Besides these hitherto unknown forms of Prâkrit, Central Asia has astonished the learned world with two new languages, both written in a special variety of the Brahmi alphabet called Central Asian Gupta. One is sometimes called Nordarisch and is regarded by some authorities as the language of the Śakas whose incursions into India appear to have begun about the second century B.C. and by others as the language of the Kushans and of Kanishka's Empire. It is stated that the basis of the language is Iranian but strongly influenced by Indian idioms[461]. Many translations of Mahayanist literature (for instance the Suvarṇaprabhâsa, Vajracchedikâ and Aparimitâyus Sûtras) were made into it and it appears to have been spoken principally in the southern part of the Tarim basin[462]. The other new language was spoken principally on its northern edge and has been called Tokharian, which name implies that it was the tongue of the Tokhars or Indoscyths[463]. But there is no proof of this and it is safer to speak of it as the language of Kucha or Kuchanese. It exists in two different dialects known as A and B whose geographical distribution is uncertain but numerous official documents dated in the first half of the seventh century show that it was the ordinary speech of Kucha and Turfan. It was also a literary language and among the many translations discovered are versions in it of the Dharmapada and Vinaya. It is extremely interesting to find that this language spoken by the early and perhaps original inhabitants of Kucha not only belongs to the Aryan family but is related more nearly to the western than the eastern branch. It cannot be classed in the Indo-Iranian group but shows perplexing affinities to Latin, Greek, Keltic, Slavonic and Armenian[464]. It is possible that it influenced Chinese Buddhist literature[465]. Besides the "Nordarisch" mentioned above which was written in Brahmi, three other Iranian languages have left literary remains in Central Asia, all written in an alphabet of Aramaic origin. Two of them apparently represent the speech of south-western Persia under the Sassanids, and of north-western Persia under the Arsacids. The texts preserved in both are Manichæan but the third Iranian language, or Sogdian, has a more varied literary content and offers Buddhist, Manichæan and Christian texts, apparently in that chronological order. It was originally the language of the region round Samarkand but acquired an international character for it was used by merchants throughout the Tarim basin and spread even to China. Some Christian texts in Syriac have also been found.