I was trying to obtain a proper etymology for the name "Tarim" and found it rather difficult. The Wiktionary page only lists the modern Turkish word tarım meaning agriculture, so was the Wikipedia page that briefly describes the meaning of the word without providing any citations:
The word tarim is used to designate the bank of a river that flows into a lake or that is not able to be differentiated from the sands of a desert.
So I turned my attention to the Turkish word tarım. The Wiktionary page links its origin to Old Turkic tarı-, which it provides with two meanings: "to sow" and "river delta". I was able to confirm the first meaning on StarLing, which lists the Proto-Turkic root *TArɨ- meaning "to cultivate (ground)". However, I was not able to find a reference validating the second meaning, which I suspect to be a more likely candidate if it's indeed etymologically connected to Tarim River/Basin.
In the meantime I decided to look for possible connections in Tocharian, knowing that the Tocharians themselves were long-time inhabitants of this region. I noticed the Tocharian word for "road, path, way", ytār in Tocharian A and ytārye in Tocharian B, which seem to be at least superficially similar to "Tarim" to some extent. Obviously I do not have the knowledge to draw any conclusions, but I am very curious about whether there was indeed a connection.
To sum it up, my question is two-fold:
- What is the etymology of the word "Tarim"?
- Does the word has any connections with Tocharian?