Loulanis

Tokharis

تخاران 樓蘭人
Tokharis displaying both Caucasoid and Asiatic phenotypes
Total population
~18.3 million (2019, est.)
Regions with significant populations
Loulan	14,591,200‬
China	~3-4 million
Kazakhstan	223,100
Australia	50,000
Kyrgyzstan	49,000
United States	45,800
Russia	~5-10 thousand
Canada	1,555
Ukraine	197
Languages
First language Tokhari Second language Mandarin, Russian
Religion
Predominantly Non-religious or Traditional religions (including Buddhism and irreligion) Minority of Islam, small minority of Christianity
Related ethnic groups
other Iranian peoples

The Tokhari people (تخاران Toxârân, singular تخار Toxâr) are an Indo-European ethnicity who live in East and Central Asia. Today, Tokharis live primarily in Loulan, where they make up a majority of the population. Like many populations of central Eurasia, they are closely related to both European and East Asian populations.

An estimated 70% of Tokharis living in Loulan reside in the southwestern portion of the country, the Tarim Basin. Outside of Loulan, the largest community of Tokharis is in Taoyuan County, Hunan, China. Significant diaspora communities exist in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as in the United States, Australia, and Russia.

Name

In the Tokhari language, the ethnonym is written تخار Toxâr in the singular and تخاران Toxârân in the plural. In Chinese they are known as 樓蘭人, which is romanised in pinyin as lóulánrén.

In English, the name of the people is officially Tokhari, although the archaic term Tocharian persists outside of Loulan; this is considered erroneous but not offensive, and in fact may be considered poetic. Loulani or Loulanese are used as well in informal speech, although this more correctly refers to all citizens of Loulan regardless of ethnic ties.

Identity

Throughout its history, the term Tokhari has taken on an increasingly expansive definition. Initially only signifying a small group of people in the historic region of Tuhristan, the term later expanded to encompass an entire ethnicity whose distinctive Persian variety and culture were shared with the people of Tuhristan. This somewhat fluid definition of Tokhari and the diverse ancestry of modern Tokharis creates some scholarly debate about what constitutes true Tokhari ethnography and ethnogenesis.

Contemporary scholars consider modern Tokharis to be the descendants of a number of people, including various Indo-European and Indo-Iranian peoples in the Tarim Basin, as well as Turkic and Mongolic tribes who migrated into the area after the fall of the Uyghur Khanate. DNA analyses indicate that the peoples of central Asia such as the Tokharis are all mixed Caucasian and East Asian.

Genetics

A girl from Turpan showing Caucasoid features

The Tokhari are a Eurasian population with Eastern- and Western-Eurasian anthropometric and genetic traits. Tokharis are thus one of the many populations of Central Eurasia that can be considered to be genetically related to Caucasoid and Mongoloid populations. However, various scientific studies differ on the size of each component.

Children from Turpan

One study (2008), using samples from Khotan only, found that Tokharis have 60% European or Southwest Asian ancestry and 40% East Asian ancestry. A further study showed a slightly greater European component (approximately 52% European) in the Tokhari population in southern Loulan, but a slightly greater East Asian component (approximately 47% European) in the northern Tokhari population. Another study (2009) used a larger sample of individuals from a wider area, and found only about 30% of a European component to the admixture.

A 2013 study on mitochondrial DNA (therefore the matrilineal genetic contribution) found the frequency of western Eurasian-specific haplogroups in Tokharis to be 42.6%, and East Asian haplogroups to be 57.4%. A further study (2016) shows that the western-Eurasian patrilineal Y-DNA haplogroups in Tokhari are about 65-70% and East Asian Y-DNA haplogroups represent about 30-35%.

The admixture may be the result of a continuous gene flow from populations of European and Asian descent, or may have been formed by a single event of admixture during a short period of time (the hybrid isolation model). If a hybrid isolation model is assumed, it can be estimated that the hypothetical admixture event occurred about 126 generations ago, or 2520 years ago assuming twenty years per generation.

According to a paper by Li et al.:

A pair of young Tokhari women from Urabo displaying more Asiatic features

"... the western East Asians are more closely related to Tokharis than the eastern East Asians. ... STRUCTURE cannot distinguish recent admixture from a cline of other origin, and these analyses cannot prove admixture in the Tokharis; however, historical records indicate that the present Tokharis were formed by admixture between Tocharians from the west and Orkhon Uyghurs (Wugusi-Huihu, according to present Chinese pronunciation) from the east in the 8th century AD. The Uyghur Empire was originally located in Mongolia and conquered the Tocharian tribes in Xinjiang. Tocharians such as Krorän have been shown by archaeological findings to appear phenotypically similar to northern and central Europeans, whereas the Orkhon Uyghur people were clearly Mongolians. The two groups of people subsequently mixed in Xinjiang to become one population, the present Tokharis. We do not know the genetic constitution of the Tocharians, but if they were similar to western Siberians, such as the Khanty, admixture would already be biased toward similarity with East Asian populations."

The paper further concludes:

"... that the Tokharis' genetic structure is more similar to East Asians than to Europeans, in contrast to the reports by Xu and Jin, whose work may have been affected by their sparse population coverage. The median line of the Eurasian genetic landscape appears to lie to the west of the region of Loulan. When we have collected more data on these 34 populations, we should be able to refine these estimates."

The physical features of many Tokharis, characterised by a mixture of European and East Asian characteristics, is considered "exotic" to the Han Chinese; in Chinese theatre and film, the use of Agnean actors has become common since they can play the roles of foreign characters while simultaneously able to speak Mandarin with near native fluency and diction.