Tokharien B

The koutchéen , that one calls also improperly the tokharien B , was a Indo-European language spoken until the end about a. J. - C. in the area of Koutcha - current province about the Xinjiang, in the west of the China. One spoke it also more in the East, in the areas of Karachahr and of Tourfan, where it coexisted with the agnéen or Tokharien has, which was narrowly related for him.

The documents koutchéens

One found a little more 3.000 sheets or fragments of sheets carrying a text in koutchéen. They made it possible to know only one small portion of the vocabulary koutchéen. The majority of these texts are of Buddhist inspiration . There are also administrative documents, economic and legal, medical or magic texts, as well as a poem of love (quoted in the article Civilization koutchéenne). With the foot of an old tower of guard, close to Koutcha, Paul Pelliot found a hundred pass of caravans in koutchéen. Area of Tourfan, come from the fragments of handbooks of Sanskrit to the use of the koutchéanophones.

All these documents date from second half of.

The kingdom of Koutcha having been the most important State of the Basin of Tarim, that naturally gave to its language a certain radiation. It is known that the Buddhist Sogdiens, in the area of Samarkand, read translations of texts koutchéens. During the 8th century, the Eastern Église manichéenne installed its seat with Tourfan and adopted the language koutchéenne, but by noting it with its own writing, derived from the syriaque Alphabet (Tokhariens used usually a writing of Indian origin, the Brāhmī). One knows an anthem with Mani, as well as an anthem with Jesus, written in koutchéen with this writing.

Nominal morphology

The koutchéen knows the masculine and the female one. The neutral, formerly common to all the Indo-European languages, almost disappeared: the old neutral substantives became male in the singular and female in the plural. Only the conclusive pronouns preserved neutral forms, beside their male and female forms.

With regard to the number, the koutchéen knows the singular, plural, the pariel (used for two objects forming of the natural pairs: ek “eye”, eśane or eśne “two eyes”), the duel (used for two objects forming of the occasional pairs), as well as the pluratif one, which makes it possible to individualize the elements of a unit. The pluratif one of ost “house” is ostuwaiwenta “houses, catches one by one”.

There exist four primary Cas, here illustrated with the singular of eṅkwe “man”:

Personal: eṅkwe (the term “man” is used as subject);
Vocative: eṅkwa (“man! ”);
oblique, which corresponds to the Accusatif: eṅkwen (the term “man” is used as complement of object);
Genitive: eṅkwentse (“of a man”).

To a substantive with the oblique case, one adds suffixes to form six secondary Cas:

the Perlatif: eṅkwentsa (“on a man”). This case is used to describe a contact “on the surface” or “the edge” of an object, contrary to the Locatif, which expresses a presence inside an object. It has also a temporal significance: to say “ during such year”, the perlatif one is used. Lastly, the suffix - its can result in “by means of”.
the Comitatif: eṅkwenmpa (“with a man”).
the Causal . Little used.
the Allatif: eṅkwenśc (“towards, with a man”).
the Ablative : eṅkwenmen (“from, by leaving a man”). The suffix - men also results in “except, except”.
the Rental : eṅkwenne (“in a man”).

The ending of oblique - N applies only to substantives indicating of the human beings, with only one exception: the oblique of ku “dog” is kwen . There exist other endings, and sometimes, the oblique is not distinguished from the personal one: the oblique of yakwe “horse” is yakwe .

The forms of the plural of “man” are identical to those of the singular to all the cases, except with personal ( eṅkwi “men”) and with the genitive ( eṅkwents ).

In koutchéen as in French, the adjectives agree with the substantives which they determine. That makes it possible to know if a substantive is male or female. In French, it is rather the kind of the article accompanying a substantive which makes it possible to know the kind of this one (one says the boat and not the boat , therefore boat is male), but in koutchéen, it does not exist article. It is thus known that olyi “boat” is female because it is necessary to write orotstsa olyi “large boat” instead of orotstse olyi “large boat”. In the documents koutchéens, the substantives not being always accompanied by adjectives, one is unaware of the kind of some (like ost “house”).

There exist four flexional classes of adjectives, which are characterized by their forms from personal and oblique plural to the masculine. Here how the inflection of orotste is carried out “large”, adjective of class I (it will be noted that C always decides tch ):

The term orotstse is not separable in two distinct parts, but there exists a suffix - tste , resulting in “equipped with, having”, which gives an adjective when it is added to a substantive: kokale “tank” becomes kokaletstse “equipped with a tank”. One can also transform a substantive into an adjective by associating the suffix to him - ṣṣe “consistent in, made up of” ( ṣ always decides HS ): kärweñe “stone” becomes kärweñeṣṣe “onstitué of stones, stony”. It is a process of transformation very running.

Another means of knowing the kind of a substantive is to find it in company of a conclusive pronoun. Here how the inflection of the pronoun is carried out “this, this; this one”. The neutral is distinguished only in the singular:

Thus, “this large boat” will result with personal in sā orotstsa olyi . To say “it crosses the sea with (by means of) this large boat”, one takes this nominal group by putting all his words at the oblique and associating the suffix to him of perlatif the - his . That gives: known tā orotstsai olyisa lyam kätkāṣtär (the term lyam “sea” is with the oblique, which is for this term, as for olyi , identical to personal).

Verbal morphology

In the French language, the verbs are put at the Passive voice without having clean conjugation. One uses for that the auxiliary to be : “this book is bought by… ”. In certain old languages, like the Sanskrit, there exists a passive conjugation beside the active conjugation. One finds even a third voice, the average Voix. In Sanskrit, the means in general expresses actions which the agent carries out for itself, in its own interest: yajati “it makes a sacrifice (for another)”, yajate “it makes a sacrifice (for itself), it is made a sacrifice”. It is seen that the means is returned in French by the pronominal form: “I buy a book”, etc In Sanskrit to me, the means is also employed with the value of the liability.

Such was the value of the means in common Indo-European. This language (mother of all the Indo-European languages), knew only the credit and the means. The koutchéen preserved this situation. There is no liability, but the means, used as in Sanskrit, is ready to replace it. It also happens that a verb is conjugated with the means, but with an active direction. The nominal forms of the verb (Participle Infinitive Preterite, and Gerund) are indifferent to the voice: they are employed as well in passive value as active. With the Participle present, there exists an average suffix ( - basket ) beside the active suffix ( - ñca ), but the passive value of the participle present average is very rare.

The verbs can be combined in the singular and. The duel exists, but it is rare. The modes used are the indicative , the Subjonctif, the Optatif and the Impératif, with the values that we know to them. The code is divided into three times, the Présent, the Imparfait and the Prétérit. The subjunctive has a value of future, which is an antiquated feature of the koutchéen.

To conjugate a verb, it is necessary to know its class of present, subjunctive and preterite. There exist 12 classes of present, 11 classes of subjunctive and 6 classes of prérérit. For example, the present of the verb “speech” being class IX, one adds to his root - we the affix - sk- , plus a vowel known as set of themes which is ä or E according to the person and the number. For first person plural, as this vowel is E , one obtains weske- . On top, if one adds the ending of first person plural of this credit, which is - m , that gives: weskem “we speak”. There exist personal pronouns (it is a conclusive pronoun, known , which plays the part of the personal pronoun “it”), but their use is optional. The koutchéen has four series of endings:

endings of present indicative and subjunctive.
endings of optative and imperfect.
endings of preterite.
endings of requirement.

Each series exists in an active version and an average version.

This manner of combining is familiar to the speaker of the old Greek , but the resemblance goes surprisingly far. The vowel set of themes is divided, according to the person and the number, in the following way in Greek and koutchéen:

The equations O = E and ε = ä appear in an obvious way. The distribution of the Greek ε/o is similar to that of the koutchéen ä / E . Such a fact can be explained only by the common origin of verbal morphologies Greek and koutchéenne. It will be noted that the vowel ä tends to disappear and to palatalize the preceding consonant: one does not say * weskän “it speaks”, but weṣṣän .

Certain verbs can have several classes of present or subjunctive. It is the case of kätk- “to cross”, referred to above. At the present, it is with class VI ( kätknā- , without vowel set of themes), with class VII ( kättänk- , with infix a - än- , also athematic) or with class IX ( kätkāsk-ä/e- , from where kätkāṣtär “it crosses”, with the means).

We give below the complete conjugation of the verb yām- “to make” in the active:

And with the means:

The participle present is yamaṣṣeñca in the active and yamaskemane with the means. On the participle preterite yāmo- , one can build a substantive such as yāmor “the fact of making, the act”. Koutchéens used it to translate the Sanskrit Karma “act”. The infinite one is always built on the topic of the subjunctive: yāmtsi .

To that, two gerunds, yamaṣṣälle are added “having to make”, built on the topic of the present, and yamalle “being able to make”, built on the topic of the subjunctive. They make superfluous the verbs “duty” and “capacity” (which exists however): “it must make” says yamaṣṣälle co. “it is having to make”.

The participle preterite behaves like an adjective of class IV:

Lexicon koutchéen

This lexicon includes/understands words whose etymology is clear. It is not the case, for example, of the verb yām- .

anāsk- “to breathe”, Greek anemos “breathing, wind”, Latin animus “spirit, heart”, old Irish ana “breathing”, gotic uzanan “to exhale”.

kā “why? ”, Latin quā “how?”.

ken “ground”, old Irish of the , Latin humus < * homus , old slavon zemlja , Albanian dhe , Lithuanian zeme .

kokale “tank, carriage”, Greek kuklos “circle, wheel”, Sanskrit cakra- “circle, wheel”, old English hweol “wheel”.

ñuwe “new”, Latin novus , Greek néos , Sanskrit nava- , hittite newa- .

procer “brother”, Latin frater , old Persian brātar , old Prussian broti .

Ru “to open”, Latin rus “countryside”, old Irish roe “field, country opened”, avestic ravah- “opened space”, English room “place, space; place; room”.

śu- “to eat”, Lithuanian ziaunos “jaws”, old slavon zvati “to chew”, English chew “to chew”.

yente “wind”, Latin ventus , English wind , hittite hwant- , Sanskrit vāta- .

iriye “sheep male, ram”, Greek aren “lamb”, Armenian garn “lamb”, Sanskrit uran- “sheep, ram”.

Random links:

Tokharien B

The documents koutchéens

Nominal morphology

Verbal morphology

Lexicon koutchéen

Related articles