Tocharian belongs to the Indo-European language family, based on manuscripts found along the Silk Road in the Tarim Basin.
Tocharian languages were spoken in parts of the eastern Tarim Basin and are known mainly from manuscripts dated from roughly the sixth to eighth centuries CE. Scholars identify two principal literary varieties, conventionally called Tocharian A and Tocharian B. The texts include Buddhist religious works, commercial documents, and other writings.
Their discovery changed ideas about the linguistic geography of Inner Asia. Tocharian languages are Indo-European, yet they were recorded far east of the better-known ancient European and Iranian branches. Their vocabulary and grammar show that long-distance movements of people and languages had shaped the Tarim Basin before and during the medieval Silk Road.
Tocharian should not be confused with the language of the Tocharians described by some ancient writers; the historical identification is complicated. The name is a modern scholarly label, and the relationship between the manuscripts’ speakers and ancient ethnonyms remains debated.