Like Dust on the Silk Road : On the Earliest Iranian and BMAC Loanwords in Tocharian / Chams Benoît Bernard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bernard, Chams Benoît, 1994- author.

Series:

Language and Linguistics E-Books Online, Collection 2025

Leiden Studies in Indo-European ; 27.

Leiden Studies in Indo-European ; 27

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Languages and Linguistics.

Middle East and Islamic Studies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (308 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

On the Earliest Iranian and BMAC Loanwords in Tocharian

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2025.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

How did the Tocharians reach China? "Who did they meet on the way?” are some of the most intriguing questions in Indo-European studies. This book is zooming in on a specific part of the question: on their way to China, Tocharians were in contact with an Iranian people living in the south Siberian Steppes, and with a people related to the Oxus Civilization (BMAC). This Iranian people spoke a specific language, called here “Old Steppe Iranian”. They gave Tocharians many words, such as mañiye ‘servant’, etswe ‘burden-carrying horse’ or ‘mule’, pāke ‘portion, share’. The BMAC-related people gave the Tocharians other words such as etre ‘hero’ and kercapo ‘donkey’. This book reconstructs features of the language of both these peoples, and examines how they influenced the Tocharians. Based on the latest archaeological findings, it also suggests a reconstruction of the chronology and the way the Tocharians followed before entering the Tarim Basin. Winner of the 2nd prize for the best dissertation of the Indogermanische Gesellschaft prize for the best Indo-European studies dissertation.

Contents:

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction

1.1 Tocharian and Iranian

1.2 State of the art

1.3 Research issues

1.4 Methodology

1.5 Structure

1.6 Spelling of Tocharian stress

1.7 Alphabetic order

2 Old Steppe Iranian Loanwords in Tocharian

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Old Steppe Iranian borrowings: plausible cases

2.3 Old Steppe Iranian borrowings: possible cases

2.4 Old Steppe Iranian borrowings: difficult cases

2.5 Old Steppe Iranian borrowings: rejected cases

2.6 Old Steppe Iranian calques in Tocharian

2.7 Discussion of the features of Old Steppe Iranian

3 BMAC Words in Tocharian (a Selective Survey)

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Analysis of potential BMAC loanwords in Tocharian

3.3 Other possible BMAC loanwords in Tocharian

3.4 Discussion

4 Conclusion

4.1 Results

4.2 The Tocharian way

Appendix 1: The Tocharian Word for ‘Parrot’ and Its Origin

Appendix 2: On the Etymology of Tocharian B patstsāṅk and Tocharian A pātsaṅk ‘Window’

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Benoît Bernard, Chams Like Dust on the Silk Road

ISBN:

9789004732537

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004732537 DOI