Indo-European Linguistics
Proto-Indo-European Roots
Our Indo-European Lexicon presents Proto-Indo-European (PIE) etyma with Indo-European (IE) reflexes, accessible in various ways. For direct access to PIE etyma, see our Pokorny PIE Data. For direct access to IE reflexes of PIE etyma, indexed by language, see our Language Indices.
In sections below we disscuss PIE phonemes by category, and provide links to other pages that display, or lead to, a few examples of their use in PIE etyma; each etymon page includes IE reflexes. Our discussions here are brief and shallow; more information may be available on the pages that are linked to, but for detailed information about PIE phonology the reader is strongly urged to browse Winfred Lehmann's book, Proto-Indo-European Phonology.
Consonants
Consonants come in several varieties; relevant to PIE and our lexical focus are obstruents, fricatives, resonants, and laryngeals.
Obstruents
Obstruents are stop consonants. They may be voiced (e.g. B, D, G) or unvoiced (e.g. P, T, K); independently, they may be aspirated with a puff of air, as when one pronounces P in the English word pot; other factors, e.g. lip rounding or the exact locus of the stop, may also be relevant. Our obstruent examples above are very much incomplete; for more information, see PIE Obstruents.
Fricatives
Fricatives are produced by constricting but not stopping the flow of air from the mouth. They, too, may be voiced (e.g. V, Z) or unvoiced (e.g. F, S). Of relevance to our PIE etyma is the single fricative consonant S.
Resonants
Resonants in PIE are often consonants (e.g. M N R L W Y), hence their inclusion here; but they may act as vowels (e.g. M N R L U I) in certain contexts. See PIE Resonants.
Laryngeals
Details of the pronunciation of laryngeals in PIE are unknown, but they are thought by some to have been a subclass of resonants, and for certain they affected the pronunciations of adjacent vowels. Theories generally posit three laryngeals, or rarely four, but direct evidence exists only in Hittite and that for two laryngeals, or possibly only one. See PIE Laryngeals.
Vowels
Vowels (e.g. A E I O U) are necessarily voiced, and might combine as diphthongs (e.g. AI EU OU); but some argue that diphthongs emerged in later PIE from vowels adjacent to laryngeals. Indeed, some argue that in early PIE there was but a single basic vowel, E, and other vowels (e.g. A O) later emerged via the influence of adjacent laryngeals. Internal vowels in a PIE lexeme might undergo alternation (or ablaut) for grammatical reasons; modern reflexes include English sing, sang, sung and song. See PIE Vowels.