Saka | |
---|---|
Khotanese, Tumshuqese | |
Native to | Kingdom of Khotan, Tumshuq, Murtuq, Shule Kingdom,[1] and Indo-Scythian Kingdom |
Region | Tarim Basin (Xinjiang, China) |
Ethnicity | Saka |
Era | 100 BC – 1,000 AD |
Dialects |
|
Brahmi, Kharosthi | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | kho |
ISO 639-3 | Either:kho – Khotanesextq – Tumshuqese |
kho (Khotanese) | |
xtq (Tumshuqese) | |
Glottolog | saka1298 |
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Saka, or Sakan, was a variety of Eastern Iranian languages, attested from the ancient Buddhist kingdoms of Khotan, Kashgar and Tumshuq in the Tarim Basin, in what is now southern Xinjiang, China. It is a Middle Iranian language.[2] The two kingdoms differed in dialect, their speech known as Khotanese and Tumshuqese.
The Saka rulers of the western regions of the Indian subcontinent, such as the Indo-Scythians and Western Satraps, are traditionally assumed to have spoken practically the same language.[3] This has however been questioned by more recent research.[4]
Documents on wood and paper were written in modified Brahmi script with the addition of extra characters over time and unusual conjuncts such as ys for z.[5] The documents date from the fourth to the eleventh century. Tumshuqese was more archaic than Khotanese,[6] but it is much less understood because it appears in fewer manuscripts compared to Khotanese. The Khotanese dialect is believed to share features with the modern Wakhi and Pashto.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Saka was known as "Hvatanai" (from which the name Khotan) in contemporary documents.[14] Many Prakrit terms were borrowed from Khotanese into the Tocharian languages.
In sum, the evidence that the Saka language [of North India] is Khotanese or an earlier form of it is weak. Many of the features are found in other languages as well, and it is known from other sources that non-Khotanese Iranians found their way to northern India. In any case, the large number of Indic elements in Khotanese is no proof "daß das 'Nordarisch' sprechende Volk längere Zeit auf indischem Boden saß" (Lüders 1913), since there is ample evidence that instead speakers of Middle Iranian migrated into the Tarim Basin.
[T]hese western Saka he distinguishes from eastern Saka who moved south through the Kashgar-Tashkurgan-Gilgit-Swat route to the plains of the sub-continent of India. This would account for the existence of the ancient Khotanese-Saka speakers, documents of whom have been found in western Sinkiang, and the modern Wakhi language of Wakhan in Afghanistan, another modern branch of descendants of Saka speakers parallel to the Ossetes in the west.
It is noteworthy that the Wakhi language of Wakhan has features, phonetics, and vocabulary the nearest of Iranian dialects to Khotan Saka.
...descendants of these languages survive now only in the Ossete language of the Caucasus and the Wakhi language of the Pamirs, the latter related to the Saka once spoken in Khotan.
It is, however, possible that the original home of Paṣ̌tō may have been in Badaḵšān, somewhere between Munǰī and Sangl. and Shugh., with some contact with a Saka dialect akin to Khotanese.
... and their language is most closely related to on the one hand with Saka on the other with Munji-Yidgha
Pashto in its origin, is probably a Saka dialect.