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The Tocharians or Tokharians ( or ) were inhabitants of medieval oasis city-states on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang, China). The Tocharian languages (a branch of the Indo-European family) are known from manuscripts from the 6th to 8th centuries AD, after which they were supplanted by the Turkic languages of the Uyghur tribes who arrived from Mongolia. These people were called "Tocharian" by late-19th century scholars who identified them with the ''Tókharoi'' described by ancient Greek sources as inhabiting Bactria. Although this identification is now generally considered mistaken, the name has become customary. Some scholars have linked the Tocharians with the Afanasevo culture of eastern Siberia (c. 3500 – 2500 BC), the Tarim mummies (c. 1800 BC) and the Yuezhi of Chinese records, most of whom migrated from western Gansu to Bactria in the 2nd century BC and then later to northwestern Indian subcontinent where they founded the Kushan Empire. ==Names== Around the beginning of the 20th century, archaeologists recovered from oases in the Tarim Basin a number of manuscripts written in two closely related but previously unknown Indo-European languages. Another text recovered from the same area, a Buddhist work in Old Turkic, included a colophon stating that the text had been translated from Sanskrit via a ''toxrï'' language, which Friedrich W. K. Müller guessed was one of the newly discovered languages.〔(Tocharian Online: Series Introduction ), Todd B. Krause and Jonathan Slocum, University of Texas as Austin.〕 Müller called the languages "Tocharian" (German ''Tocharisch''), linking this ''toxrï'' with the ethnonym ''Tókharoi'' (, Ptolemy VI, 11, 6, 2nd century AD) applied by Strabo to one of the Scythian tribes that overran the Greco-Bactrian kingdom (present day Afghanistan-Pakistan) in the second half of the 2nd century BC.〔"Most of the Scythians, beginning from the Caspian Sea, are called Dahae Scythae, and those situated more towards the east Massagetae and Sacae; the rest have the common appellation of Scythians, but each separate tribe has its peculiar name. All, or the greatest part of them, are nomads. The best known tribes are those who deprived the Greeks of Bactriana, the Asii, Pasiani, Tochari, and Sacarauli, who came from the country on the other side of the Iaxartes, opposite the Sacae and Sogdiani" (Strabo, (11-8-2 ))〕 This term was itself derived from Indo-Iranian (cf. Old Persian ''tuxāri-'', Khotanese ''ttahvāra'', and Sanskrit ''tukhāra''), the source of the term "Tokharistan" usually referring to 1st millennium Bactria, as well as the Takhar province of Afghanistan. The ''Tókharoi'' are often identified by modern scholars with the Yuezhi of Chinese historical accounts, who founded the Kushan empire. These people are now known to have spoken Bactrian, an Eastern Iranian language that is quite distinct from the Tocharian languages, and Müller's identification is now a minority position among scholars. Nevertheless "Tocharian" remains the standard term for the languages of the Tarim Basin manuscripts and for the people who produced them.〔 The two languages are known as Tocharian A (also East Tocharian or Turfanian, from the city of Turpan) and Tocharian B (also West Tocharian or Kuchean, from the city of Kucha).〔 The native name of the historical Tocharians of the 6th to 8th centuries was, according to J. P. Mallory, possibly ''kuśiññe'' "Kuchean" (Tocharian B), "of the kingdom of Kucha and Agni", and ''ārśi'' (Tocharian A); one of the Tocharian A texts has ''ārśi-käntwā'', "In the tongue of Arsi" (''ārśi'' is probably cognate to ''argenteus'', i.e. "shining, brilliant"). According to Douglas Q. Adams, the Tocharians may have called themselves ''ākñi'', meaning "borderers, marchers". The historian Bernard Sergent has called them ''Arśi-Kuči'', recently revised to ''Agni-Kuči''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tocharians」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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