Tocharians

The Tocharians (Traditional Chinese: 吐火羅人) were an ancient people who lived in the Tarim Basin. The Tocharians spoke an Indo-European language called the Tocharian.^[1][2] The region they lived in is closer to the East Asia than any other Indo-European-speaking regions.^[1]

Fragment of a painting depicting two Tocharian ladies, found in the Silk Road oasis town of Miran.

Depiction of Tocharians on a mural.

Tocharian B Love Poem B-496. Translation in Krause and Thomas 1960–64:2.72 and Pinault 2008:32 II.

Tocharian languages - A, B, C in the Tarim Basin. Tarim oasis towns are given as listed in the Book of Han (c. 2nd century BC.) Areas of the squares are proportional to population.

Related pages

• Sogdia
• Scythia
• Turkestan
• Macedonia
• Central Asia
• Hephthalites
• Indo-Iranian peoples
• Indo-Iranian languages

Other websites

• Tocharian alphabet
• Modern studies are developing a Tocharian dictionary
• Mark Dickens, 'Everything you always wanted to know about Tocharian' Archived 2003-10-11 at the Wayback Machine
• Mysterious Mummies of China Archived 2012-02-06 at the Wayback Machine by Nova on Google Video