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Tokharian vocabulary (sample). Comparison to other Indo-European languages
Source: Wikipedia
There are several main branches in the Indo-European language family. Usually, it is an eleven-branched tree. Europe has seven branches: Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, Hellenic and Illyrian. Asia has the other four: Anatolian, Armenian, Indo-Iranian and Tokharian.
None of these branches can claim precedence over one or more others. In other words, the tree has no ‘trunk’. In contrast, for example, the Semitic language family is a true family tree. This singularity is probably linked to the fact that Indo- Europeans had an oral tradition and that the genealogy is lost.
In Europe, three non-Indo-European languages are present: Etruscan (contemporary with Latin), Basque and Finnish (related to Estonian and Hungarian). The origins of Etruscan and Basque are an enigma, whereas the origin of Finns (Finnish) is more easily explained (although the origin of the Finns also remains an enigma).
Population genetics has pointed to a Far Eastern origin of Indo-Europeans. The so-called Tokharian (easternmost) branch could therefore claim authorship. However, the opposite thesis, according to which the Indo-Europeans moved from the west to the east, has not yet had its last word. The fortified site of Brodgar in Scotland is a millennium older (but ten times smaller) than Gonur Depe in Turkmenistan.
Nevertheless, despite the earlier Brodgar Ness, the population density in Western Europe seemed so low (at the time) compared to Turkmenistan that the position is difficult to defend. Finally, Asia is so vast that it is far from having revealed all its archaeological treasures.