Proto-Tocharian language

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Proto-Tocharian, also spelled Proto-Tokharian (/təˈkɛəriən/ or /təˈkɑːriən/), is the reconstructed proto-language of the extinct Tocharian branch of the Indo-European languages.

Proto-Tocharian is the unattested reconstructed ancestor of an Indo-European eponymous extinct branch, known from manuscripts dating from the 5th to the 8th century AD, which were on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin and the Lop Desert. The discovery of this language family in the early 20th century contradicted the formerly prevalent idea of an east–west division of the Indo-European language family on the centum–satem isogloss, and prompted reinvigorated study of the family.

The documents record two closely related languages, called Tocharian A (also East Tocharian, Agnean or Turfanian) and Tocharian B (West Tocharian or Kuchean). The subject matter of the texts suggests that Tocharian A was more archaic and used as a Buddhist liturgical language, while Tocharian B was more actively spoken in the entire area from Turfan in the east to Tumshuq in the west. A body of loanwords and names found in Prakrit documents from the Lop Nor basin have been dubbed Tocharian C (Kroränian). A claimed find of ten Tocharian C texts written in Kharoṣṭhī script has been discredited.^[2]

Tocharian A and Tocharian B, the two major languages descendant of Proto-Tocharian, are mutually unintelligible, which led linguists to think that the split of Proto-Tocharian in several branches was several millennia ago. As part of the same language family, the Tocharian languages and their common ancestor are studied together by scholars.