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| # The symbol <sup>^</sup> indicates - or -like sounds which underwent a characteristic change in the ] languages; they were possibly palatalised ] (, ) in Proto-Indo-European. | # The symbol <sup>^</sup> indicates - or -like sounds which underwent a characteristic change in the ] languages; they were possibly ] ] (, ) in Proto-Indo-European. | ||
| # Raised <sup>w</sup> stands for labialization, or ] accompanying the articulation of velar sounds ( is a sound similar to English ''qu'' in ''queen''). | # Raised <sup>w</sup> stands for labialization, or ] accompanying the articulation of velar sounds ( is a sound similar to English ''qu'' in ''queen''). | ||
| # Raised <sup>h</sup> stands for ]. | # Raised <sup>h</sup> stands for ]. | ||
Revision as of 18:44, 20 June 2004
The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European languages. See also Indo-European.
As PIE is not directly attested, all PIE sounds and words are reconstructed using the comparative method. The standard convention is to mark unattested forms with an asterisk: *wódr 'water', *kwó:n 'dog', *tréyes 'three (masculine)', etc. Many of the words in the modern Indo-European languages are derived from such "protowords" via regular sound change (e.g., Grimm's law).
The original homeland (very often called "Urheimat" among linguists) of the speakers of Proto-Indo-European is not known for certain, but probably lies somewhere around the Black Sea. Most of the subgroups diverged and spread out over much of Europe and the Middle East during the fourth and third millennia BC. Discussion of PIE culture has been stalled by its association with the racist doctrines of National socialism (German and German-influenced scholars of the 19th and early 20th centuries ominously preferred the terms "Indo-Germanic", or "Aryan"), but enormous amounts of work have been done on its structure and vocabulary.
All Indo-European languages are inflected languages, and by comparative reconstruction it is highly asured that at least the latest stage of the common PIE mother languages (i.e. Late PIE) was an inflectional (and more suffixing than prefixing) language. However, by means of internal reconstruction and morphological (re-)analysis of the reconstructed, seemingly most archaic PIE word forms it has recently been shown to be very probable that at a more distant stage (then: Early) PIE may have been a root-inflectional language like e.g. Proto-Semitic. As a consequence, it seems to be highly probable that PIE once was of the root-and-pattern morphological type (literature: Pooth (2004): "Ablaut und autosegmentale Morphologie: Theorie der uridg. Wurzelflexion", in: Arbeitstagung "Indogermanistik, Germanistik, Linguistik" in Jena, Sept. 2002).
Other works proposed by the linguist John Colarusso have tried to show that the Caucasian languages, particularly the Northwest Caucasian family, spoken in Georgia and Turkey, may be the closest relatives to the Indo-European stock. While these are not widely held theories, substantial evidence investigated by this linguist seems to support their theory. In particular, the one-vowel hypothesis which has been put forward for Indo-European would be borne out by the usage of substantial secondary articulation like that found in the Northwest Caucasian languages and, indeed, in the hypothesised PIE. Also, the Northwest Caucasian languages preserve a large number of guttural phonemes which may be the modern equivalents of PIE "laryngeals".
Phonemes
Proto-Indo-European is conjectured to have used the following phonemes:
| CONSONANTS | labials | coronals | palatovelars | velars | labiovelars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| voiceless stops | p | t | k | k | k |
| voiced stops | b | d | g | g | g |
| breathy stops | b | d | g | g | g |
| nasals | m | n | |||
| fricatives | s | h1, h2, h3 | |||
| liquids, glides | w | r, l | y | ||
- Short vowels a, e, o, i, u
- Long vowels a:, e:, o:
- Diphthongs ei, eu, e:i, e:u, oi, ou, ...
Notes:
- The symbol indicates - or -like sounds which underwent a characteristic change in the Satem languages; they were possibly palatalised velars (, ) in Proto-Indo-European.
- Raised stands for labialization, or lip-rounding accompanying the articulation of velar sounds ( is a sound similar to English qu in queen).
- Raised stands for aspiration.
- The symbols h1, h2 and h3 stand for three hypothetical "laryngeal" phonemes.
- A colon (:) is employed to indicate vowel length.
According to glottalic theory, the voiced unaspirated stops were originally ejectives, and the voiced aspirated stops unaspirated.