The Sakas (also called Kshatrapas), a name deriving from the native word in northwestern India for Scythian, refers to either of two dynasties of satraps in northwestern India who ruled in the first four centuries CE with considerable independence on behalf of the Pahlava suzerains.

The extinct Middle Iranian Saka language, also called Khotanese, is last spoken in Sinkiang, in northwestern China, by the Saka tribes of the kingdom of Khotan.

The main Khotanese dialect (the other Saka dialect, known from only one Buddhist fragment, is the closely related Tumshuq, formerly known as Maralbash) appears in Buddhist and other texts dating from the seventh to the tenth century.

Written in Brahmi script, the texts contain many loanwords from the Prakrit languages of India.