https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/my-first-ah-challenge.178694/#post-3993568
Though it'd be more proto-Tocharian than Tocharian proper.
AHC Have the Tocharians survive into present day
- Thread starter Hvalrossen
- Start date
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/my-first-ah-challenge.178694/#post-3993568
Though it'd be more proto-Tocharian than Tocharian proper.
The Tocharians did survive genetically, just got assimilated into the Uyghur population. But their language did die.
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Yes but that's not uncommon, Tocharian was pretty limited by only existing in such a small region, while the languages replacing them was spread much further out. Yes theorectical they couild have survived, but they needed to expand their population to do so.
Could the Tocharians become a diaspora people like the Romani, Armenians, Jews, Greeks?
Yes but it's unlikely and the long term survival of such groups tend to be low. I would say they would be better off being resettled on some frontier by the Chinese and then forgotten. Also ending up a diaspora group have a tendency to strip most cultural elements from a group, and reform them into a new people.
They were. They spread to the Ferghana Valley and founded the Kushan Empire there. They also had communities in Chang'an during the Tang Dynasty. It didn't preserve them as a distinct people.
They had diaspora communities? The size of the diaspora communities would also matter, do you know if they were large or small. Maybe the Tocharians were not very distinct from their neigbouring groups?
What was it that actually bound Tocharians together? I think this is an important question to know, if we want to understand why they took the path they did.
Siberia is a migration highway too, given the number of different groups which have inhabited the lands north of the Tarim Basin.
The Chinese never had control over both Manchuria and the Tarim Basin until the Qing.
That's the thing, there was no Tocharian people, they were just three separate groups of people speaking mutually unintelligble (but related) languages living around three separate oases with similar culture to the Saka, Sogdians, and other Central Asian people.
They weren't really diaspora communities because, as someone else said, they didn't share an ethnic consciousness.
I do remember, however, reading that Tocharian women worked as waitresses and hostesses and prostitutes in Chang'an during the Tang Dynasty. If this is true, I would imagine that their commonalities - Language, region of origin, and phenotypical features distinct from Han Chinese - Might bring disparate communities of Tocharians together in a way that they didn't in their own homelands. This is all speculative, though, and depends on how large the communities really were (or even if they could be called communities).
Whether Tocharians in Chang'an shared some sense of common affiliation doesn't change anything about the distinct and unaffiliated (except by conquest) city-states back in the homeland, however. Compare with the modern, burgeoning African community in modern Guangzhou. These African residents might bond with one another, despite cultural, ethnic, national, geographical, and religious differences, due to even greater differences from the Chinese around them. Meanwhile, just as Africa still maintains its borders, and further regional, ethnic, and linguistic differences today, the Tocharians back in the Tarim Basin would still be divided into their old oasis kingdoms.
Perhaps religion might be a way to coalesce the Tocharians - If they develop a particular form of Buddhism, Nestorianism, or something else, that would give them a common identity and endgame.
Let's say that a group of Tocharians managed to survive and stay distinct from surronding peoples into modern times. How would they adapt to different circumstances? Circumstances like the chinese civil war, the cultural revolution and chinas economic miracle?
None of those events would happen if the Tocharians survive. If they're a minority group in the Tarim Basin, then they probably won't play much of a role in history aside from likely being the subject of numerous bizarre pseudoarchaeology/scientific racism claims and a group which would gain a lot of interest from European scholars due to their unique language. If they're the only indigenously Christian group in Central Asia/China, then they'll also be a subject of interest.
Teejay
Gone Fishin'
The Tarim basin is a desert and it's communities are focused around rivers and oases with a low population. This similar to the Central Asian desert, because of the low population it was going to easy for nomadic herders to assimilate the local population rather than vice versus. That was while Tocharian went extinct along with Kwarezmian and Bactrian after the Turkic migrations into these regions.
However the Turkic migrants into these regions absorbed a lot of the native culture. Hence the emergence of a Turco-Persian culture, which eventually spread to the South-Eastern Europe to Northern India.
However the Turkic migrants into these regions absorbed a lot of the native culture. Hence the emergence of a Turco-Persian culture, which eventually spread to the South-Eastern Europe to Northern India.
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I think you'd have to have significant efforts made in a Philip-of-Macedon style, not only to unite the Tocharians, but also to make efforts to displace the people who already live in the mountains.
The Tarim Basin trade would be a great fiscal lifeblood for whatever polity would form out of this, but you'd need to settle and manipulate the peoples near those northern mountains. The money can be used to buy allies, weapons, etc. Which is great.
I think you're biggest issue is creating a cohesive Tocharian state with all those mountains. The Greeks managed to do it, so an independent development of Hoplites would be pretty cool, and likely in those mountains.
This should include the Tarim basin in its entirety, but I only realised that after doing it. So forgive the poor drawing.
The idea is that you'd probably have Tocharian Sub-Kingdoms, Satrapies, Provinces, Units - whatever, split along those lines if they could really dominate the region, each with their own cultural differences, but the key is that High Tocharia would be the one holding the Empire together, despite the fact that Old Tocharia gets the trade money first.
If it can build a good relationship with China, they're safe-ish.
But if they go clever and make themselves the heart of an alliance of the Steppe tribes. Working with them to supplement their own forces, working with those groups could be a sensible way for the Tocharians to form a 'Soft Empire' of Steppe tribes that they bring into a mutual alliance system. They're on the Silk Road - and at a crucial point. If they can establish control of the passes, and work to distribute the gold they get with the Steppe tribes so as to prevent raiding, they could do with words what Genghis did via conflict - make the Steppe tribes terrifyingly rich, but able to dictate terms to China and Persia - or more long-term, even dominate the Steppe over to Europe - Tocharian diplomats negotiating with Greeks and Romans for protection money to halt Steppe tribes, and/or to restore trade?
Their position isn't great in the Tarim Basin, but if they control that and the Tian Shan mountains, they're in a brilliant position which, well defended, is hard to throw them out of, and has the potential to be a sort of Asian Russia.
The Tarim Basin trade would be a great fiscal lifeblood for whatever polity would form out of this, but you'd need to settle and manipulate the peoples near those northern mountains. The money can be used to buy allies, weapons, etc. Which is great.
I think you're biggest issue is creating a cohesive Tocharian state with all those mountains. The Greeks managed to do it, so an independent development of Hoplites would be pretty cool, and likely in those mountains.
This should include the Tarim basin in its entirety, but I only realised that after doing it. So forgive the poor drawing.
The idea is that you'd probably have Tocharian Sub-Kingdoms, Satrapies, Provinces, Units - whatever, split along those lines if they could really dominate the region, each with their own cultural differences, but the key is that High Tocharia would be the one holding the Empire together, despite the fact that Old Tocharia gets the trade money first.
If it can build a good relationship with China, they're safe-ish.
But if they go clever and make themselves the heart of an alliance of the Steppe tribes. Working with them to supplement their own forces, working with those groups could be a sensible way for the Tocharians to form a 'Soft Empire' of Steppe tribes that they bring into a mutual alliance system. They're on the Silk Road - and at a crucial point. If they can establish control of the passes, and work to distribute the gold they get with the Steppe tribes so as to prevent raiding, they could do with words what Genghis did via conflict - make the Steppe tribes terrifyingly rich, but able to dictate terms to China and Persia - or more long-term, even dominate the Steppe over to Europe - Tocharian diplomats negotiating with Greeks and Romans for protection money to halt Steppe tribes, and/or to restore trade?
Their position isn't great in the Tarim Basin, but if they control that and the Tian Shan mountains, they're in a brilliant position which, well defended, is hard to throw them out of, and has the potential to be a sort of Asian Russia.
The fact that the Tocharians states were organised around city states that competed with eachother, will also likely incentiveise comepition between them another similarity to the Greeks. But the fact that the Tocharians seem to be settled might disadvantage them in warfare against steppe people.
What did you use to create the map? I reccomend scribblemaps. It allows you to view the map in different modes and color it.
https://www.scribblemaps.com
Something similar to the persian empire.
Maybe this could come into existance by a common struggle against a common foe. Maybe the Xiongnu could serve this function?
intresting scenario.
The easiest scenario to imagine is to just swith the present day Uighurs with Tocharians. But if Tocharian had prevailed it would have a butterfly effect making it difficult to predict world political developent over long periods of time.
In an alternative scenario scientific racism may never arise.
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Albert.Nik
Banned
Have a strong Kushan Empire that has conquered the Himalayan foothill plains and Eastern green regions of the Central Asia. Tocharians settle all over and Tocharian B(Kuchen/Kushan) becomes the language. So,Tarim Basin North,Kyrgyzstan greens,Sogdia(Tajikistan),Northern Himalayan foothills and parts of Sindh if possible. This would make these places majority Tocharian who would look like OTL Germans or French or Central European. Uyghurs,Mongols would be assimilated and descendants would look like Tocharians itself due to huge population and continue to speak Tocharian B. After significant advancement in these regions,they could walk over most of India making a large part or a majority of India Tocharian. So large parts of India,Tarim Basin,Parts of Central China,Parts of Tajikistan,Kyrgyzstan,Parts of Russian steppe would be a part of the Tocharian dominion.
Some difference though exists. It is known that the Islamic conquest presented adverse effects upon the region of Sogdia, Ferghana and Kwarezm even after the Gökturks. By this, I refer to the dissolution of the Iranic religions in these regions, the arrival of Muslim/Arab migrants into these areas and Islamization. One could argue that without certain occurrences though, Sogdia and Ferghana could have remained a somewhat syncretic Islamic Sogdian appendage of the Abbasid Caliphate.
During the reign of al-Afshin Kawuus, Sogdia-Ferghana existed as a nominally Islamic appendage of the Caliphate. In this period, little linguistic change occurred in the region and seemingly the Abbasid left the region free to do as it wished, whilst protecting it from Turkic invaders and dissuading other foes.
If the Sogdian-Ferghana could enter the dar al-Islam and seek protection from the Abbasid Household, then possibly so too could the Tocharians, or at least some of their realms. The question thus, is how we attain a Tocharian Islamization and submission to the Abbasid or other Islamic empire, that can offer protections.
My reasoning for choosing the Islamic route is that a somewhat similar people sought refuge under the Abbasid. Further, the Abbasid represent a possible anti steppe, anti China and anti Tibet solution that could possibly uphold Tocharian culture.
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