This co-edited book is a collection of fifteen pieces of work by Emil Sieg concerning the Tocharian languages. It can be divided into two parts: the first contains thirteen papers arranged in chronological order, starting with “Tocharisch, die Sprache der Indoskythen” (1908, with Wilhelm Siegling) and ending with “Die medizinischen und tantrischen Texte der Pariser Sammlung” (1955). Three others written with Wilhelm Siegling, and one with F.W.K. Müller are included, too. The second part is a reprint of his Übersetzungen aus dem Tocharischen I and II, provided with the editors' concordance of translations.

As explained in the introduction, most of Sieg's shorter (yet indispensable) publications are reproduced in this volume. Two papers, “Die Geschichte von den Löwenmachern in tocharischer Version” (Aufsätze zur Kultur- und Sprachgeschichte vornehmlich des Orients, Ernst Kuhn zum 70. Geburtstage gewidmet. München/Breslau, 1916, pp. 147–51) and “Das Märchen von dem Mechaniker und dem Maler in tocharischer Fassung” (Ostasiatische Zeitschrift 8, 1920, 362–9), are omitted because they have been superseded by his later edition.

Passing over Sieg's articles, which have been essential reading for students of the Tocharian languages since their publication, I prefer to discuss the new part of the present volume, i.e. Pinault and Peyrot's introduction. Although Sieg has been commemorated by Ernst Waldschmidt in his “Emil Sieg (1866–1951)” (Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 101, 1951, 18–28), and by other scholars, this brief introduction provides a closer look at Sieg's career, especially how he collaborated with Siegling when working with manuscripts. As shown by the Nachlass of Siegling and other material, the great progress of their joint work was largely achieved by postal communication because of the difficulties caused by the World Wars. Sieg was also influenced by Sylvain Lévi, in spite of their later dispute concerning the name “Tocharian” given to these languages, which was initially suggested by Müller in 1907. Although in his later years Sieg sometimes adopted Lévi's idea of referring to Tocharian B as “Kuchean” (German Kutschisch), he generally insisted on using “Tocharian” to designate the A and B languages in order to keep to the German convention.

As indicated by Pinault and Peyrot, both Sieg and Lévi were trained first in classical philology. Their sound knowledge of Sanskrit starting from Vedic led to their great success in deciphering these extinct languages. Nevertheless, while many scholars would agree with Waldschmidt that the effective collaboration between Lévi and Antoine Meillet in France is comparable with that between Sieg and Siegling in Germany, in the introduction to this book it is stated that Lévi “did not have a close collaborator such as Siegling” and “did not found a school of research on Central Asian Buddhist manuscripts”. This opinion may be taken as an echo of their opening words that a prerequisite of any philological work on Tocharian is “a thorough knowledge of Sanskrit and of Indian culture”. In their eyes, the “Göttingen school” (Heinrich Lüders, Waldschmidt and Sieg) is far more successful. Given that the goal of this volume is to reflect Sieg's expertise and inspiration, the reader will keenly anticipate the editors providing greater comment on most, if not all, selected papers from their buddhological insight. Even though it is impossible to reveal all recent progress, surely the introduction would have been better if it had provided more explanation of Sieg's thoughts on medieval Buddhism.

The controversy about the name “Tocharian” and other misunderstandings about these languages are treated in this introduction in a minimal fashion with the remark that: “the comedy based on the interplay of the careless amateur and the accurate specialist has already been repeatedly played and is no longer fun anymore, beside being finally futile and fruitless”. Most colleagues would agree that our priority is to read and edit the manuscripts rather than to seek possible ancient or prehistoric links between these languages and the “Tόχaρoι” who are believed to be the invaders and then rulers of Bactria (i.e. the historical Tocharistan of the first millennium ce), since such a name is not yet attested in the literature written in Tocharian A or B. However, even though in this sense “Tocharian” is very probably a misnomer, it is still widely used, at least for the A language, because most specialists confirm that the latter was, for whatever reason, called tohrι tili by the Uighurs around the tenth and eleventh centuries. If specialists want to keep “Tocharian” for the name of these languages and to call their studies “Tocharology”, so as to be aligned with Turcology or incorporated into Indology, these terms need to be more clearly defined for those who may be unfamiliar with the controversy or misled by some popular writings. “Tocharology” as understood by current philologists is neither the study of the historical Tocharistan nor that of the mysterious “Tόχaρoι”, but rigorous research on the A and B languages which came to be written down in Brāhmī probably around the turn of the fourth and fifth centuries ce in Chinese Turkestan and then continued to be used for at least another 500 years. The formation of Tocharian A literature seems to be later than that of Tocharian B, but this is still an open issue.

Despite its title, which observes the German terminology since Müller but may be misleading for readers who focus on the region of Bactria-Tocharistan, this book is a well-chosen selection of Sieg's works. The carefully prepared indexes and corrigenda reflect the editors' excellent knowledge of the original texts. The papers are beautifully reproduced with high-quality illustrations in black and white. Some pictures of economic documents published by Sieg in 1950 are not reproduced, since better photographs in colour can be consulted on the website of the International Dunhuang Project, Berlin (see idp.bbaw.de). This book will certainly be essential reading for Indo-European linguists, Buddhologists, and philologists dealing with pre-modern manuscripts of Central Asia, and should find a place in all libraries that seek to deal with these subjects.