''The king and the god'' (') is the title of a short dialogue composed in the reconstructed

Proto-Indo-European language Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...

. It is loosely based on the "King Harishchandra" episode of

Aitareya Brahmana The Aitareya Brahmana ( sa, ऐतरेय ब्राह्मण) is the Brahmana of the Shakala Shakha of the Rigveda, an ancient Indian collection of sacred hymns. This work, according to the tradition, is ascribed to Mahidasa Aitareya. Auth ...

(7.14). S. K. Sen asked a number of

Indo-Europeanist Indo-European studies is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical pro ...

s (Y. E. Arbeitman,

Eric P. Hamp Eric Pratt Hamp (November 16, 1920 – February 17, 2019) was an American linguist widely respected as a leading authority on Indo-European linguistics, with particular interests in Celtic languages and Albanian. Unlike many Indo-Europeanists, wh ...

Manfred Mayrhofer Manfred Mayrhofer (26 September 1926 – 31 October 2011) was an Austrian Indo-Europeanist who specialized in Indo-Iranian languages. Mayrhofer served as professor emeritus at the University of Vienna. He is noted for his etymological dictionary ...

Jaan Puhvel Jaan Puhvel (born 24 January 1932) is an Estonian comparative linguist and comparative mythologist who specializes in Indo-European studies. Born in Estonia, Puhvel fled his country with his family in 1944 following the Soviet occupation o ...

, Werner Winter,

Winfred P. Lehmann Winfred Philip Lehmann (June 23, 1916August 1, 2007) was an American linguist who specialized in historical, Germanic, and Indo-European linguistics. He was for many years a professor and head of departments for linguistics at the University of ...

) to reconstruct the PIE "parent" of the text.

The king and the god

Hamp's/Sen's version from the EIEC (1997:503), which differs from Hamp's original version in replacing Hamp's '' Lughus'' with Sen's '' Werunos'':

Winfred P. Lehmann's version

: The EIEC spelling largely corresponds to that used in the

article, with ''h_a'' for ''h₂'' and ''h_x'' for unspecified

laryngeals The laryngeal theory is a theory in the historical linguistics of the Indo-European languages positing that: * The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) had a series of phonemes beyond those reconstructable by the comparative method. That is, the ...

''h''. Lehmann attempts to give a more phonetical rendering, with (

voiceless velar fricative The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English, e.g. in ''loc ...

) for ''h₂'' and (

glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...

) for ''h₁''. Further differences include Lehmann's avoidance of the

augment Augment or augmentation may refer to: Language *Augment (Indo-European), a syllable added to the beginning of the word in certain Indo-European languages * Augment (Bantu languages), a morpheme that is prefixed to the noun class prefix of nouns ...

, and of the palato-alveolars as distinctive phonemes. Altogether, Lehmann's version can be taken as the reconstruction of a slightly later period, after contraction for example of earlier ' to ', say of a ''

Centum Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants (sounds of "K", "G" and "Y" type) of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An e ...

'' dialect, that has also lost (or never developed) the augment. However, the differences in reconstructions are more probably due to differences in theoretical viewpoint. The EIEC spelling is a more direct result of the reconstruction process, while having typologically too many marked features to be a language really spoken some time in that form, whereas Lehmann represents the position to attain the most probable natural language to show up in reconstruction the way PIE is.

Andrew Byrd's version

Linguist Andrew Byrd has produced and recorded his own translation to reconstructed PIE.Balter, Michael (2015?-02). The sound of Proto-Indo-European. Science, February 2015?. Retrieved from https://www.science.org/content/article/sound-proto-indo-european (link redirects to https://www.science.org/content/article/sound-proto-indo-european). (Note that article does not contain soundfile.) : English translation: : Once there was a king. He was childless. The king wanted a son. He asked his priest: "May a son be born to me!" The priest said to the king: "Pray to the god Werunos." The king approached the god Werunos to pray now to the god. "Hear me, father Werunos!" The god Werunos came down from heaven. "What do you want?" "I want a son." "Let this be so," said the bright god Werunos. The king's lady bore a son.

References

Bibliography

* . * . *, reprinted in 1980. Online version edited by University of Michigan, 2008 , on books.google

.

External links

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