Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

Page 349

348
THE ALPHABET
of ancient Tokharistan, the country situated between Sogdiana at the Iron Gates, and Bamiyan; its capital was Balkh, The population was called by the Greeks Tokharoi, Thaguroi, by the Romans, Tochari or Thogarii (in Sanskr., Tukhara; in Tibetan, Thod-kar or Tho-gar; in Khotanese, Traugara; in Ligurian, Twghry: in Armenian, Tukhri-k', the country being called Tokharastan). Modern scholars, therefore called the language Tokharian, and they distinguished the two dialects by calling them "Tokharian Dialect A," and "Tokharian Dialect B." It was, however, soon discovered that "Dialect B" was the language of the ancient kingdom of Kucha or Kuci (in Sanskrit, Kauceya; in Uigurian, Kesän tili, "language of Kuci"; the indigenous term is unknown). There is, thus, a general agreement to call "Dialect B" Kuchean,
As to "Tokharian Dialect A," Professor Bailey pointed out that the term Tokharjan is not correct, as Toghara or Tokhara was the indigenous term of a people whose original language is now unknown, but it is known that they had no linguistic affinities with Indo-European. He, therefore, suggests calling "Dialect A" Agnean, from the ancient kingdom of Agni, later known as Qamshahr (the indigenous name was Arsi). Some scholars call this language Qurashahrian, but this term reflects a later period. Many scholars, however, still employ the Terms Tokharian, Dialect A, and Dialect B.
Agnean and Kuchean Characters
The numerous documents extant were discovered by British (M. A. Stein), Russian (Klementz and Berezowski), French (P. Pelliot), German (A. Gruenwedel and A, von Le Coq) and Japanese (K. Otani) scholars, and are now in collections in London, Oxford, Paris, Calcutta, Leningrad, Berlin, Peking and Tokyo. They were found in the eastern part of the Tarim basin (Eastern Turkestan), and in Tun-huang (N.W. China). They belong to the second half of the first millennium A.D.
The writing is, as already mentioned, a variant of the western type of the Gupta character, called by Dr. Hærnle, Central Asian Slanting (Fig. 157). The script is thus based on the Indian Gupta system. As in Indian, the basic consonants of the Central Asian Slanting have generally the inherent a, but, unlike the Indian, there are special signs (Fremdzeichen in German, doublettes, in French) which have an inherent ä. The Indian Gupta signs for which there were no sounds in the indigenous languages, were eliminated, while some new signs were invented to represent the peculiar indigenous sounds. On the whole, about twelve signs were added. The new script had, thus, symbols to represent the following vocalic and consonantal sounds: long and short a, i and u; the vowels ä, o and e; the diphthongs e and o in Agnean, and ai and au in Kuchean; the semivowels y and to; four forms of s; three forms of n and three liquids (r. 1 and ly), and the occlusives p, 1, k, c, and ts, there were no surds.
As already mentioned, two varieties may be distinguished, the Agnean and the Kuchean; the latter script being more cursive than the former. The texts preserved are largely religious works, but in Kuchean also business documents and medical mss. are extant.