Research Training ProgramSmithsonian
Institution
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| Maksim Yegorov University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan Paul M. Taylor, Ph.D. "Many thanks to the Smithsonian for giving me the opportunity to learn about this little-studied, extinct language and culture." |
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Toward Reconstruction of Tocharian Material Culture
ABSTRACT
"Tocharian B", an extinct Indo-European language, is known only from documents dated ca. 500-800 A.D. found around Kucha in the Uighur Autonomous Region, Xinjiang, China. Another dialect ("Tocharian A") is known from documents in the same script (Br~hm§ syllabary) from further east; and recently a third ("Tocharian C") has been identified from documents found further south. Though Tocharian was recognized as Indo-European in 1907, there is still no complete edition of Tocharian fragments, no descriptive or etymological dictionary, and no historical grammar. This research re-examined published transliterations of Tocharian B documents discovered by archaeological expeditions in the two decades before World War I, and consisted of two parts: first, etymologies of selected culturally important terms were examined, using the comparative method. Tocharian terms relating to material culture, as well as fauna and flora, social organization, and economy, were examined from evidence about semantic developments that reflect preservation or modification of the Tocharian Indo-European heritage. Secondly, preliminary translations are posited from some Tocharian B texts which have never previously been translated, all originally found among Sanskrit religious texts and probably comprising part of a single Buddhist monastery's library. The translations suggested here, including one business letter to a monastic official, two caravan passes, one monastery's daily-accounting text, and an excerpt of a love poem (probably written by a Buddhist monk) provide unique insights into a little-known, early Medieval indo-European Buddhist society of Central Asia.
This research has been generously funded by a grant from the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
