Tocharian in South Asian languages?
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In a comment to this post, "Yuezhi archeology without concern for Tocharian language" (8/4/24), Gokul Madhavan raised an interesting question:
I’m very curious to know if there are any reliable and up-to-date sources for Tocharian loanwords into Sanskrit or other Indo-Aryan languages.
Given both the use of Gāndhārī Prakrit across the region and the presence of the Kuṣāṇa empire in India, I would expect to find at least some Tocharian-origin names or words that got absorbed into Indo-Aryan languages.
I agree with Gokul that this is an interesting question, and it seems likely that there ought to be traces of Tocharian in South Asia. Aside from the Kuṣāṇa (c.30-c. 375 AD) vectors in India mentioned by Gokul, even afterward there was considerable coming and going between India and Tocharia during the heyday of the latter (2nd-7th cc.). For example, the famous Indian monk-translator, Kumārajīva कुमारजीव (344-413 AD; Jiūmóluóshí 鳩摩羅什), was married to a princess of Kucha, when the latter was the center of Tocharian B speakers. Consequently, for all such reasons, there is likely to be a significant number of Tocharian names and terms in Indo-Aryan languages, but I do not know of a systematic study or collection of such words. Perhaps this post will elicit helpful references from Language Log readers.
Selected readings
- "Yuezhi archeology without concern for Tocharian language" (8/4/24)
- "Rethinking the Yuezhi?" (8/5/24)
- "The origins and affinities of Tocharian" (8/20/23) — with very long, classified bibliography
Dan Boucher said,
August 12, 2024 @ 11:13 am
There is well known evidence of Tocharian loan words in Gāndhārī among the Niya documents from the Shanshan kingdom, famously studied by Burrow almost a century ago. Brough proposed some additional possibilities in the Dharmapada from Khotan if I'm remembering correctly. I don't know of any from sources originating from the Indian subcontinent, and frankly, wouldn't expect any. One of the striking developments of the rise of Sanskrit as a language for literary and political application is that this use first emerged among foreign peoples, notably the Sakas. Sheldon Pollock has described this development in great detail in the opening chapters of his The Language of the Gods in the World of Men (2006).
Yves Rehbein said,
August 12, 2024 @ 11:20 am
Wiktionary has no Tocharian loans in Sanskrit categorized, not either in Prakrit or Gandhari, none derived from, no names from it nor in it
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Sanskrit_borrowed_terms
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Prakrit_borrowed_terms
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Gandhari_borrowed_terms
There are less Gandhari lemmas than Tocharian B terms borrowed from Sanskrit
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Gandhari_language
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Tocharian_B_terms_borrowed_from_Sanskrit
Yet there is a Ottoman Turkish borrowing in Sanskrit (classical Sanskrit, I assume), namely coffee.
As there is no Tocharian language per se nor Tocharian given names, it occurs to me that TxB is maybe not the one to look at.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Tocharian_B_names
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Given_names_from_Sanskrit_by_language
Philip Taylor said,
August 12, 2024 @ 1:37 pm
"studied by Burrow almost a century ago. Brough proposed" — it looks as if autocorrect took over here, Dan, but this being way outside my (few, small) areas of expertise, I have no way of knowing which of the two you intended …
Victor Mair said,
August 12, 2024 @ 1:58 pm
@Philip Taylor
Burrow and Brough were two different scholars.
Philip Taylor said,
August 12, 2024 @ 2:26 pm
Thank you Victor.
Dan C said,
August 13, 2024 @ 7:05 pm
My very imperfect memory is that 1. the Kushanas used Greek and Bactrian languages early on, and then transitioned to Sanskrit, and 2. most of our written records for that period of Indian history is in the form of coinage. It certainly seems possible that Tocharian loans could've entered some of the Prakrits spoken at the time and not necessarily the more prestigious and Brahman-associated Sanskrit. I'm interested about the Tocharian loans in Gandhari that Dan Boucher mentioned above!
David Marjanović said,
August 14, 2024 @ 2:04 pm
Wikipedia has one paragraph about them here, with three examples, but keep in mind this is Gāndhārī Prakrit as used as a foreign written language along the southern rim of the Tarim basin, far away from Gāndhāra.