Tocharian script

The Tocharian script is derived from the Brahmi alphabetic syllabary (abugida) and is referred to as slanting Brahmi. It soon became apparent that a large proportion of the manuscripts were translations of known Buddhist works in Sanskrit and some of them were even bilingual, facilitating decipherment of the new language. Besides the Buddhist and Manichaean religious texts, there were also monastery correspondence and accounts, commercial documents, caravan permits, and medical and magical texts, and one love poem. Many Tocharians embraced Manichaean duality or Buddhism.

In 1998, Chinese linguist Ji Xianlin published a translation and analysis of fragments of a Tocharian Maitreyasamiti-Nataka discovered in 1974 in Yanqi."[http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/01/29/fragments_of_the_tocharian/index.html Fragments of the Tocharian]", Andrew Leonard, How the World Works, Salon.com, January 29, 2008"[https://www.jstor.org/stable/3107526 Review of 'Fragments of the Tocharian A Maitreyasamiti-Nataka of the Xinjiang Museum, China. In Collaboration with Werner Winter and Georges-Jean Pinault by Ji Xianlin']", J. C. Wright, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 62, No. 2 (1999), pp. 367–370"[https://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/3110149044 Fragments of the Tocharian a Maitreyasamiti-Nataka of the Zinjiang Museum, China]", Ji Xianlin, Werner Winter, Georges-Jean Pinault, Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs

The Tocharian script probably died out after 840, when the Uyghurs were expelled from Mongolia by the Kyrgyz, retreating to the Tarim Basin. This theory is supported by the discovery of translations of Tocharian texts into Uyghur. During Uyghur rule, the peoples assimilated by the Turkic speaking Uyghurs now in Xinjiang.

The Tocharian script is based on Brahmi, with each consonant having an inherent vowel, which can be altered by adding a vowel mark or removed by a special nullifying mark, the virama. Like Brahmi, Tocharian uses stacking for conjunct consonants and has irregular conjunct forms of 30px, ra.{{cite web|last=Gippert|first=Jost|title=Tocharian Brahmi Script|url=http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/idg/toch/tochbr.htm|publisher=TITUS Didactica|access-date=8 May 2013}} Unlike other Brahmi scripts, Tocharian has a second set of characters called Fremdzeichen that double up several of the standard consonants, but with an inherent "Ä" vowel.{{cite web|last=Wilson|first=Lee|title=Proposal to Encode the Tocharian Script (in the Unicode Standard / ISO 10646)|url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15236-tocharian.pdf|access-date=2020-06-09}} The eleven Fremdzeichen are most often found as substitutes for the standard consonant+virama in conjuncts, but they can be found in any context other than with the explicit "Ä" vowel mark. Fremdzeichen as consonant+virama is not found in later Tocharian texts.

File:2nd-century CE Sanskrit, Kizil China, Spitzer Manuscript folio 383 fragment verso.jpg. First line: "... [pa]kasah tasmad asma(d)vipaksapratipaksas..." . Spitzer, Manuscript folio 383 fragment.]]

Manuscripts in Sanskrit, using Middle Brahmi script and the Kushan period, and carbon dated to the 2nd century CE, have been discovered in the Tarim Basin, and particularly at Kizil. Some of the fragments, quite possibly the oldest Sanskrit manuscript of any type related to Buddhism and Hinduism discovered so far, were discovered in 1906 in the form of a pile of more than 1,000 palm leaf fragments in the Ming-oi, Kizil Caves, during the third Turfan expedition headed by Albert Grünwedel. The calibrated age of the manuscript by Carbon-14 technique is 130 CE (80–230 CE), corresponding to the rule of the Kushan king Kanishka.

The Tocharian script evolved from the Middle Brahmi script of the Kushan Empire:{{cite book |last1=Joshi |first1=R. Malatesha |last2=McBride |first2=Catherine |title=Handbook of Literacy in Akshara Orthography |date=11 June 2019 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-030-05977-4 |page=27 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n_ecDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA27 |language=en}}

{{Brahmi-Kushan Brahmi-Tocharian}}

Tocharian script was proposed for inclusion in Unicode in 2015 but has not been approved.{{Cite web|url=https://scriptsource.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=entry_detail&uid=bedhbwsx6g|title=ScriptSource - Entry - Unicode Status (Tocharian)}}

• TITUS: Tocharian [http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/idg/toch/tochbr.htm alphabets], [http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/database/titusinx/tochvb.asp conjugation tables], and [http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/tocharic/tht.htm manuscripts] from the Berlin Turfan Collection
• [http://www.wordgumbo.com/ie/cmp/toch.htm A Tocharian-to-English dictionary with nearly 200 words] with accompanying [http://www.wordgumbo.com/ie/cmp/toch.htm article]
• [https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/tokol Tocharian Online] by Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum, University of Texas at Austin
• [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tocharian.htm Tocharian alphabet] at Omniglot.com
• Online: {{cite web |title=A dictionary of Tocharian B |url=https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/natlang/ie/tochB.html |website=www.win.tue.nl}}, also in print: {{cite book |last1=Adams |first1=Douglas Q. |title=A Dictionary of Tocharian B |year=2013 |publisher=Rodopi |isbn=978-90-420-3671-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EWziAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA420 |language=en}}
• [https://cetom.univie.ac.at/ CEToM: A Comprehensive Edition of Tocharian Manuscripts]

{{list of writing systems}}

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Category:Tocharian languages

Category:Tocharians

Category:Obsolete writing systems

Category:Abugida writing systems