Tocharian alphabet
Origin
The existence of the Tocharian language and alphabet only came to light
in the early 20th century, when fragments of manuscripts in a then unknown
alphabet were discovered in Xinjiang in north-western China.
Once the manuscripts were deciphered, they proved, much to the amazement
of linguists, to be in an hitherto unknown branch of the Indo-European
group of languages, which they called ‘Tocharian’. The alphabet they
were written in is derived from the Brahmi
alphabet.
Notable features
- Tocharian is a syllabic alphabet in which each consonant has an
inherent vowel /a/. Other vowels are indicated with independent vowel
letters or vowel diacritics.
Used to write:
Tocharian, an extinct Indo-European language which
was spoken between the 6th and 8th centuries AD, and probably earlier,
in what is now north-western China.
Tocharian alphabet
Consonants
Vowels
Vowel indication
Fragment of a Tocharian manuscript
Links
Tocharian alphabet
http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/idg/toch/tochbr.htm
Everything you always wanted to know about Tocharian
http://www.oxuscom.com/eyawtkat.htm
Images of Tocharian Manuscripts
http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/tocharic