{"history":[],"article":{"id":"00745d09-43a3-4104-b6d9-2aa5eaecc463","title":"Proto-Tocharian language","slug":"proto-tocharian-language","content":":::summary\n**Name:** Proto-Tocharian \n**Region:** [Tarim Basin](https://bliptext.com/articles/tarim-basin) \n**Familycolor:** Indo-European \n**Ancestor:** [Proto-Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european) \n**Target:** [Tocharian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/tocharian-languages) \n**Child 1:** Agnean ([Tocharian A](https://bliptext.com/articles/tocharian-a)) \n**Child 2:** [Kuchean](https://bliptext.com/articles/kuchean-language) ([Tocharian B](https://bliptext.com/articles/tocharian-b)) \n**Child 3:** Kroränian ([Tocharian C](https://bliptext.com/articles/tocharian-c)) \n:::\n\n# \n**Proto-Tocharian**, also spelled **Proto-Tokharian** ( or ), is the [reconstructed](https://bliptext.com/articles/linguistic-reconstruction) [proto-language](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-language) of the [extinct](https://bliptext.com/articles/language-death) [Tocharian branch](https://bliptext.com/articles/tocharian-languages) of the [Indo-European languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-european-languages).\nProto-Tocharian is the unattested reconstructed ancestor of an [Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-european-languages) eponymous extinct branch, known from manuscripts dating from the 5th to the 8th century AD, which were on the northern edge of the [Tarim Basin](https://bliptext.com/articles/tarim-basin) and the [Lop Desert](https://bliptext.com/articles/lop-desert).\nThe discovery of this [language family](https://bliptext.com/articles/language-family) in the early 20th century contradicted the formerly prevalent idea of an east–west division of the Indo-European [language family](https://bliptext.com/articles/language-family) on the [centum–satem isogloss](https://bliptext.com/articles/centum-and-satem-languages), and prompted reinvigorated study of the family.\nThe documents record two closely related languages, called Tocharian A (also East Tocharian, Agnean or Turfanian) and Tocharian B (West Tocharian or Kuchean).\nThe subject matter of the texts suggests that Tocharian A was more archaic and used as a [Buddhist](https://bliptext.com/articles/buddhism) liturgical language, while Tocharian B was more actively spoken in the entire area from [Turfan](https://bliptext.com/articles/turfan) in the east to [Tumshuq](https://bliptext.com/articles/tumshuq) in the west.\nA body of loanwords and names found in Prakrit documents from the [Lop Nor](https://bliptext.com/articles/lop-nur) basin have been dubbed Tocharian C (Kroränian).\nA claimed find of ten Tocharian C texts written in [Kharoṣṭhī](https://bliptext.com/articles/kharosthi) script has been discredited.\nTocharian A and Tocharian B, the two major languages descendant of Proto-Tocharian, are mutually unintelligible, which led linguists to think that the split of Proto-Tocharian in several branches was several millennia ago.\nAs part of the same language family, the Tocharian languages and their common ancestor are studied together by scholars.\n\n# Evolution\n\n## Vowels\nProto-Tocharian shows radical changes in its vowels from [Proto-Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european) (PIE).\nLength distinctions eventually disappeared, but prior to that all pairs of long and short vowels had become distinct in quality, and thus have different outcomes.\nMany pairs of PIE vowels are distinguished in Tocharian only by the occurrence or non-occurrence of palatalization.\nFor example, PIE o and ē both evolved into Proto-Tocharian ë (possibly ), but PIE ē palatalized the preceding consonant, and left a y when no consonant preceded, while neither of these occurs with PIE o.\nReconstructing the changes between PIE and Proto-Tocharian vowels is fraught with difficulty, and as a result there are a large number of disagreements among different researchers.\nThe basic problems are:\nHistorically, the evolution of the Tocharian vowels was the last part of the diachronic phonology to be understood.\nIn 1938, [George S. Lane](https://bliptext.com/articles/george-sherman-lane) remarked of Tocharian that \"the vocalism so far has defied almost every attempt that has been made to bring it to order\", and as late as 1945 still asserted: \"That the subject [of palatalization] is a confused and difficult one is generally recognized—but so are most of the problems of Tocharian phonology.\"\nHowever, rapid progress towards understanding the evolution of the vocalic system, and with it the phonology as a whole, occurred during the period of approximately 1948–1960, beginning with Sieg and Siegling (1949).\nBy 1960, the system was well-enough understood that Krause and Thomas's seminal work of that year is still considered one of the most important Tocharian grammatical handbooks.\nDespite the apparent equivalence between the Tocharian A and B vowel systems, in fact a number of vowels are not cognate between the two varieties, and Proto-Tocharian had a different vowel system from both.\nFor example, Tocharian A a reflects a merger of two Proto-Tocharian vowels that are distinguished in Tocharian B as e and o, while Tocharian B a reflects a stress-based variant of either Proto-Tocharian ā or ä, while Tocharian A preserves original ā and ä regardless of the position of stress.\nAs a general rule, Tocharian B reflects the Proto-Tocharian vowel system more faithfully than Tocharian A, which includes a number of changes not found in Tocharian B, e.g. monophthongization of diphthongs, loss of all absolutely final vowels, loss of ä in open syllables, and epenthesis of ä to break up difficult clusters (esp. word-finally) that resulted from vowel losses.\nThe following table describes a typical minimal reconstruction of Late Proto-Tocharian, which includes all vowels that are generally accepted by Tocharian scholars:\nThe following table describes a \"maximal\" reconstruction of Proto-Tocharian, following Ringe (1996):\nSome of the differences between the \"minimal\" and \"maximal\" systems are primarily notational: Ringe's *ǝ = standard *ä, and Ringe (along with many other researchers) reconstruct Proto-Tocharian surface *[i] and *[u] as underlying *äy, *äw (*ǝy, *ǝw in Ringe's notation).\nHowever, Ringe reconstructs three vowels *ë, *e, *ẹ in place of the single vowel *e in the minimal system.\nThe primary distinction is between *ë < PIE *o, which is assumed to be a central rather than a front vowel because it does not trigger palatalization, and *e < PIE *ē, which does trigger palatalization.\nOther than palatalization effects, both vowels are reflected identically in both Tocharian A and B, and hence a number of researchers project the merger back to Proto-Tocharian.\nHowever, some umlaut processes are thought to have operated differently on the two vowels, and as a result Ringe (as well as Adams and some other scholars) prefer to distinguish the two in Proto-Tocharian.\nRinge's *ẹ vowel, a higher vowel than *e, is fairly rare and appears as i in Tocharian B but e in Tocharian A. This vowel does trigger palatalization, and is thought by Ringe to stem primarily from PIE *oy and from loanwords.\nIn general, Ringe's Proto-Tocharian reconstruction reflects an earlier stage than the one described by many researchers.\nSome scholars use a different notation from what is given above: e.g. æ or ë in place of the e of the minimal system, å or ɔ in place of the o of the minimal system, and ǝ in place of ä.\nThe following table shows the changes from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) to Proto-Tocharian (PToch) and on to Tocharian B (TB) and Tocharian A (TA), using the notation of the \"minimal\" system above:\nNotes:\nProto-Tocharian had phonemic stress, although its position varies depending on the researcher.\nMany researchers project the Tocharian B stress that is recoverable from ā~a and a~ä alternations back to Proto-Tocharian.\nFor the most part, this stress does not reflect PIE stress.\nRather, most bisyllabic words have initial stress, and trisyllabic and longer words usually have stress on the second syllable.\nA number of multisyllabic words in Tocharian B appear to indicate that more than one syllable was stressed; it is thought that these reflect clitics or affixes that still behaved phonologically as separate words in Proto-Tocharian.\nRinge, however, prefers to project the PIE stress unchanged into Proto-Tocharian, and assumes that the radically different system seen in Tocharian B evolved within the separate history of that language.\nThe outcome of the PIE sequences *iH and *uH when not followed by a vowel is disputed.\nIt is generally agreed that *ih₂ became Proto-Tocharian *yā; a similar change occurred in [Ancient Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-greek).\nIt is also usually accepted that *ih₃ likewise became Proto-Tocharian *yā, although it is unclear whether this reflects a direct change *ih₃ > *yā /ya/ or a change *ih₃ > *yō /yo:/ > *yā /ya/ (echoing a similar change in Ancient Greek), since PIE *ō is generally thought to have become Proto-Tocharian *ā (which was not a long vowel).\nThe outcomes of all other sequences are much less clear.\nA number of etymologies appear to indicate a parallel change *uh₂ > *wā, but some also appear to indicate a change *uh₂ > *ū > *u.\nRinge demonstrates that all the occurrences of *wā can potentially be explained as due to analogy, and prefers to postulate a general sound change *uH > *ū > *u following the normal outcome of *uH in other languages, but a number of other researchers (e.g. Krause and Slocum ) prefer to see *uh₂ > *wā as the regular sound change.\nThe outcome of *ih₁ is likewise disputed, with Ringe similarly preferring a regular change *ih₁ > *ī > i while others postulate a regular change *ih₁ > *ye > *yä.\nAs elsewhere, the main difficulty is that, relative to other Indo-European languages, Tocharian is sparsely attested and was subject to a particularly large number of analogical changes.\nA number of umlaut processes occurred in the Proto-Tocharian period, which tended to increase the number of rounded vowels.\nVowel rounding also resulted from the influence of nearby labiovelars, although this occurred after the Proto-Tocharian period, with differing results in Tocharian A and B, generally with more rounding in Tocharian A (e.g. PIE *gʷṃ- \"come\" > PToch *kʷäm- > Tocharian A kum- but Tocharian B käm-).\n\n## Vowel deletion and insertion\nTocharian A deletes all Proto-Tocharian final vowels, as well as all instances of Proto-Tocharian ä in [open syllables](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-syllable) (which appears to include vowels followed by Cr and Cl sequences).\nWhen this produces impossible consonant sequences, these are rectified by vocalizing w and y into u and i, if possible; otherwise, an epenthetic ä is inserted.\nNote that most consonant sequences are tolerated word-initially, including unexpected cases like rt-, ys- and lks-.\nExample: PIE h₁rudhros (Greek erythros) > PToch rä́tre > Toch A *rtr > rtär.\nTocharian B deletes only unstressed ä in open syllables, and leaves all other vowels alone.\nHence PIE h₁rudhros > PToch rä́tre > Toch B ratre.\nIf necessary, impossible consonant sequences are rectified as in Tocharian A.\n\n## Consonants\nThe following are the main changes between PIE and Proto-Tocharian:\nThe extant Tocharian languages appear to reflect essentially the same consonant system as in Proto-Tocharian, except in a couple of cases:\nUnlike in most [centum](https://bliptext.com/articles/centum) languages, Proto-Tocharian maintained separate outcomes of PIE *kʷ and *ḱw.\nThe latter is still reflected as kw in Tocharian B, e.g. yakwe \"horse\" < PIE *eḱwos.\n\n## Palatalization\n[Palatalization](https://bliptext.com/articles/palatalization-sound-change) was a very important process operating in Proto-Tocharian.\nPalatalization appears to have operated very early, prior to almost all of the vowel changes that took place between PIE and Proto-Tocharian.\nPalatalization occurred before PIE e, ē, y and sometimes i; specifically, PIE i triggered palatalization of dentals but generally not of velars or labials.\n(According to Ringe, lack of palatalization before PIE i was actually due to early change of i > wǝ after certain sounds.) Palatalization, or lack thereof, is the only way to distinguish PIE e and i in Tocharian, and the primary way of distinguishing certain other pairs of PIE vowels, e.g. e vs. u and ē vs. o.\nPalatalization appeared to have operated in two stages, an earlier one that affected only the sequences ty and dhy, and a later more general one – or at least, the result of palatalization of t and dh before y is different from palatalization before e, ē and i, while other consonants do not show such a dual outcome.\n(A similar situation occurred in the history of [Proto-Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-greek) and [Proto-Romance](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-romance).) Certain sound changes occurred prior to palatalization:\nThe following chart shows the outcome of palatalization:\n\n## Dental consonants\nThe outcomes of the PIE dentals in Tocharian, and in particular PIE *d, are complex and difficult to explain.\nPalatalization sometimes produces c, sometimes ts, sometimes ś, and in some words when a front vocalic does not follow, PIE *d (but not other dentals) is lost entirely, e.g. e.g. Toch AB or \"wood\" < PIE *doru and Toch B ime \"thought\" < PToch *w'äimë < PIE *weid-mo-.\nMany occurrences of c and ts can be explained by the differing effects of a following y vs. a front vowel (see above), but a number of difficult cases remain.\nMost researchers agree that some of the PIE dentals are reflected differently from others – contrary to the situation with all other PIE stops.\nThis in turn suggests that some sound changes must have operated on particular dentals, but not others, prior to the general loss of contrastive voicing and aspiration.\nThere is a large amount of disagreement over what exactly the relevant sound changes were, due to the relatively small number of extant forms involved, the operation of analogy, and disagreement over particular etymologies, including both the PIE roots and ablaut forms involved.\nRinge suggests the following changes, in approximate order:\nEven with this explanation, a lot of words don't have the expected outcomes and require appeal to analogy.\nFor example, the assumption of Grassmann's Law helps to explain only two words, both verbs, in which PIE *dh shows up as ts; and in both of these words, palatalization to ś might have been expected, because the present-tense forms both begin with PIE *dhe-.\nRinge needs to appeal to an analogical depalatalization, based on other forms of the verb with different ablaut patterns in which palatalization was not triggered.\nThis assumption is reasonable, because a lot of other verbs also show analogical depalatalization; but nonetheless, it is rather slender evidence, and it is not surprising that other researchers have proposed different assumptions (e.g. that PToch *tsä- is the expected outcome of PIE *dhe-, with no operation of Grassmann's Law).\nLikewise, the loss of PIE *d in Toch AB or \"wood\" < PIE *doru is not explainable by these rules, because it is lost before a vowel rather than a consonant.\nRinge again assumes analogy: In this case, the PIE conjugation was nominative *doru, genitive *dreus, and Ringe assumes that the normal loss of *d in the genitive before *r was carried over into the nominative.\nAgain, not all researchers accept this.\nFor example, Krause and Slocum, while accepting the remainder of Ringe's sound changes involving PIE *d, suggest instead that loss eventually occurred before Proto-Tocharian rounded vowels and before Proto-Tocharian ë (from PIE o), as well as before nasals and possibly other consonants.\n\n# Phonology\nPhonetically, Proto-Tocharian is a [centum](https://bliptext.com/articles/centum-and-satem-languages) Indo-European language, meaning that it merges the [palatovelar](https://bliptext.com/articles/palatovelar) consonants of [Proto Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european-language) with the plain [velars](https://bliptext.com/articles/velars) (*k, *g, *gʰ) rather than palatalizing them to affricates or sibilants.\nCentum languages are mostly found in western and southern Europe ([Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/greek-language), [Italic](https://bliptext.com/articles/italic-languages), [Celtic](https://bliptext.com/articles/celtic-languages), [Germanic](https://bliptext.com/articles/germanic-language)).\nIn that sense, Proto-Tocharian (to some extent like the [Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/greek-language) and the [Anatolian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/anatolian-languages)) seems to have been an isolate in the \"[satem](https://bliptext.com/articles/centum-satem-isogloss)\" (i.e. [palatovelar](https://bliptext.com/articles/palatovelar) to [sibilant](https://bliptext.com/articles/sibilant)) phonetic regions of Indo-European-speaking populations.\nThe discovery of Tocharian languages 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.\n\n## Vowels\nNote that, although both Tocharian A and Tocharian B have the same set of vowels, they often do not correspond to each other.\nFor instance, the sound a did not occur in Proto-Tocharian.\nTocharian B a is derived from former stressed ä or unstressed ā (reflected unchanged in Tocharian A), while Tocharian A a stems from Proto-Tocharian or (reflected as and in Tocharian B), and Tocharian A e and o stem largely from monophthongization of former diphthongs (still present in Tocharian B).\n\n## Consonants\nThe following table lists the reconstructed phonemes in Proto-Tocharian along with their standard transcription.\nBecause its descendants are written in an alphabet used originally for Sanskrit and its descendants, the transcription of the sounds is directly based on the transcription of the corresponding Sanskrit sounds.\nThe 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.\nThere is some uncertainty as to actual pronunciation of some of the letters, particularly those representing palatalized obstruents (see below).\n\n# Morphology\n\n## Nouns\nProto-Tocharian has completely re-worked the [nominal declension](https://bliptext.com/articles/declension) system of Proto-Indo-European.\nThe only cases inherited from the proto-language are nominative, genitive, [accusative](https://bliptext.com/articles/accusative-case), and vocative (preserved in descendants, but Tocharian A lost the vocative case); in Proto-Tocharian the old [accusative](https://bliptext.com/articles/accusative-case) is known as the oblique case.\nIn 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.\nFor instance, the Tocharian B word yakwe, the Tocharian A word yuk < Proto-Tocharian [*yä́kwë](https://bliptext.com/articles/wikt-reconstruction-proto-tocharian-y-kwe) < PIE [*h₁éḱwos](https://bliptext.com/articles/wikt-reconstruction-proto-indo-european-h-wos), all meaning \"horse\", are declined as follows:\nWhen 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.\nAn example is ******' (Toch B), '****** (Toch A) \"man\", which belongs to the same declension as above, but has oblique singular ******' (Toch B), '****** (Toch A), and corresponding oblique stems ******' (Toch B), '****** (Toch A) for the secondary cases.\nThis 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](https://bliptext.com/articles/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\", Greek Plátōn literally \"the broad-shouldered one\" < platús \"broad\".\n\n## Verbs\nIn contrast, the verb [verbal conjugation](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-conjugation) system is quite conservative.\nThe majority of Proto-Indo-European verbal classes and categories are represented in some manner in Tocharian, although not necessarily with the same function.\nSome 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.\nIn addition, most PIE sets of endings are found in some form in Proto-Tocharian (although with significant innovations), including thematic and athematic endings, primary (non-past) and secondary (past) endings, active and mediopassive endings, and perfect endings.\nDual endings are still found, although they are rarely attested and generally restricted to the third person.\nThe mediopassive still reflects the distinction between primary -r and secondary -i, effaced in most Indo-European languages.\nBoth root and suffix ablaut is still well-represented, although again with significant innovations.\n\n### Categories\nProto-Tocharian verbs are conjugated in the following categories:\n\n### Classes\nA given verb belongs to one of a large number of classes, according to its conjugation.\nAs in [Sanskrit](https://bliptext.com/articles/sanskrit), [Ancient Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-greek) and (to a lesser extent) [Latin](https://bliptext.com/articles/latin), there are independent sets of classes in the indicative present, subjunctive, 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](https://bliptext.com/articles/principal-parts).\n\n#### Present indicative\nThe most complex system is the present indicative, consisting of 12 classes, 8 thematic and 4 athematic, with distinct sets of thematic and athematic endings.\nThe following classes occur in Tocharian B (some are missing in Tocharian A):\nPalatalization 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.\n\n#### Subjunctive\nThe subjunctive likewise has 12 classes, denoted i through xii.\nMost 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.\nIn 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.\nSpecial subjunctives:\nVarying subjunctives:\n\n#### Preterite\nThe preterite has 6 classes:\nAll except preterite class VI have a common set of endings that stem from the PIE perfect endings, although with significant innovations.\n\n#### Imperative\nThe imperative likewise shows 6 classes, with a unique set of endings, found only in the second person, and a Proto-Tocharian prefix *pä- but unexpected connecting vowels occasionally occur, and the prefix combines with vowel-initial and glide-initial roots in unexpected ways.\nThe prefix is often compared with the Slavic perfective prefix po-, although the phonology is difficult to explain.\nClasses i through v tend to co-occur with preterite classes I through V, although there are many exceptions.\nClass vi is not so much a coherent class as an \"irregular\" class with all verbs not fitting in other categories.\nThe 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.\nThis includes the root ablaut of subjunctive classes i and v, which tend to co-occur with imperative class i.\n\n#### Optative and imperfect\nThe optative and imperfect have related formations.\nThe optative is generally built by adding i onto the subjunctive stem.\nTocharian 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.\nThe 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).\n\n### Endings\nAs suggested by the above discussion, there are a large number of sets of endings.\nThe 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.\nThere 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.\nFurthermore, each set of endings comes with both active and mediopassive forms.\nThe mediopassive forms are quite conservative, directly reflecting the PIE variation between -r in the present and -i in the past.\n(Most other languages with the mediopassive have generalized one of the two.)\nThe present-tense endings are almost completely divergent between Tocharian A and B. The following shows the thematic endings, with their origin:\n\n# Citations\n\n## Sources","current_revision":null,"created_by":"kACnuQmH5k9Nr5VNVEpVeg7XpvUmMctD","created_at":"2025-01-26T12:50:06.460Z","updated_at":"2025-01-26T12:50:06.460Z","search_vector":"'languag':4 'proto':2 'proto-tocharian':1 'tocharian':3","search_content":" \n**Name:** Proto-Tocharian \n**Region:** [Tarim Basin](https://bliptext.com/articles/tarim-basin) \n**Familycolor:** Indo-European \n**Ancestor:** [Proto-Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european) \n**Target:** [Tocharian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/tocharian-languages) \n**Child 1:** Agnean ([Tocharian A](https://bliptext.com/articles/tocharian-a)) \n**Child 2:** [Kuchean](https://bliptext.com/articles/kuchean-language) ([Tocharian B](https://bliptext.com/articles/tocharian-b)) \n**Child 3:** Kroränian ([Tocharian C](https://bliptext.com/articles/tocharian-c)) \n \n\n# \n**Proto-Tocharian**, also spelled **Proto-Tokharian** ( or ), is the [reconstructed](https://bliptext.com/articles/linguistic-reconstruction) [proto-language](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-language) of the [extinct](https://bliptext.com/articles/language-death) [Tocharian branch](https://bliptext.com/articles/tocharian-languages) of the [Indo-European languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-european-languages).\nProto-Tocharian is the unattested reconstructed ancestor of an [Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-european-languages) eponymous extinct branch, known from manuscripts dating from the 5th to the 8th century AD, which were on the northern edge of the [Tarim Basin](https://bliptext.com/articles/tarim-basin) and the [Lop Desert](https://bliptext.com/articles/lop-desert).\nThe discovery of this [language family](https://bliptext.com/articles/language-family) in the early 20th century contradicted the formerly prevalent idea of an east–west division of the Indo-European [language family](https://bliptext.com/articles/language-family) on the [centum–satem isogloss](https://bliptext.com/articles/centum-and-satem-languages), and prompted reinvigorated study of the family.\nThe documents record two closely related languages, called Tocharian A (also East Tocharian, Agnean or Turfanian) and Tocharian B (West Tocharian or Kuchean).\nThe subject matter of the texts suggests that Tocharian A was more archaic and used as a [Buddhist](https://bliptext.com/articles/buddhism) liturgical language, while Tocharian B was more actively spoken in the entire area from [Turfan](https://bliptext.com/articles/turfan) in the east to [Tumshuq](https://bliptext.com/articles/tumshuq) in the west.\nA body of loanwords and names found in Prakrit documents from the [Lop Nor](https://bliptext.com/articles/lop-nur) basin have been dubbed Tocharian C (Kroränian).\nA claimed find of ten Tocharian C texts written in [Kharoṣṭhī](https://bliptext.com/articles/kharosthi) script has been discredited.\nTocharian A and Tocharian B, the two major languages descendant of Proto-Tocharian, are mutually unintelligible, which led linguists to think that the split of Proto-Tocharian in several branches was several millennia ago.\nAs part of the same language family, the Tocharian languages and their common ancestor are studied together by scholars.\n\n# Evolution\n\n## Vowels\nProto-Tocharian shows radical changes in its vowels from [Proto-Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european) (PIE).\nLength distinctions eventually disappeared, but prior to that all pairs of long and short vowels had become distinct in quality, and thus have different outcomes.\nMany pairs of PIE vowels are distinguished in Tocharian only by the occurrence or non-occurrence of palatalization.\nFor example, PIE o and ē both evolved into Proto-Tocharian ë (possibly ), but PIE ē palatalized the preceding consonant, and left a y when no consonant preceded, while neither of these occurs with PIE o.\nReconstructing the changes between PIE and Proto-Tocharian vowels is fraught with difficulty, and as a result there are a large number of disagreements among different researchers.\nThe basic problems are:\nHistorically, the evolution of the Tocharian vowels was the last part of the diachronic phonology to be understood.\nIn 1938, [George S. Lane](https://bliptext.com/articles/george-sherman-lane) remarked of Tocharian that \"the vocalism so far has defied almost every attempt that has been made to bring it to order\", and as late as 1945 still asserted: \"That the subject [of palatalization] is a confused and difficult one is generally recognized—but so are most of the problems of Tocharian phonology.\"\nHowever, rapid progress towards understanding the evolution of the vocalic system, and with it the phonology as a whole, occurred during the period of approximately 1948–1960, beginning with Sieg and Siegling (1949).\nBy 1960, the system was well-enough understood that Krause and Thomas's seminal work of that year is still considered one of the most important Tocharian grammatical handbooks.\nDespite the apparent equivalence between the Tocharian A and B vowel systems, in fact a number of vowels are not cognate between the two varieties, and Proto-Tocharian had a different vowel system from both.\nFor example, Tocharian A a reflects a merger of two Proto-Tocharian vowels that are distinguished in Tocharian B as e and o, while Tocharian B a reflects a stress-based variant of either Proto-Tocharian ā or ä, while Tocharian A preserves original ā and ä regardless of the position of stress.\nAs a general rule, Tocharian B reflects the Proto-Tocharian vowel system more faithfully than Tocharian A, which includes a number of changes not found in Tocharian B, e.g. monophthongization of diphthongs, loss of all absolutely final vowels, loss of ä in open syllables, and epenthesis of ä to break up difficult clusters (esp. word-finally) that resulted from vowel losses.\nThe following table describes a typical minimal reconstruction of Late Proto-Tocharian, which includes all vowels that are generally accepted by Tocharian scholars:\nThe following table describes a \"maximal\" reconstruction of Proto-Tocharian, following Ringe (1996):\nSome of the differences between the \"minimal\" and \"maximal\" systems are primarily notational: Ringe's *ǝ = standard *ä, and Ringe (along with many other researchers) reconstruct Proto-Tocharian surface *[i] and *[u] as underlying *äy, *äw (*ǝy, *ǝw in Ringe's notation).\nHowever, Ringe reconstructs three vowels *ë, *e, *ẹ in place of the single vowel *e in the minimal system.\nThe primary distinction is between *ë *yā /ya/ or a change *ih₃ > *yō /yo:/ > *yā /ya/ (echoing a similar change in Ancient Greek), since PIE *ō is generally thought to have become Proto-Tocharian *ā (which was not a long vowel).\nThe outcomes of all other sequences are much less clear.\nA number of etymologies appear to indicate a parallel change *uh₂ > *wā, but some also appear to indicate a change *uh₂ > *ū > *u.\nRinge demonstrates that all the occurrences of *wā can potentially be explained as due to analogy, and prefers to postulate a general sound change *uH > *ū > *u following the normal outcome of *uH in other languages, but a number of other researchers (e.g. Krause and Slocum ) prefer to see *uh₂ > *wā as the regular sound change.\nThe outcome of *ih₁ is likewise disputed, with Ringe similarly preferring a regular change *ih₁ > *ī > i while others postulate a regular change *ih₁ > *ye > *yä.\nAs elsewhere, the main difficulty is that, relative to other Indo-European languages, Tocharian is sparsely attested and was subject to a particularly large number of analogical changes.\nA number of umlaut processes occurred in the Proto-Tocharian period, which tended to increase the number of rounded vowels.\nVowel rounding also resulted from the influence of nearby labiovelars, although this occurred after the Proto-Tocharian period, with differing results in Tocharian A and B, generally with more rounding in Tocharian A (e.g. PIE *gʷṃ- \"come\" > PToch *kʷäm- > Tocharian A kum- but Tocharian B käm-).\n\n## Vowel deletion and insertion\nTocharian A deletes all Proto-Tocharian final vowels, as well as all instances of Proto-Tocharian ä in [open syllables](https://bliptext.com/articles/open-syllable) (which appears to include vowels followed by Cr and Cl sequences).\nWhen this produces impossible consonant sequences, these are rectified by vocalizing w and y into u and i, if possible; otherwise, an epenthetic ä is inserted.\nNote that most consonant sequences are tolerated word-initially, including unexpected cases like rt-, ys- and lks-.\nExample: PIE h₁rudhros (Greek erythros) > PToch rä́tre > Toch A *rtr > rtär.\nTocharian B deletes only unstressed ä in open syllables, and leaves all other vowels alone.\nHence PIE h₁rudhros > PToch rä́tre > Toch B ratre.\nIf necessary, impossible consonant sequences are rectified as in Tocharian A.\n\n## Consonants\nThe following are the main changes between PIE and Proto-Tocharian:\nThe extant Tocharian languages appear to reflect essentially the same consonant system as in Proto-Tocharian, except in a couple of cases:\nUnlike in most [centum](https://bliptext.com/articles/centum) languages, Proto-Tocharian maintained separate outcomes of PIE *kʷ and *ḱw.\nThe latter is still reflected as kw in Tocharian B, e.g. yakwe \"horse\" wǝ after certain sounds.) Palatalization, or lack thereof, is the only way to distinguish PIE e and i in Tocharian, and the primary way of distinguishing certain other pairs of PIE vowels, e.g. e vs. u and ē vs. o.\nPalatalization appeared to have operated in two stages, an earlier one that affected only the sequences ty and dhy, and a later more general one – or at least, the result of palatalization of t and dh before y is different from palatalization before e, ē and i, while other consonants do not show such a dual outcome.\n(A similar situation occurred in the history of [Proto-Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-greek) and [Proto-Romance](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-romance).) Certain sound changes occurred prior to palatalization:\nThe following chart shows the outcome of palatalization:\n\n## Dental consonants\nThe outcomes of the PIE dentals in Tocharian, and in particular PIE *d, are complex and difficult to explain.\nPalatalization sometimes produces c, sometimes ts, sometimes ś, and in some words when a front vocalic does not follow, PIE *d (but not other dentals) is lost entirely, e.g. e.g. Toch AB or \"wood\" < PIE *doru and Toch B ime \"thought\" < PToch *w'äimë < PIE *weid-mo-.\nMany occurrences of c and ts can be explained by the differing effects of a following y vs. a front vowel (see above), but a number of difficult cases remain.\nMost researchers agree that some of the PIE dentals are reflected differently from others – contrary to the situation with all other PIE stops.\nThis in turn suggests that some sound changes must have operated on particular dentals, but not others, prior to the general loss of contrastive voicing and aspiration.\nThere is a large amount of disagreement over what exactly the relevant sound changes were, due to the relatively small number of extant forms involved, the operation of analogy, and disagreement over particular etymologies, including both the PIE roots and ablaut forms involved.\nRinge suggests the following changes, in approximate order:\nEven with this explanation, a lot of words don't have the expected outcomes and require appeal to analogy.\nFor example, the assumption of Grassmann's Law helps to explain only two words, both verbs, in which PIE *dh shows up as ts; and in both of these words, palatalization to ś might have been expected, because the present-tense forms both begin with PIE *dhe-.\nRinge needs to appeal to an analogical depalatalization, based on other forms of the verb with different ablaut patterns in which palatalization was not triggered.\nThis assumption is reasonable, because a lot of other verbs also show analogical depalatalization; but nonetheless, it is rather slender evidence, and it is not surprising that other researchers have proposed different assumptions (e.g. that PToch *tsä- is the expected outcome of PIE *dhe-, with no operation of Grassmann's Law).\nLikewise, the loss of PIE *d in Toch AB or \"wood\" < PIE *doru is not explainable by these rules, because it is lost before a vowel rather than a consonant.\nRinge again assumes analogy: In this case, the PIE conjugation was nominative *doru, genitive *dreus, and Ringe assumes that the normal loss of *d in the genitive before *r was carried over into the nominative.\nAgain, not all researchers accept this.\nFor example, Krause and Slocum, while accepting the remainder of Ringe's sound changes involving PIE *d, suggest instead that loss eventually occurred before Proto-Tocharian rounded vowels and before Proto-Tocharian ë (from PIE o), as well as before nasals and possibly other consonants.\n\n# Phonology\nPhonetically, Proto-Tocharian is a [centum](https://bliptext.com/articles/centum-and-satem-languages) Indo-European language, meaning that it merges the [palatovelar](https://bliptext.com/articles/palatovelar) consonants of [Proto Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european-language) with the plain [velars](https://bliptext.com/articles/velars) (*k, *g, *gʰ) rather than palatalizing them to affricates or sibilants.\nCentum languages are mostly found in western and southern Europe ([Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/greek-language), [Italic](https://bliptext.com/articles/italic-languages), [Celtic](https://bliptext.com/articles/celtic-languages), [Germanic](https://bliptext.com/articles/germanic-language)).\nIn that sense, Proto-Tocharian (to some extent like the [Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/greek-language) and the [Anatolian languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/anatolian-languages)) seems to have been an isolate in the \"[satem](https://bliptext.com/articles/centum-satem-isogloss)\" (i.e. [palatovelar](https://bliptext.com/articles/palatovelar) to [sibilant](https://bliptext.com/articles/sibilant)) phonetic regions of Indo-European-speaking populations.\nThe discovery of Tocharian languages 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.\n\n## Vowels\nNote that, although both Tocharian A and Tocharian B have the same set of vowels, they often do not correspond to each other.\nFor instance, the sound a did not occur in Proto-Tocharian.\nTocharian B a is derived from former stressed ä or unstressed ā (reflected unchanged in Tocharian A), while Tocharian A a stems from Proto-Tocharian or (reflected as and in Tocharian B), and Tocharian A e and o stem largely from monophthongization of former diphthongs (still present in Tocharian B).\n\n## Consonants\nThe following table lists the reconstructed phonemes in Proto-Tocharian along with their standard transcription.\nBecause its descendants are written in an alphabet used originally for Sanskrit and its descendants, the transcription of the sounds is directly based on the transcription of the corresponding Sanskrit sounds.\nThe 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.\nThere is some uncertainty as to actual pronunciation of some of the letters, particularly those representing palatalized obstruents (see below).\n\n# Morphology\n\n## Nouns\nProto-Tocharian has completely re-worked the [nominal declension](https://bliptext.com/articles/declension) system of Proto-Indo-European.\nThe only cases inherited from the proto-language are nominative, genitive, [accusative](https://bliptext.com/articles/accusative-case), and vocative (preserved in descendants, but Tocharian A lost the vocative case); in Proto-Tocharian the old [accusative](https://bliptext.com/articles/accusative-case) is known as the oblique case.\nIn 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.\nFor instance, the Tocharian B word yakwe, the Tocharian A word yuk < Proto-Tocharian [*yä́kwë](https://bliptext.com/articles/wikt-reconstruction-proto-tocharian-y-kwe) < PIE [*h₁éḱwos](https://bliptext.com/articles/wikt-reconstruction-proto-indo-european-h-wos), all meaning \"horse\", are declined as follows:\nWhen 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.\nAn example is ******' (Toch B), '****** (Toch A) \"man\", which belongs to the same declension as above, but has oblique singular ******' (Toch B), '****** (Toch A), and corresponding oblique stems ******' (Toch B), '****** (Toch A) for the secondary cases.\nThis 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](https://bliptext.com/articles/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\", Greek Plátōn literally \"the broad-shouldered one\" < platús \"broad\".\n\n## Verbs\nIn contrast, the verb [verbal conjugation](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-conjugation) system is quite conservative.\nThe majority of Proto-Indo-European verbal classes and categories are represented in some manner in Tocharian, although not necessarily with the same function.\nSome 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.\nIn addition, most PIE sets of endings are found in some form in Proto-Tocharian (although with significant innovations), including thematic and athematic endings, primary (non-past) and secondary (past) endings, active and mediopassive endings, and perfect endings.\nDual endings are still found, although they are rarely attested and generally restricted to the third person.\nThe mediopassive still reflects the distinction between primary -r and secondary -i, effaced in most Indo-European languages.\nBoth root and suffix ablaut is still well-represented, although again with significant innovations.\n\n### Categories\nProto-Tocharian verbs are conjugated in the following categories:\n\n### Classes\nA given verb belongs to one of a large number of classes, according to its conjugation.\nAs in [Sanskrit](https://bliptext.com/articles/sanskrit), [Ancient Greek](https://bliptext.com/articles/ancient-greek) and (to a lesser extent) [Latin](https://bliptext.com/articles/latin), there are independent sets of classes in the indicative present, subjunctive, 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](https://bliptext.com/articles/principal-parts).\n\n#### Present indicative\nThe most complex system is the present indicative, consisting of 12 classes, 8 thematic and 4 athematic, with distinct sets of thematic and athematic endings.\nThe following classes occur in Tocharian B (some are missing in Tocharian A):\nPalatalization 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.\n\n#### Subjunctive\nThe subjunctive likewise has 12 classes, denoted i through xii.\nMost 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.\nIn 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.\nSpecial subjunctives:\nVarying subjunctives:\n\n#### Preterite\nThe preterite has 6 classes:\nAll except preterite class VI have a common set of endings that stem from the PIE perfect endings, although with significant innovations.\n\n#### Imperative\nThe imperative likewise shows 6 classes, with a unique set of endings, found only in the second person, and a Proto-Tocharian prefix *pä- but unexpected connecting vowels occasionally occur, and the prefix combines with vowel-initial and glide-initial roots in unexpected ways.\nThe prefix is often compared with the Slavic perfective prefix po-, although the phonology is difficult to explain.\nClasses i through v tend to co-occur with preterite classes I through V, although there are many exceptions.\nClass vi is not so much a coherent class as an \"irregular\" class with all verbs not fitting in other categories.\nThe 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.\nThis includes the root ablaut of subjunctive classes i and v, which tend to co-occur with imperative class i.\n\n#### Optative and imperfect\nThe optative and imperfect have related formations.\nThe optative is generally built by adding i onto the subjunctive stem.\nTocharian 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.\nThe 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).\n\n### Endings\nAs suggested by the above discussion, there are a large number of sets of endings.\nThe 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.\nThere 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.\nFurthermore, each set of endings comes with both active and mediopassive forms.\nThe mediopassive forms are quite conservative, directly reflecting the PIE variation between -r in the present and -i in the past.\n(Most other languages with the mediopassive have generalized one of the two.)\nThe present-tense endings are almost completely divergent between Tocharian A and B. The following shows the thematic endings, with their origin:\n\n# Citations\n\n## Sources","revisionCount":0},"hasMore":false,"nextCursor":null}

History