Authors: Christopher I. Beckwith
Tags: #History, #General, #Asia, #Europe, #Eastern, #Central Asia
Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia From the Bronze Age to the Present (81 page)
• Chinese sources explicitly and consistently identify the
name
Hsiao Yüeh-chih
’Lesser Yüeh-chih’—in connection with the lands of the Hsiao Yüeh-chih in southeastern East Turkistan and the homeland of the Yüeh-chih in the same region—with Sanskrit
Tukhâra
, the Indic name for ‘Tokharian’ and ‘Tokhâristân’. The identifications include one by Kumârajîva (344–413), a famous scholar and traveler to India and China who, as a native of Kucha and son of a Kuchean princess, was certainly a native speaker of West Tokharian (Tokharian B) and knew what he was talking about.
• The identification of Tokharian elements in the Kroraina Prakrit texts
37
—for example, Krorainian (Tokharian C)
kilme
‘district’ corresponding to East Tokharian (Tokharian A)
kälyme
‘direction’—is secured by the additional fact that they share Tokharian morphology.
38
This establishes the homeland of the Yüeh-chih, which included Kroraina, as the homeland of the Tokharians and their language in eastern Eurasia.
In conclusion, it is clear that the name now read Yüeh-chih is a transcription of *Tok
w
arke, the name of the people from the northern and southeastern Tarim region who spoke a distinctive Indo-European language,
Tokharian
, as shown a century ago by Müller. The modern name
Tocharisch
‘Tokharian’ he gave to the language does therefore represent the local name of the Tokharian people and language, though its meaning is unknown and it is unknown whether the name is an exonym or not.
1
For example, Beckwith (1993: 5).
2
See Beckwith (2002a: 129–133; 2007a: 145–146).
3
The belief is based on Han Dynasty and later Chinese usage in which the word does refer to early Tibeto-Burman peoples in the area of what is now Kansu and Amdo (northeastern Tibet). However, this does not tell us anything certain about Early Old Chinese usage because the Chinese, like many other ancient peoples, often applied earlier names for people living in one location to later peoples living in approximately the same location, regardless of any actual relationship or lack thereof.
4
The source of the aspirated-unaspirated distinction in the stop and affricate phonemes in Middle Chinese, not only in this but in many other words, remains unexplained. In at least some cases it is due to a prefixed *s(V)- (q.v. Sagart 1999) added to some roots in the post-Shang period (Beckwith 2006c).
5
Adams (1999: 220).
6
For a well-attested precedent, see the discussion of Fu Hao ~ Fu Tzu in endnote 44.
7
HS
(96b: 3901).
8
HS
(96b: 3901–3910).
9
Szemerényi (1980: 16–21). The name is glossed in Greek via the name of the Scythian police force of Athens, oí Toξóται ‘the Archers’, which is interchangeable with ‘the Scythians’ (Szemerényi (1980: 19).
10
Abicht (1886: 8); cf. Macan (1895: 4–5 n. 6).
11
Legrand (1949: 50–51 n. 5).
12
Szemerényi (1980: 16 et seq.).
13
See Hill (forthcoming).
14
see endnote
13
on the textual problem involving So
NMan
su
ǒ < MChi *sak. The Turks are also said to be descended from the So
‘Sakas’; see endnote
53
.
15
Szemerényi (1980).
16
The
d
shifted later in Sogdian as well. Cf. the name Su-i
NMan
sùyì
from MChi *suawkjik (Pul. 295, 369) from OChi *soklik ~ *soglik ‘Sogdiana’.
17
Szemerényi (1980: 22 n. 47), who notes “it is unimportant whether -
ta
in
Skolotai
is a plural morpheme or not.”
18
Szemerényi (1980: 23 et seq.).
19
Szemerényi (1980: 45).
20
Szemerényi (1980: 46).
21
Szemerényi (1980: 23).
22
The evident deletion of the or *-ul-, needs to be addressed by Iranian specialists.
23
Szemerényi (1980: 46).
24
While these sound changes are fairly clear, they still need much work in order to be established more firmly.
25
For example, an important Indo-Europeanist work claims that the “evidence for the identification of the Tokharoi with the ‘Tocharians’ is meager though not wanting altogether but the identification is more usually than not rejected. However, in the absence of any better name, the designation has stuck”
(EIEC
590).
26
This appendix is a brief summary of some of the main aspects of the problem; it is treated in greater detail in a study that I hope to finish in the near future. For extensive discussion and quotation of the earlier literature, see Hill (forthcoming).
27
The usual reading of this name, from Müller on, has been ‘Toxrï’ or occasionally ‘Toyrï’. However, very many words in the Sogdian or Sogdian-derived scripts in the region (such as Uighur) omit one or more vowels, as is well known. The letter used for the dorsal phone in the Sogdian-derived scripts of East Turkistan is ambiguous (it can be read as either
γ
or Χ). Although in Early Old Chinese or Proto-Chinese the pronunciation of
(at least in the meaning ‘night’) had *-k- (Beckwith 2006b), it later became *-g- ~ *-ŋ- in some etyma; the Old Chinese transcription of the name thus may reflect an underlying *g ~ *γ, not *k ~ *Χ, suggesting that the early medieval East Turkistan form of the name might have had -γ-.
28
Clark (2000). The same cities are referred to as the
Tört Küsän
‘Four Kuchas’ or ‘Four Kushans’; the local form of the name
Kucha
was
Küsän,
a form of the name
Kushan,
on the variants of which there is a huge literature in scholarly journals from the early twentieth century.
29
Müller (1907). In English-language scholarly works there are two spellings of this name, Tokharian and Tocharian. The general preference for the German-style spelling Tocharian in English works is mystifying. The ‘kh’ or ‘ch’ of the underlying name is the sound x[x], normally represented in German by ‘ch’ but in English by ‘kh’.
30
Modern scholars, following Müller, usually read it
Toxrï tili.
31
For the second syllable many seemingly plausible solutions have been suggested, so it has not been seen as problematic.
32
Beckwith (2006b). I say “independently” because when I wrote the article it never occurred to me to consider the word’s use in the transcription of the name of the Tokharians.
33
The contemporaneous early transcriptions of the name Arsak ‘Arsacid’ and the name Alexandria, both using the same final in Chinese (Middle Chinese and Mandarin -n) to transcribe a foreign
-r
and a foreign -n, show clearly that these final coronals (at least) had merged (cf. Beckwith 2005b). There are many other instances—for example, the names *Tumen and Mo-tun (*Baytur)—where the “same” Old Chinese final (i.e., the same in Middle Chinese and Mandarin pronunciation) was used to transcribe different foreign coronals.
34
There is a good example of the archaic nature of the northern dialect in the Chinese name of a Hsiung-nu defector, which includes the character
’sun’, normally read NMan
rì
from MChi *ñit (Pul. 266), but in this case read NMan
mì
from MChi mεjk (Pul. 213), corresponding to a traditionally reconstructable Old Chinese form
*mīk ‘sun’ (Beckwith 2002a: 142–143), evidently from early OChi *mērk ~ *wērk ~ *bērk.
35
This corresponds exactly to the attested medieval West Tokharian ‘ethnic’ (’-ian, -ish’, etc.) suffix -ke, as in
Kaṣake
“Kashgarian’ (Adams 1999: 148), but this occurs mainly, if not exclusively, in Indo-Iranian loanwords; cf. the West Tokharian
nomen agentis
suffix -
ike
Adams (1999: 141), which also seems unlikely here.
36
They did this exactly in accordance with the First Story, as outlined in the prologue, q.v.
37
Burrow (1935, 1937).
38
Mallory and Mair (2000: 278–279).