Altaic linguistics is seldom used as a precious research tool in the study of other language families, but in some cases it can help in this matter. Speakers of ancient Indo-European languages in Xinjiang, like Tocharian A and B, were under influence of Chinese and nomadic states since early history, when small oasis kingdoms had to maintain active and also linguistic contacts with both empires. This paper is mainly focused on cultural words, mythological animals and calendar systems. Firstly the history of international relations is briefly mentioned, because it has implications for the study of borrowings. In the following part lexical parallels of Chinese, Sanskrit, Sogdian, Khotan Saka, Tocharian, Uyghur and Mongolian twelve zodiac animals are mentioned together with older counting of months in nomadic cold areas. Remaining note and case study show, that typological criterion from Altaic linguistics can be analogically applied to Tocharian in an attempt to solve etymology of functionally parallel cultural word further documenting possible Chinese influence on Tocharian.