List of Tocharian (Agnean-Kuchean) peoples

This is a list of the peoples that are called “Tocharians” (although now most scholars think it is a misnomer for them) also known by the name Agnean-Kuchean, a now extinct Indo-European group of peoples that were speakers of a distinct Indo-European branch of languages. They inhabited the Tarim Basin (occupied in most part by the Taklamakan desert) in today's Xinjiang Chinese Province, in western China. At the end of the first Millennium AD they were assimilated by the Turkic Uyghur people and lost their distinct ethnic identity.

Several scholars such as J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair argue that they were descendants of the Afanasievo culture people, that possibly were speakers of an Indo-European language or languages and that, in a still undetermined time, migrated south towards the Tarim Basin and settled mainly on the northern and eastern edges, and also on some southern edges (north, east and south of the Taklamakan desert).[1]

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Ancestors

Map 1: Indo-European migrations as described in The Horse, the Wheel, and Language by David W. Anthony
Map 2: Sintashta-Petrovka culture (red), its expansion into the Andronovo culture (orange) during the 2nd millennium BC, showing the overlap with the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (chartreuse green) in the south and also with the Afanasievo culture in the east. The location of the earliest chariots is shown in magenta. Several scholars associate Proto-Tocharians with Afanasievo culture.[2]
Map 3: Tocharian languages A (blue), B (red) and C (green) spoken by the Tocharian peoples in the Tarim Basin.[3] Tarim oasis towns are given as listed in the Book of Han (c. 2nd century BC). The areas of the squares are proportional to population.
Map 4: Tarim Basin in the 3rd century showing the kingdoms.

Eastern Tocharians

They were possible speakers of Tocharian A, but also may have spoken Tocharian B because the two languages overlapped. There is the possibility that Tocharian B replaced Tocharian A.

  • Agneans / Arseans (Ārśiññe) / Aspacares (mentioned by Ptolemy based on an Iranian exonym) - in Agni Oasis, (Ārśi may have been the native name) (i.e. Chinese Yanqi; modern Karasahr) (According to Douglas Q. Adams the name Ārśiññe was not the native name for the Agneans as the name Ārśi was not a designation for Tocharian A as has occasionally been supposed or for modern Karasahr Oasis; it meant "ordained beggar monk" as a noun and "Aryan" - Iranian or Indo-Aryan, as an adjective, it was a borrowing from Prakrit through some Iranian language.[4] However, this explanation is contested by Zhivko Voynikov who states that the name Ārśi meant "Bright" or "White", and was the ancient name for modern Karasahr Oasis and was also the basis of a real self ethnonym for the people of this region).[5]
  • Gushi or Jushi or Gushineans (Turpan Tocharians) - an obscure ancient people that lived in the Turpan Basin, i.e. Chinese Jushi or Gushi, including Qocho, known in Chinese as Gaochang they were the basis of the Gushi or Jushi Kingdom. They spoke a language that eventually diverged into two dialects, as noted by diplomats from the Han empire.
    • Nearer Gushi / Anterior Gushi, in the southern Turpan Basin
    • Further Gushi / Posterior Gushi, in the northern Turpan Basin
  • Other possible Eastern Tocharian peoples mentioned by Antiquity authors

Western Tocharians

They were possible speakers of Tocharian B, possibly they were not speakers of Tocharian A because the two languages did not overlap in that area.

Hypothetical Tocharian peoples

Southern Tocharians

They were possible speakers of Tocharian C, a substrate language to the later written Prakrit Indo-Aryan languages on the southeast edge of the Tarim Basin and possibly in its southern part also.

  • Krorainians-Tsadotians / Chauranes (possibly an originally Tocharian people, later Scythianized and mixed with Scythians or Sakas migrants and conquerors they shifted their ethnic and linguistic identity and formed the Chauranes Scythians or Kroraina Sakas)[16] - in Krorän or Kroraina (native name),[17] Loulan in Chinese, [Navapa – Nava Apa – “New Water” in Sogdian], Andir, Miran, Qarkilik, Qarqan – Qiemo and in Caḍ́ota [Tsaḍ́ota] now known as Niya by the Uyghurs and Jingjue by the Han Chinese) (in Loulan and Shanshan).
  • Hatties Tocharians / Khotan Tocharians (possibly an originally Tocharian people, later Scythianized and mixed with Scythians or Sakas migrants and conquerors they shifted their ethnic and linguistic identity and formed the Hatties Scythians or Khotan Sakas) (also called "Ottorocares", this name derives from Sanskrit Uttarakuru - "Uttara Kuru" - "Northern Tribes", from an Indian point of view)[18] - in Khotan and Khotan County

Western Tocharians

Possible Tocharian peoples

Tocharian or Iranian

There are different or conflicting views among scholars regarding the ethnic and linguistic kinship of the peoples known by the Han Chinese as Wusun and Yuezhi and also other less known peoples (a minority of scholars argue that they were Tocharians, based, among other things, on the similarity of names like "Kushan" and the native name of "Kucha" (Kuśi) and the native name "Kuśi" and Chinese name "Gushi" or the name "Arsi" and "Asii",[21] however most scholars argue that they were possibly Northeastern Iranian peoples)[22][23]

Tocharian, Iranian or Turkic

See also

References

  1. ^ Mallory & Mair 2000, pp. 294–296, 317–318.
  2. ^ Mallory, J.P.; Douglas Q. Adams (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. ISBN 978-1-884964-98-5.
  3. ^ Mallory & Mair (2000), pp. 67, 68, 274.
  4. ^ A dictionary of Tocharian B by Douglas Q. Adams (Leiden Studies in Indo-European 10), xxxiv, 830 pp., Rodopi: Amsterdam – Atlanta, 1999.
  5. ^ Žhivko Voynikov (Bulgaria). SOME ANCIENT CHINESE NAMES IN EAST TURKESTAN AND CENTRAL ASIA AND THE TOCHARIAN QUESTION. (pags. 9-10)
  6. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  7. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  8. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  9. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  10. ^ A dictionary of Tocharian B by Douglas Q. Adams (Leiden Studies in Indo-European 10), xxxiv, 830 pp., Rodopi: Amsterdam – Atlanta, 1999.
  11. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  12. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  13. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  14. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  15. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  16. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  17. ^ "Language Log » Prakritic "Kroraina" and Old Sinitic reconstructions of "Loulan"".
  18. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  19. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  20. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  21. ^ Žhivko Voynikov (Bulgaria). SOME ANCIENT CHINESE NAMES IN EAST TURKESTAN AND CENTRAL ASIA AND THE TOCHARIAN QUESTION [1]
  22. ^ Wei Lan-Hai; Li Hui; Xu Wenkan (2013). "The separate origins of the Tocharians and the Yuezhi: Results from recent advances in archaeology and genetics" in Research Gate
  23. ^ A dictionary of Tocharian B by Douglas Q. Adams (Leiden Studies in Indo-European 10), xxxiv, 830 pp., Rodopi: Amsterdam – Atlanta, 1999. [2]
  24. ^ Sinor, Denis (1997). Aspects of Altaic Civilization III. Psychology Press. p. 237. ISBN 0-7007-0380-2. Retrieved 29 May 2015. ...it seems likely, the Wu-sun were an Indo-European, perhaps Iranian people...
  25. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  26. ^ "History of Central Asia: Early Eastern Peoples". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 1 June 2015. ... in the second half of the 2nd century bce the Xiongnu, at the height of their power, had expelled from their homeland in western Gansu (China) a people probably of Iranian stock, known to the Chinese as the Yuezhi and called Tokharians in Greek sources.
  27. ^ "Ancient Iran: The movement of Iranian peoples". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 29 May 2015. At the end of the 3rd century, there began in Chinese Turkistan a long migration of the Yuezhi, an Iranian people who invaded Bactria about 130 bc, putting an end to the Greco-Bactrian kingdom there. (In the 1st century bc they created the Kushān dynasty, whose rule extended from Afghanistan to the Ganges River and from Russian Turkistan to the estuary of the Indus.)
  28. ^ Voynikov, Zhivko. (?). Some ancient Chinese names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian question.
  29. ^ Wei Lan-Hai; Li Hui; Xu Wenkan (2013). "The separate origins of the Tocharians and the Yuezhi: Results from recent advances in archaeology and genetics" in Research Gate [3]

Bibliography

Further reading

Note: Recent discoveries have rendered obsolete some of René Grousset's classic The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, published in 1939, which, however, still provides a broad background against which to assess more modern detailed studies.

  • Baldi, Philip. 1983. An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages. Carbondale. Southern Illinois University Press.
  • Barber, Elizabeth Wayland. 1999. The Mummies of Ürümchi. London. Pan Books.
  • Beekes, Robert. 1995. Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction. Philadelphia. John Benjamins.
  • Hemphill, Brian E. and J.P. Mallory. 2004. "Horse-mounted invaders from the Russo-Kazakh steppe or agricultural colonists from Western Central Asia? A craniometric investigation of the Bronze Age settlement of Xinjiang" in American Journal of Physical Anthropology vol. 125 pp 199ff.
  • Lane, George S. 1966. "On the Interrelationship of the Tocharian Dialects," in Ancient Indo-European Dialects, eds. Henrik Birnbaum and Jaan Puhvel. Berkeley. University of California Press.
  • Ning, Chao, Chuan-Chao Wang, Shizhu Gao, Y. Yang and Yinqiu Cui. “Ancient Genomes Reveal Yamnaya-Related Ancestry and a Potential Source of Indo-European Speakers in Iron Age Tianshan”. In: Current Biology 29 (2019): 2526–2532.e4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.044
  • Walter, Mariko Namba 1998 "Tocharian Buddhism in Kucha: Buddhism of Indo-European Centum Speakers in Chinese Turkestan before the 10th Century C.E." Sino-Platonic Papers 85.
  • Xu, Wenkan 1995 "The Discovery of the Xinjiang Mummies and Studies of the Origin of the Tocharians" The Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 23, Number 3 & 4, Fall/Winter 1995, pp. 357–369.
  • Xu, Wenkan 1996 "The Tokharians and Buddhism" In: Studies in Central and East Asian Religions 9, pp. 1–17. [4][permanent dead link]

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to List of Tocharian (Agnean-Kuchean) peoples.
Look up Tocharian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  • Tocharian alphabet at omniglot.com
  • Tocharian alphabet
  • Modern studies are developing a Tocharian dictionary.
  • Mark Dickens, 'Everything you always wanted to know about Tocharian'. Archived 2003-10-11 at the Wayback Machine
  • A dictionary of Tocharian B by Douglas Q. Adams (Leiden Studies in Indo-European 10), xxxiv, 830 pp., Rodopi: Amsterdam – Atlanta, 1999. [5]
  • Zhivko Voynikov (Bulgaria). Some Ancient Chinese Names in East Turkestan and Central Asia and the Tocharian Question [6]
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