Tocharian languages in the context of "Old Chinese phonology"

The Catacomb culture (Russian: Катакомбная культура, romanized: Katakombnaya kul'tura, Ukrainian: Катакомбна культура, romanized: Katakombna kul'tura) was a Bronze Age culture which flourished on the Pontic steppe in 2,500–1,950 BC.

Originating on the southern steppe as an outgrowth of the Yamnaya culture, the Catacomb culture came to cover a large area. It was probably Indo-European-speaking, with some linguists associating it with Tocharian. Influences of the Catacomb culture have been suggested to be found as far as Italy, Greece, and Syria. It spawned the Multi-cordoned ware culture and was eventually succeeded by the Srubnaya culture.

The Tocharians or Tokharians (US: /toʊˈkɛəriənˌ -ˈkɑːr-/ toh-KAIR-ee-ən, -⁠KAR-; UK: /tɒˈkɑːriən/ to-KAR-ee-ən) were speakers of the Tocharian languages, a group of Indo-European languages known from around 7,600 documents from the 6th and 7th centuries, found on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (modern-day Xinjiang, China). The name "Tocharian" was given to these languages in the early 20th century by scholars who identified their speakers with a people known in ancient Greek sources as the Tókharoi (Latin: Tochari), who inhabited Bactria from the 2nd century BC. This identification is now generally considered erroneous, but the name "Tocharian" remains the most common term for the languages and their speakers. Their endonym is unknown, although they may have referred to themselves as the Agni, Kuči, and Krorän or as the Agniya and Kuchiya known from Sanskrit texts.

Agricultural communities first appeared in the oases of the northern Tarim circa 2000 BC. Some scholars have linked these communities to the Afanasievo culture found earlier (c. 3500–2500 BC) in Siberia, north of the Tarim or Central Asian BMAC culture. The earliest Tarim mummies date from c. 1800 BC, but it is unclear whether they are connected to the Tocharians of two millennia later. This once theorized ancestry between Tocharians and these mummies is however now largely considered to be discredited by the absence of a genetic connection with Indo-European-speaking migrants, particularly the Afanasievo or BMAC cultures.

Paul Eugène Pelliot (28 May 1878 – 26 October 1945) was a French sinologist and Orientalist best known for his explorations of Central Asia and the Silk Road regions, and for his acquisition of many important Tibetan Empire-era manuscripts and Chinese texts at the Sachu printing center storage caves (Dunhuang), known as the Dunhuang manuscripts.

A hyperpolyglot, he spoke 13 Oriental languages, including among othersMandarin and Cantonese , Turkish, Russian, Mongolian, Hebrew, Uzbek, Pashto, and Tagalog, as well as Sanskrit, and even rarer languages such as Uyghur, and extinct languages Sogdian, and Tocharian.

In Indo-European linguistics, the term Indo-Hittite (also Indo-Anatolian) refers to Edgar Howard Sturtevant's 1926 hypothesis that the Anatolian languages split off a Pre-Proto-Indo-European language considerably earlier than the separation of the remaining Indo-European languages. The prefix Indo- does not refer to the Indo-Aryan branch in particular, but stands for Indo-European, and the -Hittite part refers to the Anatolian language family as a whole.

Proponents of the Indo-Hittite hypothesis claim the separation preceded the spread of the remaining branches by several millennia, possibly as early as 7000 BC. In this context, the proto-language before the split of Anatolian would be called Proto-Indo-Hittite, and the proto-language of the remaining branches, before the next split, presumably of Tocharian, would be called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). This is a matter of terminology, though, as the hypothesis does not dispute the ultimate genetic relation of Anatolian with Indo-European; it just means to emphasize the assumed magnitude of temporal separation.

The Tocharians or Tokharians (US: /toʊˈkɛəriənˌ -ˈkɑːr-/ toh-KAIR-ee-ən, -⁠KAR-; UK: /tɒˈkɑːriən/ to-KAR-ee-ən) were speakers of the Tocharian languages, a group of Indo-European languages known from around 7,600 documents from the 6th and 7th centuries, found on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (modern-day Xinjiang, China). The name "Tocharian" was given to these languages in the early 20th century by scholars who identified their speakers with a people known in ancient Greek sources as the Tókharoi (Latin: Tochari), who inhabited Bactria from the 2nd century BC. This identification is now generally considered erroneous, but the name "Tocharian" remains the most common term for the languages and their speakers. Their endonym is unknown, although they may have referred to themselves as the Agni, Kuči, and Krorän or as the Agniya and Kuchiya known from Sanskrit texts.

Agricultural communities first appeared in the oases of the northern Tarim circa 2000 BC, represented by the earliest Tarim mummies. Genetic analysis reveals that nearly all (11 of 12, ~92%) of the early Tarim males carried R1a1a-M198, with additional individuals carrying R1b1b, establishing them within the paternal lineages of Ancient North Eurasian (ANE, ~72%) ancestry. However, the early Tarim mummies were not direct ancestors of the later-attested Tocharians. Instead, the Tocharian languages were likely introduced to the Tarim Basin later by Afanasievo-related migrants from the central steppes carrying the exact same paternal R-M17 during the Late Bronze Age (1600–1400 BCE).

Karasahr or Karashar (Uyghur: قاراشەھەر, romanized: Qarasheher), which was originally known in the Tocharian languages as Ārśi (or Arshi), Qarašähär, or Agni or the Chinese derivative Yanqi (Chinese: 焉耆; pinyin: Yānqí; Wade–Giles: Yen-ch'i), is an ancient town on the Silk Road and the capital of Yanqi Hui Autonomous County in the Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang.

As of the 2000 census it had a population of 29,000, growing to 31,773 people in 2006; 16,032 persons of which were Han, 7781 people Hui, 7154 people Uyghur, 628 Mongol and 178 other ethnicities and an agricultural population of 1078 people.

Vedic Sanskrit has a number of linguistic features which are alien to most other Indo-European languages. Prominent examples include: phonologically, the introduction of retroflexes, which alternate with dentals, and morphologically, the formation of gerunds. Some philologists attribute such features, as well as the presence of non-Indo-European vocabulary, to a local substratum of languages encountered by Indo-Aryan peoples in Central Asia (Bactria-Marghiana) and within the Indian subcontinent during Indo-Aryan migrations, including the Dravidian languages.

Scholars have claimed to identify a substantial body of loanwords in the earliest Indian texts, including evidence of Non-Indo-Aryan elements (such as -s- following -u- in Rigvedic busa). While some postulated loanwords are from Dravidian, and other forms are traceable to Munda or Proto-Burushaski, the bulk have no proven basis in any of the known families, suggesting a source in one or more lost languages. The discovery that some words taken to be loans from one of these lost sources had also been preserved in the earliest Old Avestan texts, and also in Tocharian, convinced Michael Witzel and Alexander Lubotsky that the source lay in Central Asia and could be associated with the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC). Another lost language is that of the Indus Valley civilization, which Witzel initially labelled Para-Munda, but later the Kubhā-Vipāś substrate.