"How did the Tocharians reach China?" "Who did they meet on the way? are some of the most intriguing questions in Indo-European studies. This book is zooming in on a specific part of the question: on their way to China, Tocharians were in contact with an Iranian people living in the south Siberian Steppes, and with a people related to the Oxus Civilization (BMAC). This Iranian people spoke a specific language, called here Old Steppe Iranian. They gave Tocharians many words, such as mańiye servant, etswe burden-carrying horse or mule, pke portion, share. The BMAC-related people gave the Tocharians other words such as etre hero and kercapo donkey. This book reconstructs features of the language of both these peoples, and examines how they influenced the Tocharians. Based on the latest archaeological findings, it also suggests a reconstruction of the chronology and the way the Tocharians followed before entering the Tarim Basin.
Winner of the 2nd prize for the best dissertation of the Indogermanische Gesellschaft prize for the best Indo-European studies dissertation.
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
1.1Tocharian and Iranian
1.2State of the art
1.3Research issues
1.4Methodology
1.5Structure
1.6Spelling of Tocharian stress
1.7Alphabetic order
2 Old Steppe Iranian Loanwords in Tocharian
2.1Introduction
2.2Old Steppe Iranian borrowings: plausible cases
2.3Old Steppe Iranian borrowings: possible cases
2.4Old Steppe Iranian borrowings: difficult cases
2.5Old Steppe Iranian borrowings: rejected cases
2.6Old Steppe Iranian calques in Tocharian
2.7Discussion of the features of Old Steppe Iranian
3 BMAC Words in Tocharian (a Selective Survey)
3.1Introduction
3.2Analysis of potential BMAC loanwords in Tocharian
3.3Other possible BMAC loanwords in Tocharian
3.4Discussion
4 Conclusion
4.1Results
4.2The Tocharian way
Appendix 1: The Tocharian Word for Parrot and Its Origin
Appendix 2: On the Etymology of Tocharian B patstsk and Tocharian A ptsak
Window
Bibliography
Index
Chams Benoīt Bernard, Ph.D. (2023), is an independent scholar, a linguist and an Arabic and Persian interpreter. He works on literature, poetry, and has a particular interest in the history of languages, and etymology. He has published articles and works on various topics, such as Middle and New Persian, Tocharian etymology, Judeo-Persian, Indo-European and Semitic languages as well as religious studies.
