Kuchean (also known as Tocharian B or West Tocharian) was a Western member of Tocharian branch of Indo-European languages, extinct from ninth century. Once spoken in the

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. Tocharian B shows an internal chronological development; three linguistic stages have been detected. The oldest stage is attested only in Kucha. There are also the middle ('classicalʼ), and the late stage.

Nomenclature

Acorrding to Peyrot, the self-designation for the language was ''kuśi'' 'Kuča'. In scholarly works, it is known as West Tocharian or Kuchean.

Overview

According to scholar Michael Peyrot, Tocharian B is dated between the 5th and 10th centuries AD, and was spread from Kuča to Yānqi and

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. Paul Widmer, following Tamai's and Adams's studies, situates Tocharian B roughly between 400 CE to 1200 CE, its oldest layer dating from ca. 400 to 600 CE, around "Kucha and environs".

Documentation

According to J. H. W. Penney, Tocharian B is reported to be documented as Buddhist religious literature, and as secular material "pertaining to everyday life".

References

Bibliography

;Studies: * * * Peyrot, Michaël. “Tocharian”. In: ''The Indo-European Language Family: A Phylogenetic Perspective''. Edited by Thomas Olander. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. pp. 83–101. . * ;Tocharian literature: * Lundysheva, Olga and Maue, Dieter. "An Old Uyghur text fragment related to the Tocharian B “History of Kuchean kings”". In: ''Religion and State in the Altaic World: Proceedings of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference (PIAC), Friedensau, Germany, August 18–23, 2019''. Edited by Oliver Corff, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2022, pp. 111-124. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110730562-010 * *

External links

*
A dictionary of Tocharian B
' by

Douglas Q. Adams Douglas Quentin Adams is a professor of English at the University of Idaho and an Indo-European comparativist. Adams studied at the University of Chicago, taking his PhD in 1972. He is an expert on Tocharian and a contributor on this subject to ...