Indo-European Phonology
Glottalic Theory
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) phonemes included consonants, vowels, resonants, and laryngeals (see Lehmann's book Proto-Indo-European Phonology and other manuals on Indo-European phonology).
Obstruents
Obstruents are stop consonants. In the first table, below, reconstructed PIE obstruents are transcribed using "traditional" rendering.
| Articulation | Bilabial | Dental | Palato-Velar* | Labio-Velar | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiceless (no aspiration) | P | T | K | Kw | ||||
| Voiced (no aspiration) | B | D | G | Gw | ||||
| Voiced (aspirated) | Bh | Dh | Gh | Gwh |
* In these tables, palatal and velar obstruents have been collapsed into a single column; distinctions between these types may be indicated elsewhere.
Most handbooks reflect the traditional view re: obstruents, above. An alternative view, labelled Glottalic Theory, is reflected in the second table, below, whose contents define one-to-one replacements of the reconstructions in the "traditional" table, though they constitute different views re: the sounds actually used to speak PIE.
| Articulation | Bilabial | Dental | Palato-Velar* | Labio-Velar | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiceless (aspiration optional) | P(h) | T(h) | K(h) | Kw(h) | ||||
| Voiceless glottalized | P' | T' | K' | K'w | ||||
| Voiced (aspiration optional) | B(h) | D(h) | G(h) | Gw(h) |
According to Glottalic Theory, for example, the PIE language was not spoken using the "traditional" (but rare) phoneme /b/; rather, it was spoken using the glottalic (but rare) phoneme /p'/. For more on the Glottalic Theory, see the section on phonology in Thomas V. Gamkrelidze & Vjaceslav V. Ivanov, Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans (1984 Russian original translated by Johanna Nichols; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995, 2 vol's); a topical summary by Allan Bomhard appears in the Glottalic Theory section of our Reconstructing PIE Phonology page.