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

Tocharian consonants

Vowels

Tocharian vowels

Vowel indication

Tai Lue numerals

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

Other syllabic alphabets

Ahom, Balinese, Batak, Bengali, Brahmi, Buhid, Burmese, Cham, Dehong Dai, Devanagari, Dhives Akuru, Ethiopic, Evēla Akuru, Grantha, Gujarati, Gurmukhi (Punjabi), Hanuno'o, Hmong, Javanese, Kannada, Kharosthi, Khmer, Lanna, Lao, Lepcha, Limbu, Lontara/Makasar, Malayalam, Manpuri, Modi, New Tai Lue, Oriya, Phags-pa, Pallava, Ranjana, Redjang, Sharda, Siddham, Sinhala, Sorang Sompeng, Sourashtra, Soyombo, Syloti Nagri, Tagalog, Tagbanwa, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Tocharian, Varang Kshiti

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