Seres, Tocharians and phylolinguistics

Abstract

The Tocharians were thus named because the ancient speakers of Turfanian and Kuchean were misidentified with the historical Τόχαροι, but the misnomer has stuck. The question, however, remains moot as to whether the Tocharians might have been the same people as the Seres of the Silk Road. A misnomer need not be inadvertant but may be a deliberate part of an attempt at rebranding. The untold history of the origins and subsequent vagaries of lexicostatistics and glottochronology is particularly instructive in this regard. A recent attempt to rebrand this approach as “phylogenetics” has failed to alleviate the methodological problems afflicting this modus operandi, merely afforded temporary relief to its practitioners from the pressure to address persistent unresolved issues.