Tocharian was an Indo-European language spoken in ancient times in the Tarim Basin in Central Asia. While most Indo-European languages fall into either the centum or satem category based on their treatment of Proto-Indo-European palatovelars, Tocharian patterns with centum languages but also shows some satem features. This document discusses possible reasons for Tocharian's exceptionality, including language contact influencing its phonology and changes in the size and use of the Tocharian language community over time leading to changes in its phonemic inventory.

1. On Tocharian Exceptionality to
the centum-satem Isogloss
Richard Littauer
MSc Saarland University | MA University of Edinburgh
rlittauer.com | @richlitt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocharians

2. Tocharian
What is it?

3. Tocharian
http://webscript.princeton.edu/~lingclub/challenge/tocharian.php

4. Tocharian
http://001yourtranslationservice.com/translations/jobs/Tocharian.html

5. http://srhabay.wikispaces.com/19+INDO-EUROPEAN+LANGUAGE+FAMILY

6. Centum-Satem
Proto-Indoeuropean
*kʷ *gʷ *gʷʰ (labiovelars)
*k *g *gʰ ("plain velars")
*ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ ("palatovelars”)

7. Centum-Satem
Proto-Indoeuropean
*kʷ *gʷ *gʷʰ (labiovelars)
*k *g *gʰ ("plain velars")
*ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ ("palatovelars”)
Centum group
kʷ gʷ gʷʰ
k g gʰ

8. Centum-Satem
Proto-Indoeuropean
*kʷ *gʷ *gʷʰ (labiovelars)
*k *g *gʰ ("plain velars")
*ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ ("palatovelars”)
Centum group Satem group
kʷ gʷ gʷʰ kʷ gʷ gʷʰ
k g gʰ
k g gʰ s z

9. Centum-Satem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centum-satem_isogloss

10. Centum-Satem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centum-satem_isogloss

11. Centum-Satem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centum-satem_isogloss

12. Outline
• Overall language complexity
• Possible language contact
• Changes in language use

13. Language Complexity
All languages are equal.

14. Language Complexity
All languages are equal.
All languages are equally complex in different ways.

15. Language Complexity
All languages are equal.
All languages are equally complex in different ways.
Language complexity differs across the board, but stays
the same.

16. Language Complexity
All languages are equal.
All languages are equally complex in different ways.
Language complexity differs across the board, but stays
the same.

17. Language Complexity
Overall complexity of a language may change over time.
Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable, Sampson
2009.

18. Language Complexity
Kupwar, India:
• Urdu (IE)
• Marathi (IE)
• Kanneda (Dravidian)
Minimal lexical and phonological borrowings.

19. Language Complexity
Kupwar, India:
• Urdu (IE)
• Marathi (IE)
• Kanneda (Dravidian)
Minimal lexical and phonological borrowings.
But syntactically: “the sentences can be seen as exact
calques of each other.” (Myers-Scotton 2002, 176)

20. Language Complexity
Tocharian has drastic changes in the:
• syntax
• morphology
• lexically
This may have influenced the changes in the phonemic
inventory of the language.

21. Horizontal Transfer
Could Tocharian have been influenced by non-IE
languages, leading to the merge into [k]?

22. Whence the Tocharoi?
Tocharian culture is referenced much earlier than the 6th
century by Ptolemy, Strabo, and Apollinorus (Sinor
1963, 151).
Two migration theories:
• Migrated from central or west Eurasia, although
archaeological evidence for such a feat is non-existent.
• Migrated from the Afanasievo culture of Siberia before
settling in the Tarim Basin.

23. Arguments against Turkic
Previous suggested sources for borrowings: “nomadic
pastoralists speaking Ural-Altaic languages.” (Sinor 1990)
But: “the major event that led to the Turkicisation of
Xinjiang was the collapse of the nomadic steppe empire of
the Turkic-speaking Uighurs." (Pulleyblank 2002, 45)

24. Arguments against Turkic
• More Indic, Dravidian, and Sino-Tibetan languages in
the area.
• Difficult to borrow morphology from a left-head
orientated language.
• Hard to choose a contact language:
• Only around 5,000 attested Tocharian words,
• We don’t know enough about the area.

25. Arguments against Turkic
Tocharian continued on:
• “into the period of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907)
when the Chinese first regained the Tarim basin and
then lost it in the face of Tibetan
and, subsequently, Turkish incursions.” (Mallor
2000, 272)

26. Other Languages
Mithridates VI of Pontus reputedly knew all twenty-two
languages in his Anatolian empire.

27. Other Languages
Mithridates VI of Pontus reputedly knew all twenty-two
languages in his Anatolian empire.
Bactrian Iranian, Khotanese Saka, Old
Persian, Han, Tang, Shang, and Chou Old and Middle
Chinese variants, Sogdian, Greek, Uighur and Kyrgiz
Turkish, Ossetic, Avestan, Tai, Prakrit, Tibetan, Kuchean, Bu
rushaski, Scythian, and Cimmerian (Pulleyblank 2002)

28. Maintaining Distinction
Ma’a:
• Has one idiosyncratic phoneme, a voiceless lateral
fricative:
• “to emphasize the differentness of their other
language, they sometimes introduce it into Bantu
words.” (Thompson 2001)

29. Maintaining Distinction
The velar merging might then have been used as a way of
keeping distinct from other sounds in the region.
In the sprachbund of Mesopotamia and central
Asia, allophonic variants might have been minimalised to
retain maximum distinction.

30. Change in Domain
The merge may have occurred due a change in
Tocharian in general.

31. Change in Domain
The Tocharian population was never large, and may
have been influenced by the ‘founder effect.’ (cf
Atkinson 2011)

32. Change in Domain
Research correlates phonemic inventory size with
the size of the language community. (Hay and Bauer
2007)

33. Change in Domain
Tocharian already showed signs of decaying use:
Tocharian A is found almost exclusively in liturgical
documents.

34. Change in Domain
It is possible that a change in the size of the
community from a larger foundation, combined with
decay in use and horizontal transfer, may have led to
detrition of the phonemic system.

35. Conclusion
Tocharian may not have been susceptible to a weak
dialect wave, or to a possible early branching of IE.

36. References
• Atkinson, Quentin (2011). Phonemic Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language
Expansion from Africa Science 332, 346.
• Hay, J., and Bauer, L. (2007). Phoneme inventory size and population size. Language 83(2): 388–
400.
• Mallor, J.P., and Mair, Victor H. (2000). The Tarim Mummies. London: Thames and Hudson.
• Myers-Scotton, Carol (2002). Contact Linguistics: Bilingual Encounters and Grammatical Outcomes.
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (2002). Central Asia and Non-Chinese Peoples of Ancient China.
Hampshire, UK: Ashgate.
• Renfrew, Colin (1990). Archaeology and language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN
9780521386753.
• Sampson, Geoffrey, Gil, David, and Trudgill, Peter (ed.) (2009). Language Complexity as an Evolving
Variable. Volume 13 of Studies in the Evolution of Language. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Sinor, Denis (1963). Introduction a` l’E tude de l’Asie Centale. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz.
• Sinor, Denis (ed.) (1990). The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. Cambridge, UK: SMC
Publishing Inc.
• Thomason, Sarah G. (2001). Language Contact. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

37. THANKS.
Questions?