ISKANDER or SIKANDER?

[Robert Vermaat]

This knowledge has been discussed for quite some time. The discovery of the first Tocarian documents dates to the 1890s. I remember reading about the Tocharian language at least 20 years ago. The mummies are a relatively new thing, and the Chines have great difficulty in 'acknowledging' the ethnic background of these folks. Mind you, some Caucasian mummies date back to at least 1000BC, while the Tocharian language might be much younger. As the Tocharians began to move east, the last contacts that they had with other Indo-Europeans (before their much later interaction with the Indians and Iranians) was with the Slavs.

Ethnicity and language don't go hand in hand, and an Indo-European language may have been spoken by ethnic Asians, or likewise, Asian-looking people might just as easily in some parts have spoken a language that would be recognised by Celts. Be careful not to mix up these two.

More Chines art of Caucasian folk:

[url:9mpjqtm1]http://www.answers.com/topic/tocharians[/url]

The Tocharian mummies:
[url:9mpjqtm1]http://geography.berkeley.edu:16080/ProgramCourses/CoursePagesFA2002/geog148/Lectures/Lecture21/tocharians/mummies.html[/url]

Tocharian languages:
[url:9mpjqtm1]http://www.biologydaily.com/biology/Tocharian_languages[/url]

Tocharian alphabet:
[url:9mpjqtm1]http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tocharian.htm[/url]

More Tocharian alphabet:
[url:9mpjqtm1]http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/idg/toch/tochbr.htm[/url]

Tocharian vocabulary (from the Indo-Eurpean website):
[url:9mpjqtm1]http://www.wordgumbo.com/ie/cmp/toch.htm[/url]

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Tocharian
(but were afraid to ask):
[url:9mpjqtm1]http://www.oxuscom.com/eyawtkat.htm[/url]