Talk:Tocharian languages

Tocharian and Hittite

I've removed the following sentence, which had been commented out almost 3 years ago for lack of sources:

The one Indo-European language that seems to hold the most similarity to Tocharian is the ancient Hittite language, which ceased to be spoken around 1000 BC.

As far as I know, Tocharian and Hittite (or more generally, Anatolian) are not particularly closely related. They do share some common properties that few or no other IE languages have, but these are thought to be retained archaisms from the protolanguage, not shared innovations, and therefore not indicative of a close relationship. (1) Hittite and Tocharian both have mediopassive forms in -r. Before the discovery of these two branches, it was thought that mediopassive -r was innovation of Italo-Celtic, but once they were discovered in H & T, it was realized that it's a retention from the protolanguage (as a result, the best argument in favor of the Italo-Celtic hypothesis disappeared, and the two are no longer considered closely related). The other thing Hittite and Tocharian have in common is the retention of -tk- (etc.) clusters unchanged in words like like *h2rtko- "bear" and *dhghem- "earth". All other languages have changed these clusters in some way, and before H & T were discovered, they were reconstructed as *kþ/gð/ghðh despite the fact that *þ/ð/ðh didn't occur in any other environments. But again, this is an archaic retention in both languages, not a shared innovation. —Angr 19:59, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Some ad-hoc examples prove nothing. Nearly ALL lexicostatistical studies including my own agree regarding Hittite being the closest neighbor of Tocharian. Thus please leave that sentence where it was. HJJHolm (talk) 16:38, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Lexicostatistical studies are not a great argument, however. Especially when they fail to respect the distinction between Hittite and Anatolian. It's like saying Gothic for Germanic – an outdated usage, and not only imprecise but nonsensical when taken literally. That said, I would like to know how lexicostatistical studies identify common retentions and differentiate them from common innovations or other sources of agreement. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:18, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Tocharian C?

Hi. Should mention of Tocharian C be included? Mallory and Mair's book on the Tarim Mummies discusses the languages of the Tarim Basin, and notes that some scholars have identified certain Tocharian words in Prakrit texts from Lop Nor right down to Niya. They cite several examples (like a word for fruit and a case ending) which hint at a third Tocharian language in the southern Tarim. They also suggest that the name of the Kunlun mountains, which is not a Sino-Tibetan or Turkic name, derives from a Tocharian-language word relating to the heavens (Cognate: Kunlun -> Celestial). 144.32.126.14 (talk) 16:47, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Tocharian in Manichean script

Is it really necessary to write an article about "Tocharian script" when Tocharian was written in at least two scripts Brahmic and Manichean scripts . Only mentioning the Brahmic script implies that Tocharian was only written in Brahmic. Although I think I read it was also written in Sogdian script also I can not produce citations for this feeble allegation. I suggest we merge the Tocharian script article into the Tocharian language article. Tocharian information relating to this noble language is hard to come by and such a small article can be easily incorporated into The Tocharian language article. I suggest we merge them. This should be easy because most of the information on the Tocharian script article is on the Tocharian language article .If we don’t merge then I suggest we at least change the name of the article to Tocharian scripts. Thank you I look forward to every ones suggestions. --Zaharous (talk) 04:08, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Notes

Sources

• Daniels, Peter (1996), The Worlds Writing Systems, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195079930 
• Campbell, George (2000), Compendium of the Worlds Languages Second Edition: Volume II Ladkhi to Zuni, Routledge, ISBN 041520473 

The point is that we have separate articles on the Manichaean script (used for whatever languages it was used for, including but not restricted to Tocharian) and the Brahmic script used for Tocharian, called here the Tocharian script. I don't know whether the Tocharian Brahmic script was ever used to write any other language besides Tocharian. If the title "Tocharian script" is ambiguous, we could move the article to Tocharian Brahmic script, but only if there's evidence that published sources use that name for it. +Angr 06:40, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Resemblance

I couldn't help noticing a few stroking resemblances between Tocharian A and danish: "cow" is "ko" in both languages. "To milk" is "malk" in Tocharian A and "malke" in danish. I wonder if there are more? JoaCHIP (talk) 01:59, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Probably; after all, these similarities you noticed are no coincidences. In both cases, the Danish and Tocharian words are descended from the same Proto-Indo-European root. +Angr 06:37, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The points of resemblance specifically with Danish, however, are necessarily coincidental. It is true that Tocharian has sometimes been said to be particularly close to Germanic, but such comparisons have been made with just about every other group except Indo-Iranian (which is clearly dissimilar), and in any case Modern Danish has diverged very far from Proto-Germanic. Proto-Tocharian has completely different sound changes and morphology than Germanic, and a fortiori Danish, has. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:13, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Centum

Further information: Proto-Indo-European phonology

it is true that Tocharian and Anatolian are often called "centum". But it is very important to point out that they do not meet the narrow definition of centum. There is a distinction between "phonological centum" and "phonetic centum":

• phonological: has two rows of tectals, one from (plain velars + palatals) and the other from labiovelars
• phonetic: the reflexes of the palato-velars are tectal [k] and have not been fronted to [ɕ]/[tʃ]/[ʃ].

Tocharian is "centum" in the weaker, purely phonetic, sense, but it isn't any more "centum" than "satem" in the phonological sense, as all three tectal rows have been collapsed into a single one. --dab (𒁳) 14:37, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I propose to remove that centum-satem chart, which represents neither a dispersion nor is it a diachronic map. These views are simply outdated for years. HJJHolm (talk) 16:47, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Tocharian C

Agree with above...Is it too early to begin citing the sources and content of the Tocharian C that is said to have been evidenced along the South of the Tarim basin? I also read that Toch C is the earliest of the two languages from which the others are derived.

Where have you read that? Mallory & Adams (in the EIEC, which is where I recall reading about that) at least state no such thing, if I remember correctly. Tocharian C is simply presumed to be a third Tocharian language independently descended from Proto-Tocharian; it seems too young (3rd/4th centuries?) and quite possibly in the wrong place, too (in the south, not the north), to be identified with Proto-Tocharian. Isn't it said to have been spoken in the Loulan region?

It's never too early to begin citing the sources! By all means, add Tocharian C if you have sources. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:08, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I thought "Bi" was greek or latin for two not "Duo"

I always get confused between the two languages because of their significance in scientific vocabulary but I always thought that 1 was uni in one language and mono in the other, the same goes for 2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.127.0 (talk) 18:41, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• • Nope, Latin has 'duo', Ancient Greek had 'δύο' (which is usually transcribed as dúo). bi- is a prefix from Latin, which sometimes changed initial du- to b-, as in bis from duis. Baranxtu (talk) 21:18, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Old Latin /dw/ (spelled du/DV) has changed to b in Classical Latin completely regularly. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:20, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Why Hindustani?

I see no reason for the recent addition of Hindustani to the language comparison chart, as that language is younger than the extinction of Tocharian, and we already have two Indo-Aryan languages. Wouldn't Proto-Germanic be more relevant? Devanatha (talk) 17:44, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

• I've removed Farsi and Hindustani as these are later languages and the related language of Vedic Sanskrit (which is the one that matters) is on the list. I suppose if someone really wants to distinguish India from Iran we could add Avestan. We can't use Proto-Germanic as that is a reconstructed language. The usual thing to use for the Germanic languages is Gothic. Hittite would be really nice though. Ekwos (talk) 05:16, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Language Comparison Table

The language comparison table (until my last edit) contained three contemporary languages - English, Farsi, and Hindustani. In general when one wishes to show languages as belonging to the Indo-European family one compares them to the most ancient attested members of the various groups. In this case the Indo-Iranian group is represented by Vedic Sanskrit, and there is no reason for the contemporary members of the group which are Farsi and Hindustani (one could perhaps include a word from Avestan if for some reason the word was missing from Vedic Sanskrit). In a similar vein we have Latin, and there would be no reason to include French or Spanish. English shouldn't be considered as being there to establish that the Tocharian languages are Indo-European, but is simply a convenient way of showing the meaning of the roots. The proper representative of the Germanic languages is Gothic. Please do not restore the table with Farsi or Hindustani again. Ekwos (talk) 21:39, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Split

This article should be split into articles for the Turfanian and Kuchean languages. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 19:14, 23 November 2011 (UTC)