nd has been
called Tokharian, which name implies that it was the tongue of the
Tokhars or Indoscyths.[463] But there is no proof of this and it is
safer to speak of it as the language of Kucha or Kuchanese. It exists
in two different dialects known as A and B whose geographical
distribution is uncertain but numerous official documents dated in the
first half of the seventh century show that it was the ordinary speech
of Kucha and Turfan. It was also a literary language and among the
many translations discovered are versions in it of the Dharmapada and
Vinaya. It is extremely interesting to find that this language spoken
by the early and perhaps original inhabitants of Kucha not only
belongs to the Aryan family but is related more nearly to the western
than the eastern branch. It cannot be classed in the Indo-Iranian
group but shows perplexing affinities to Latin, Greek, Keltic,
Slavonic and Armenian.[464] It is possible that it influenced Chinese
Buddhist literature.[465]

Besides the "Nordarisch" mentioned above which was written in Brahmi,
three other Iranian languages have left literary remains in Central
Asia, all written in an alphabet of Aramaic origin. Two of them
apparently represent the speech of south-western Persia under the
Sassanids, and of north-western Persia under the Arsacids. The texts
preserved in both are Manichaean but the third Iranian language, or
Sogdian, has a more varied literary content and offers Buddhist,
Manichaean and Christian texts, apparently in that chronological order.
It was originally the language of the region round Samarkand but
acquired an international character for it was used by merchants
throughout the Tarim basin and spread even to China. Some Christian
texts in Syriac have also been found.

The Orkhon inscriptions exhibit an old Turkish dialect written in the
characters commonly called Runes and this Runic alphabet is used in
manuscripts found at Tun-huang and Miran but those hitherto published
are not Buddhist. But another Turkish dialect written in the Uigur
alphabet, which is derived from the Syriac, was (like Sogdian)
extensively used for Buddhist, Manichaean and Christian literature. The
name Uigur is perhaps more correctly applied to the alphabet than the
language[466] which appears to have been the literary form of the
various Turkish idioms spoken north and south of the Tien-shan. The
use of this dialect for Buddhist literature spread considerably when
the Uigurs