Periodic Reporting for period 4 - TheTocharianTrek (The Tocharian Trek: A linguistic reconstruction of the migration of the Tocharians from Europe to China)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2022-10-01 do 2023-12-31
The long trek of the Tocharians from Europe to China is one of the most disputed issues in the migration history of Eurasia. Tocharian is an extinct branch of the Indo‐European language family, which includes a.o. English, Latin, Greek and Sanskrit. The Indo‐European languages stretch in one uninterrupted belt from Ireland to the Sea of Bengal, but Tocharian, discovered in manuscripts from the Tarim Basin in Northwest China dating from c. 500–1000 CE, is a notorious exception to this geographic distribution.
The common ancestor of the Indo‐European languages, Proto‐Indo‐European, can be hypothetically reconstructed and is often located in the east of present‐day Ukraine. Therefore, speakers of early Tocharian must have made a long trek eastward before they settled in the Tarim Basin. Archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that they first moved east to southern Siberia around 3500 BCE and then south to the Tarim Basin in China, where they may have arrived as early as 2000 BCE. The arrival of the Tocharians in the Tarim Basin has been linked to ancient corpses found there: these so‐called Tarim Mummies have often been identified with the Tocharians.
Curiously, linguistic evidence has mostly been neglected. Therefore, the project aimed to provide an integrated linguistic assessment of the hypothesised migration route of the Tocharians.
Languages preserve precious information about their prehistory through the effects of language contact. Through close scrutiny and periodisation of the different layers of contact of Tocharian and its prehistoric neighbours, the project aimed to reconstruct the migration route of the Tocharians from the Proto‐Indo‐European homeland all the way to China.
The crucial Siberian phase of the migration shows the groundbreaking nature of the approach. Genetic evidence points to influence from local Siberian populations on the early Tocharians. Likewise, the Tocharian language shows such heavy impact of local Siberian languages that this may be called the “birth of Tocharian”.
The common ancestor of the Indo‐European languages, Proto‐Indo‐European, can be hypothetically reconstructed and is often located in the east of present‐day Ukraine. Therefore, speakers of early Tocharian must have made a long trek eastward before they settled in the Tarim Basin. Archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that they first moved east to southern Siberia around 3500 BCE and then south to the Tarim Basin in China, where they may have arrived as early as 2000 BCE. The arrival of the Tocharians in the Tarim Basin has been linked to ancient corpses found there: these so‐called Tarim Mummies have often been identified with the Tocharians.
Curiously, linguistic evidence has mostly been neglected. Therefore, the project aimed to provide an integrated linguistic assessment of the hypothesised migration route of the Tocharians.
Languages preserve precious information about their prehistory through the effects of language contact. Through close scrutiny and periodisation of the different layers of contact of Tocharian and its prehistoric neighbours, the project aimed to reconstruct the migration route of the Tocharians from the Proto‐Indo‐European homeland all the way to China.
The crucial Siberian phase of the migration shows the groundbreaking nature of the approach. Genetic evidence points to influence from local Siberian populations on the early Tocharians. Likewise, the Tocharian language shows such heavy impact of local Siberian languages that this may be called the “birth of Tocharian”.
The linguistic assessment of The Tocharian Trek has made use of the following linguistic approaches: phylogeny and language contact.
In the phylogeny approach, the position of Tocharian in the Indo-European language family was investigated: when did the Tocharian branch split off the protolanguage, and are there any closer connections to other branches? A relatively early split-off of Tocharian seems needed in view of the archaeological evidence from southern Siberia, which starts off early compared to other archaeological cultures associated with Proto-Indo-European. The phylogenetic position of Tocharian within Indo-European was investigated by Louise Friis and Stefan Norbruis: with different approaches, both tested the "Tocharian Second" hypothesis, namely that Tocharian split off the protolanguage after the Anatolian branch, but before all other branches. Louise Friis focused on arguments for "Tocharian Second" based on verbal morphology, finding that these do not stand closer scrutiny in the light of revisions in the reconstruction of Tocharian verbal morphology. Stefan Norbruis focused on lexical evidence, finding that there is some, but little support for the "Tocharian Second" hypothesis, while there is also evidence for common innovations of Tocharian with Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian, which requires a more nuanced wave model of the disintegration of the protolanguage.
In the language contact approach, the prehistory of the Tocharian language was investigated on the basis of its contacts with Uralic, Turkic, Chinese and Niya Prakrit.
Contacts with Uralic appear to have taken place in southern Siberia, originally home to the Samoyedic branch of the Uralic language family, which provides the crucial link between the Tocharian language and southern Siberia. Impact of Uralic has most probably caused drastic changes in the sound system and nominal morphology of Tocharian. Contact between Tocharian and Uralic was investigated by Abel Warries, who found that some comparisons proposed earlier have to be discarded, while some in turn are strengthened, and some lexical comparisons could be added.
In the Tarim Basin, Tocharian has been claimed to have influenced the Middle Indian language Niya Prakrit or Niya Gāndhārī. This claim, and foreign influence on Niya Prakrit in general, was investigated by Niels Schoubben. He found that the elements attributed to Tocharian have to be explained otherwise, and some of these elements and many others are due to influence of Bactrian, which was much stronger than previously supposed.
Contacts between Tocharian and Chinese and Turkic were investigated by Michaël Peyrot (PI), partly in collaboration with Hans Nugteren and Jens Wilkens. It was found that there is little, but good evidence for prehistoric but relatively recent contacts between early Tocharian B and Turkic.
In the phylogeny approach, the position of Tocharian in the Indo-European language family was investigated: when did the Tocharian branch split off the protolanguage, and are there any closer connections to other branches? A relatively early split-off of Tocharian seems needed in view of the archaeological evidence from southern Siberia, which starts off early compared to other archaeological cultures associated with Proto-Indo-European. The phylogenetic position of Tocharian within Indo-European was investigated by Louise Friis and Stefan Norbruis: with different approaches, both tested the "Tocharian Second" hypothesis, namely that Tocharian split off the protolanguage after the Anatolian branch, but before all other branches. Louise Friis focused on arguments for "Tocharian Second" based on verbal morphology, finding that these do not stand closer scrutiny in the light of revisions in the reconstruction of Tocharian verbal morphology. Stefan Norbruis focused on lexical evidence, finding that there is some, but little support for the "Tocharian Second" hypothesis, while there is also evidence for common innovations of Tocharian with Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian, which requires a more nuanced wave model of the disintegration of the protolanguage.
In the language contact approach, the prehistory of the Tocharian language was investigated on the basis of its contacts with Uralic, Turkic, Chinese and Niya Prakrit.
Contacts with Uralic appear to have taken place in southern Siberia, originally home to the Samoyedic branch of the Uralic language family, which provides the crucial link between the Tocharian language and southern Siberia. Impact of Uralic has most probably caused drastic changes in the sound system and nominal morphology of Tocharian. Contact between Tocharian and Uralic was investigated by Abel Warries, who found that some comparisons proposed earlier have to be discarded, while some in turn are strengthened, and some lexical comparisons could be added.
In the Tarim Basin, Tocharian has been claimed to have influenced the Middle Indian language Niya Prakrit or Niya Gāndhārī. This claim, and foreign influence on Niya Prakrit in general, was investigated by Niels Schoubben. He found that the elements attributed to Tocharian have to be explained otherwise, and some of these elements and many others are due to influence of Bactrian, which was much stronger than previously supposed.
Contacts between Tocharian and Chinese and Turkic were investigated by Michaël Peyrot (PI), partly in collaboration with Hans Nugteren and Jens Wilkens. It was found that there is little, but good evidence for prehistoric but relatively recent contacts between early Tocharian B and Turkic.
The most important results of The Tocharian Trek are the following:
– Tocharian has undergone profound impact from a non-Indo-European language with a typological profile closely matching that of Uralic. Presumably the contact took place near the Altay, and possibly the contact language was an early form of Samoyedic.
– Tocharian may have split off the Indo-European protolanguage as the second branch, but many arguments put forward in favour of this hypothesis are not probative. Careful linguistic reconstruction tends to bring Tocharian closer to the rest of Indo-European rather than to the Anatolian branch. Indications for "Tocharian Second" next to innovations of Tocharian with Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian require a wave model of the disintegration of the Indo-European family.
– Niya Prakrit (Niya Gāndhārī) does not contain a Tocharian substrate, but has instead been heavily influenced by Iranian, especially Bactrian.
– An early form of Tocharian B has been in contact with Turkic.
– Tocharian has undergone profound impact from a non-Indo-European language with a typological profile closely matching that of Uralic. Presumably the contact took place near the Altay, and possibly the contact language was an early form of Samoyedic.
– Tocharian may have split off the Indo-European protolanguage as the second branch, but many arguments put forward in favour of this hypothesis are not probative. Careful linguistic reconstruction tends to bring Tocharian closer to the rest of Indo-European rather than to the Anatolian branch. Indications for "Tocharian Second" next to innovations of Tocharian with Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian require a wave model of the disintegration of the Indo-European family.
– Niya Prakrit (Niya Gāndhārī) does not contain a Tocharian substrate, but has instead been heavily influenced by Iranian, especially Bactrian.
– An early form of Tocharian B has been in contact with Turkic.