The Position of Tocharian among the Other Indo-European Languages

The placement of Tocharian vis-a-vis the other Indo-European groups has been something of a problem; those who have investigated the issue over the past seventy-five years have, on the basis of very limited evidence, come to a variety of conclusions. An investigation here of the phonological, morphological, and lexical isoglosses (and especially the latter) uniting Tocharian with other Indo-European language families leads to the grouping of Tocharian with Meillet's group in the first instance, with particularly close ties with Germanic. The ties Tocharian has with both Greek and Indic outside of the Northwestern group reflect later contacts on the part of the pre-Tocharians with the pre-Greeks and pre-Indics as the preTocharians moved progressively eastward in the late Proto-Indo-European world. 1. Since their identification as Indo-European languages in the early years of this century, the exact relationship of Tocharian A and B with the other IndoEuropean groups has been the source of considerable debate, particularly since Tocharian did not seem to fit neatly into any of the received categories of IndoEuropean dialectology. Indeed, its early recognition as a centum language (Tocharian A kant, B kante 'hundred') in the far east of Indo-European languages where only satem languages were expected robbed that isogloss of its once primary position. However its positive contribution to our knowledge of IndoEuropean relationships has been more elusive, as the following list of often conflicting hypotheses advanced by various investigators shows

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• Les Sères sont les soi-disant "Tokhariens", c'est-à-dire les authentiques Arśi-Kuči

  Open Access•Bernard Sergent•Dialogues d histoire ancienne•1998

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• Preverbs and Postpositions in Tocharian

  Open Access•J H W Penney•Transactions of the Philological…•1989

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• Indo-European cereal terminology suggests a Northwest Pontic homeland for the core Indo-European languages

  Open Access•Guus Kroonen, Anthony Jakob et al.•PLoS ONE•2022

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• The Duke of York Comes to Xinjiang

  Ronald Kim•Historical Linguistics•2007

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• The Indo-European etymology of Fi. peukalo 'thumb'

  Open Access•Torbjörn K Nilsson•Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen•1993

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• Um tratamento quantitativo para a classificação das línguas Indo-Européias

  Open Access•Lincoln Almir Amarante Ribeiro•DELTA Documentação de Estudos em…•2006

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• Horse‐mounted invaders from the Russo‐Kazakh steppe or agricultural colonists from western Central Asia? A craniometric investigation of the Bronze Age settlement of Xinjiang

  Open Access•Brian E Hemphill, Brian Hemphill et al.•American Journal of Physical…•2004

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• Tocharian

  George S Lane•Indo-European and Indo-Europeans•1970

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• Die Gliederung des indogermanischen Sprachgebiets

  W P Lehmann, Walter Porzig•Language•1954

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• Nominal and pronominal dual in Tocharian

  Werner Winter•Language•1962

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• The Indo-European Dialects

  V Zeps, Vladis J Zeps et al.•The Slavic and East European…•1971

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• Toward a History of PIE N-Stems in Tocharian

  Douglas Q Adams•Journal of the American Oriental…•1980

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• Quantitative Classification of Indo-European Languages

  A L Kroeber, C Douglas Chrétien•Language•1937

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• Statistics, Indo-European, and Taxonomy

  A L Kroeber•Language•1960

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• The Indo-Europeans

  Open Access•Marija Gimbutas•American Anthropologist•1963

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