Re: a Tocharian theory (was Re: Kentum/satem)

John Cowan wrote:
>J Y S Czhang scripsit:
>
> >     In recent years the Uyghurs (Uighurs) have been claiming that they
>ar=
> > e
> > descendants of the Tocharians. Personally I find this highly doubtful.
>If
> > anything, the Uyghurs' ancestors were Turkic and if these Turkic people
>had
> > any thing at all to do with the Tocharians, it maybe that they wiped
>them out
> > as a people - either by genocide or by interbreeding... or some
>combination
> > thereof.
>
>Not a safe assumption, really, any more than it's safe to assume that
>all anglophones are of British descent.  The Uighurs in particular are
>very clearly an ethnic mixture, despite their purely Turkic language.
>For that matter, it's a fair bet that the average Turk of Turkey has
>more than a little IE-speaking (mostly Greek) ancestry.
>After all, Turkey is a Turkic colonization of formerly IE-speaking
>territory.
And quite alot of those Anatolian graecophones must've had
Anatolian-speaking ancestors.

                                                              Andreas

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