TOCHARIAN LANGUAGES


Meaning of TOCHARIAN LANGUAGES in English

or Tokharian languages

Two extinct Indo-European languages , Tocharian A and Tocharian B, formerly spoken in the Tarim River Basin in China.

Documents date back to AD 500–700. Tocharian literature, written in a northern Indian syllabary derived from Brahmi (see Indic writing systems ), was preserved in Buddhist monasteries. Spoken at the eastern frontier of the Indo-European world, Tocharian shows the influence of Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages but seems closer to western Indo-European languages in vocabulary and grammar.

Britannica English dictionary.      Английский словарь Британика.