Editing Tocharian languages (section)

== Tocharian C ==
A third Tocharian language was first suggested by [[Thomas Burrow]] in the 1930s, while discussing 3rd-century documents from [[Loulan Kingdom|Krorän]] (Loulan) and [[Niya ruins|Niya]]. The texts were written in [[Gandhari language|Gandhari Prakrit]], but contained loanwords of evidently Tocharian origin, such as ''kilme'' ('district'), ''ṣoṣthaṃga'' ('tax collector'), and ''ṣilpoga'' ('document'). This hypothetical language later became generally known as Tocharian C. It has also sometimes been called Kroränian or Krorainic.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mallory |first=J. P. |title=The Problem of Tocharian Origins: An Archaeological Perspective |url=http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp259_tocharian_origins.pdf |journal=Sino-Platonic Papers |volume=259}}</ref>

In papers published posthumously in 2018, Klaus T. Schmidt, a scholar of Tocharian, presented a decipherment of 10 texts written in the [[Kharosthi|Kharoṣṭhī script]]. Schmidt claimed that these texts were written in a third Tocharian language he called {{lang|de|Lolanisch}}.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Zimmer |first1=Klaus T |title=K. T. Schmidt: Nachgelassene Schriften |last2=Zimmer |first2=Stefan |last3=Dr. Ute Hempen |date=2019 |publisher=Hempen Verlag |isbn=9783944312538 |language=de |oclc=1086566510}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Language Log » Tocharian C: its discovery and implications |url=http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=42318 |access-date=2019-04-04}}</ref> He also suggested that the language was closer to Tocharian B than to Tocharian A.<ref name=":0" /> In 2019 a group of linguists led by [[Georges-Jean Pinault]] and [[Michaël Peyrot]] convened in [[Leiden]] to examine Schmidt's translations against the original texts. They concluded that Schmidt's decipherment was fundamentally flawed, that there was no reason to associate the texts with Krörän, and that the language they recorded was neither Tocharian nor Indic, but Iranian.<ref name="adams-tocharian-c-again" /><ref>{{Cite journal |year=2020 |title=The Formal Kharoṣṭhī script from the Northern Tarim Basin in Northwest China may write an Iranian language |journal=Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae |volume=73 |issue=3 |pages=335–373 |doi=10.1556/062.2020.00015 |doi-access=free |given1=Federico |surname1=Dragoni |given2=Niels |surname2=Schoubben |given3=Michaël |surname3=Peyrot|hdl=1887/139192 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

In 2024, Schoubben conducted a systematic review of Niya Prakrit and the loanwords claimed as evidence for Tocharian C. He argued that most of the words in question could be explained as loanwords from [[Bactrian language|Bactrian]] or other [[Iranian languages]], and found no compelling evidence for a Tocharian substrate.<ref>{{cite thesis |surname=Schoubben |given=Neils |title=Traces of language contact in Niya Prakrit: Bactrian and other foreign elements |type=PhD thesis |publisher=Leiden University |year=2024 |hdl=1887/4108454 }}</ref> For example, Burrow proposed that ''aṃklatsa'', 'a type of camel', corresponded to Tocharian A ''āknats'' and Tocharian B ''aknātsa'' 'stupid, foolish', believing that this would refer to an 'untrained camel', from a Tocharian form *''anknats'' (with the negative prefix *''en-''). Not only does this etymology presuppose an ''ad hoc'' sound change from *-''nkn''- to *-''nkl''-, but the variant ''agiltsa'' also found in Niya becomes aberrant. Schoubben suggests that this is might be a Bactrian word, as camels originally come from Bactria, but could not find a convincing etymology.<ref>Schoubben 2024: 430</ref> He had earlier argued that <ḱ> was used in Niya Prakrit to transcribe Bactrian -''šk''- (spelled ϸκ in the [[Bactrian language#Writing system|Bactrian alphabet]]). For example, Burrow had tentatively connected ''maḱa'', a Niya Prakrit word for an unidentified food produced on farms, with Tocharian A ''malke'' 'milk', but Schoubben derives it from [[Proto-Iranian language|Proto-Iranian]] *''māšaka-'' 'bean'.<ref>{{cite journal |surname=Schoubben |given=Neils |title=Accent sign matters. The Niya Prakrit grapheme <ḱ> and its connection to Bactrian <ϸκ> |journal=Journal Asiatique |volume=309 |year=2021 |pages=47–59 |doi=10.2143/JA.309.1.3289427 |doi-access=free |hdl=1887/3210585 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>