You're listening to Away with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I'm Grant Barrett.

And I'm Martha Barnett. The name Tukarian applies to a small group of extinct languages that were spoken in the Darim region of what is now Western China.

The Tocerians flourished in the latter half of the first millennium, CE, and we have only

fragments of written texts in these languages, but I wanted to share part of a Tocarian love

poem in translation. It goes, earlier there was no person dearer to me than you, and later, too, there was none dearer.

The love for you, the delight in you, is breathed together with life.

Isn't that gorgeous?

Oh, that's so lovely.

And just even across the millennia, it holds up.

It's incredibly strong sentiment in writing. Yes, across the millennia, and holds up. It's incredibly strong sentiment in writing.

Yes, across the millennia. And also, what blows my mind is that Tukarian is a distant relative of English.

They share a common linguistic ancestor called Proto-Indo-European, which is a tongue that connects a wide range of seemingly unconnected languages.

And I want to talk about that later in the show.

Fantastic.

Looking forward to it.

Martha, do you have any of the words of Tocarian from that poem in the original?

Can you make a go at it?

Well, I was afraid you were going to ask me. My Tukarian is a little bit rusty, but...

Oh, come on, everybody's speaking it. Let's hear a few words, though, just to give us a taste.

Okay, I'll give you just a taste.

Mani chisah, no shomo, niem, no milare taka, marapost. Wow, I think the hair in the back of mylarra,

Mata Pocan,

...