The official language of Khotan was initially Gandhari Prakrit written in Kharosthi, and coins from Khotan dated to the 1st century bear dual inscriptions in Chinese and Gandhari Prakrit, indicating links of Khotan to both India and China. Surviving documents however suggest that an Iranian language was used by the people of the kingdom for a long time Third-century AD documents in Prakrit from nearby Shanshan record the title for the king of Khotan as "hinajha" (i.e. "generalissimo"), a distinctively Iranian-based word equivalent to the Sanskrit title "senapati", yet nearly identical to the Khotanese Saka "hīnāysa" attested in later Khotanese documents. This, along with the fact that the king's recorded regnal periods were given as the Khotanese "kṣuṇa", "implies an established connection between the Iranian inhabitants and the royal power," according to the Professor of Iranian Studies Ronald E. Emmerick. He contended that Khotanese-Saka-language royal rescripts of Khotan dated to the 10th century "makes it likely that the ruler of Khotan was a speaker of Iranian." Furthermore, he argued that the early form of the name of Khotan, "hvatana", is connected semantically with the name Saka.