover: no force, no deceit."<br>
The god Karma alone knew this thought of mine; so he provoked quarrel; he ripped out my heart from thee;<br>
He led thee afar; tore me apart; made me partake in all sorrows and took away the consolation thou wast.<br>
... my life, spirit, and heart day-by-day...<ref name="DQA">{{Cite book |last1=Adams |first1=Douglas Q.|author1-link = Douglas Q. Adams|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FEPjCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA27 |chapter=More Thoughts on Tocharian B Prosody | title=Tocharian and Indo-European Studies, vol. 14 |editor2-last=Peyrot |editor2-first=Michaël |editor3-last=Pinault |editor3-first=Georges-Jean | editor3-link=Georges-Jean Pinault |editor1-last=Olander |editor1-first=Thomas |type=''in memoriam'' [[Jens Elmegård Rasmussen]] |date=2013 |publisher=Museum Tusculanum Press |isbn=978-87-635-4066-7 |pages=26–28}}</ref><ref name="GJP">{{ cite book | language= fr | title=Chrestomathie tokharienne: Textes et grammaire| first= Georges-Jean| last= Pinault| publisher =Peeters| date=2008 | author-link=Georges-Jean Pinault | isbn=9782758400592 | oclc=290435415}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Language Log » Tocharian love poem |url=https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=46597}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = https://littlebleenhat.github.io/xtb.html| title = World Atlas of Poetic Traditions: Tocharian}}</ref>}}
| align=left |
{{poemquote|
II.<br>
''(...) Yaltse pikwala (...) watäṃ weṃt no''<br>
''Mā ñi cisa noṣ śomo ñem wnolme lāre tāka mā ra postaṃ cisa lāre mäsketär-ñ.''<br>
''Ciṣṣe laraumñe ciṣṣe ārtañye pelke kalttarr śolämpa ṣṣe mā te stālle śol-wärñai.''<br>
III.<br>
''Taiysu pälskanoym sanai ṣaryompa śāyau karttse-śaulu-wärñai snai tserekwa snai nāte.''<br>
''Yāmor-ñīkte ṣe cau ñi palskāne śarsa tusa ysaly ersate ciṣy araś ñi sälkāte,''<br>
''Wāya ci lauke tsyāra ñiś wetke klyautka-ñ pāke po läklentas ciṣe tsārwo, sampāte.''<br>
''(...) Śaul palsk araśñi, kom kom''<ref name="DQA" /><ref name="GJP" />}}
|align=center |
[[File:Tocharian B Love Poem.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|none|[[Tocharian B]] Love Poem, manuscript B496 (one of two fragments).]]
|}

==See also==
*[[Language families and languages]]
*[[Tocharians]]
*''[[Tocharian and Indo-European Studies]]'' (journal)

== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

=== Sources ===
{{refbegin|35em}}
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*[[Sylvain Lévi|Lévi, Sylvain]] (1913). "[http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-JRAS/sylvain.htm Tokharian Pratimoksa Fragment]". ''The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland'', pp.&nbsp;109–120.
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*[[Melanie Malzahn|Malzahn, Melanie]] (ed.) (2007). ''Instrumenta Tocharica''. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, {{ISBN|978-3-8253-5299-8}}.
* {{Citation |last=Peyrot |first=Michaël |title=Variation and Change in Tocharian B |year=2008 |postscript=. |place=Amsterdam |publisher=Rodopoi}}
* {{Citation |last=Peyrot |first=Michaël |author-mask=3 |date=2019 |title=The Deviant Typological Profile of the Tocharian Branch of Indo-European May Be Due to Uralic Substrate Influence |journal=Indo-European Linguistics |language=en |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=72–121 |doi=10.1163/22125892-00701007 |doi-access=free|hdl=1887/139205 |hdl-access=free }}
* [[Georges-Jean Pinault|Pinault, Georges-Jean]] (2008). ''Chrestomathie tokharienne: Textes et grammaire''. Leuven-Paris: Peeters (Collection linguistique publiée par la Société de Linguistique de Paris, no. XCV), {{ISBN|978-90-429-2168-9}}.
* {{Citation |last=Renfrew |first=Colin |title=Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins |year=1990 |postscript=. |publisher=CUP Archive |isbn=978-0-521-38675-3 |author-link=Colin Renfrew}}
*Ringe, Donald A. (1996). ''On the Chronology of Sound Changes in Tocharian: Volume I: From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Tocharian''. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society.
* Schmalsteig, William R. (1974). "[http://www.lituanus.org/1974/74_3_01.htm Tokharian and Baltic] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060424052306/http://www.lituanus.org/1974/74_3_01.htm |date=2006-04-24 }}." ''Lituanus''. v. 20, no. 3.
* {{Citation |title=ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese |year=2007 |postscript=. |place=Honolulu |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |isbn=978-0-8248-2975-9 |given=Axel |surname=Schuessler}}
* Winter, Werner (1998). "Tocharian." In Ramat, Giacalone Anna and Paolo Ramat (eds). ''The Indo-European languages'', 154–168. London: Routledge, {{ISBN|978-0-415-06449-1}}.
{{refend}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
* Bednarczuk, Leszek; Elżbieta Mańczak-Wohlfeld, and Barbara Podolak. “Non-Indo-European Features of the Tocharian Dialects”. In: ''Words and Dictionaries: A Festschrift for Professor Stanisław Stachowski on the Occasion of His 85th Birthday''. Jagiellonian University Press, 2016. pp. 55–68.
* Blažek, Václav; Schwarz, Michal (2017). ''[https://is.muni.cz/do/rect/metodika/VaV/evaluace/2019-ff_filologie/fulltext/5_Blazek-schwarz_early-indo-europeans.pdf The early Indo-Europeans in Central Asia and China: Cultural relations as reflected in language]''. Innsbruck: Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft. {{ISBN|978-3-85124-240-9}}.
* Hackstein, Olav. “Collective and Feminine in Tocharian.” In: Multilingualism and History of Knowledge, Vol. 2: Linguistic Developments Along the Silkroad: Archaism and Innovation in Tocharian, edited by OLAV HACKSTEIN and RONALD I. KIM, 12:143–78. Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2012. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt3fgk5q.8.
* Lubotsky A. M. (1998). "Tocharian loan words in Old Chinese: Chariots, chariot gear, and town building". In: Mair V.H. (Ed.). ''The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia''. Washington D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man. pp.&nbsp;379–390. http://hdl.handle.net/1887/2683
* Lubotsky A. M. (2003). "Turkic and Chinese loan words in Tocharian". In: Bauer B.L.M., Pinault G.-J. (Eds.). ''Language in time and space: A Festschrift for Werner Winter on the occasion of his 80th birthday''. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp.&nbsp;257–269. http://hdl.handle.net/1887/16336
* {{cite book |last1=Mair |first1=Victor H. |last2=Zhang |first2=Shuheng |last3=Adams |first3=Douglas Q. |last4=Blažek |first4=Václav |last5=Comsa |first5=Alexandra |last6=Haarmann |first6=Harald |last7=Joseph |first7=Brian D. |last8=Malzahn |first8=Melanie |last9=Poruciuc |first9=Adrian |last10=Ringe |first10=Don |last11=Wells |first11=Peter S. |title=Tocharica et archeologica: A Festschrift in Honor of J. P. Mallory |date=2024 |publisher=The Institute for the Study of Man, Inc |location=Washington DC |isbn=978-0-9983669-6-8}} 
* Meier, Kristin and Peyrot, Michaël. "The Word for ‘Honey’ in Chinese, Tocharian and Sino-Vietnamese." In: ''Zeitschrift Der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft'' 167, no. 1 (2017): 7–22. doi:10.13173/zeitdeutmorggese.167.1.0007.
* Miliūtė-Chomičenkienė, Aleta. “Baltų-slavų-tocharų leksikos gretybės” [ETYMOLOGICAL PARALLELS IN BALTIC, SLAVIC AND TOCHARIAN IN “NAMES OF ANIMALS AND THEIR BODY PARTS"]. In: ''Baltistica'' XXVI (2): 135–143. 1990. DOI: 10.15388/baltistica.26.2.2075 (In Lithuanian)
* Peyrot, Michaël. “On the Formation of the Tocharian Preterite Participle.” Historische Sprachforschung / Historical Linguistics 121 (2008): 69–83. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41637843.
* {{Cite journal| last= Pinault | first= Georges-Jean | author-link=Georges-Jean Pinault| title= <!-- sic, not faulty ocr: --> TOKH. B ‘K<sub>U</sub>CAÑÑE’, A ‘K<sub>U</sub>CIṂ’ ET SKR. ‘TOKHARIKA’| journal =Indo-Iranian Journal|volume= 45|number =4 |date=2002| pages= 311–345 | jstor= 24664155 | doi= 10.1163/000000002124994919}}
* Schoubben, Niels (2024). ''Traces of language contact in Niya Prakrit Bactrian and other foreign elements''. Leiden University: PhD Dissertation.
* Witczak, Krzysztof Tomasz. “TWO TOCHARIAN BORROWINGS OF ORIENTAL ORIGIN”. In: ''Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae'' 66, no. 4 (2013): 411–16. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43282527.
{{refend}}

==External links==
* [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tocharian.htm Tocharian alphabet (from Omniglot)]
* Thesaurus Indogermanischer Text- und Sprachmaterialien (TITUS):
** [http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/idg/toch/tochbr.htm Tocharian alphabet]
** [http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/database/titusinx/tochvb.asp Conjugation tables for Tocharian A and B]
** [http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/tocharic/tht.htm Tocharian A manuscripts from the Berlin Turfan Collection]
* Mark Dickens, [https://www.academia.edu/436107/Everything_You_Always_Wanted_to_Know_About_Tocharian "Everything you always wanted to know about Tocharian"]
* [https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/tokol Tocharian Online] by Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum, free online lessons at the [https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/lrc Linguistics Research Center] at the [[University of Texas at Austin]]
* [http://ieed.ullet.net/tochB.html Online dictionary of Tocharian B], based upon D. Q. Adams's ''A Dictionary of Tocharian B'' (1999)
* [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Tocharian_B_Swadesh_list Tocharian B Swadesh list] (From Wiktionary)
* [http://www.univie.ac.at/tocharian Comprehensive Edition of Tocharian Manuscripts], University of Vienna, with images, transcriptions and (in many cases) translations and other information.
* {{Cite book |last1=Sieg |first1=E. |url=https://archive.org/details/tocharischesprac01sieg |title=Tocharische Sprachreste, 1.A: Transcription |last2=Siegling |first2=W. |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |year=1921}} Transcriptions of Tocharian A manuscripts.
* {{Cite web |last=Kim |first=Ronald I. |year=2012 |title=Introduction to Tocharian |url=http://enlil.ff.cuni.cz/system/files/tocharian.pdf |publisher=Institute for Comparative Linguistics, Charles University |access-date=2014-05-01 |archive-date=2018-07-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180716165640/http://enlil.ff.cuni.cz/system/files/tocharian.pdf |url-status=dead }}
* [https://spw.uni-goettingen.de/projects/aig/lng-toc.html glottothèque – Ancient Indo-European Grammars online], an online collection of introductory videos to Ancient Indo-European languages produced by the University of Göttingen

{{Indo-European languages}}
{{Languages of China}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tocharian Languages}}
[[Category:Tocharian languages| ]]
[[Category:Medieval languages]]
[[Category:Indo-European languages]]
[[Category:Languages of Xinjiang]]
[[Category:Central Asia]]
[[Category:Extinct languages of Asia]]
[[Category:Languages attested from the 6th century]]
[[Category:Languages extinct in the 9th century]]