As the

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 ...

(PIE) broke up, its sound system diverged as well, as evidenced in various

sound law A sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chang ...

s associated with the

daughter A daughter is a female offspring; a girl or a woman in relation to her parents. Daughterhood is the state of being someone's daughter. The male counterpart is a son. Analogously the name is used in several areas to show relations between group ...

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

. Especially notable is the palatalization that produced the satem languages, along with the associated

ruki sound law The ruki sound law, also known as the ruki rule or iurk rule, is a historical sound change that took place in the satem branches of the Indo-European language family, namely in Balto-Slavic, Armenian, and Indo-Iranian. According to this sound l ...

. Other notable changes include: *

Grimm's law Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC. First systematically put forward by Jacob Gr ...

and

Verner's law Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives , , , , , following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives , , , , . The law w ...

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...

* an independent change similar to Grimm's law in

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

* loss of prevocalic ''*p-'' in

Proto-Celtic Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, is the ancestral proto-language of all known Celtic languages, and a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is not attested in writing but has been partly Linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed through the compar ...

* Brugmann's law in Proto-Indo-Iranian *

Winter's law Winter's law, named after Werner Winter, who postulated it in 1978, is a proposed sound law operating on Balto-Slavic short vowels */e/, */o/, */a/ ( Proto-Balto-Slavic ''*sēˀstei'' (''*sēˀd-tei'') > Lithuanian ''sė́sti'', OCS '' sěsti'' ...

and

Hirt's law Hirt's law or Hirt–Illich-Svitych's law, named after Hermann Hirt, who originally postulated it in 1895, is a Balto-Slavic sound law that triggered the retraction of the accent (or metatony in the valence theory) under certain conditions. Over ...

Balto-Slavic The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European bran ...

* merging of voiced and breathy-voiced stops, and /a/ and /o/, in various "northern" languages Bartholomae's law in Indo-Iranian, and Sievers's law in

and (to some extent) various other branches, may or may not have been common Indo-European features. A number of innovations, both

phonological Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

and morphological, represent

areal feature In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, or, common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted to ...

s common to the Italic and

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

languages; among them the development of labiovelars to

labial consonants Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. The two common labial articulations are bilabials, articulated using both lips, and labiodentals, articulated with the lower lip against the upper teeth, bot ...

in some Italic and Celtic branches, producing "

p-Celtic The Gallo-Brittonic languages, also known as the P-Celtic languages, are a subdivision of the Celtic languages of Ancient Gaul (both '' celtica'' and '' belgica'') and Celtic Britain, which share certain features. Besides common linguistic in ...

" and "

q-Celtic The Celtic languages (usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward L ...

" languages (likewise "p-Italic" and "q-Italic", although these terms are less used). Another grouping with many shared areal innovations comprises Greek, Indo-Iranian, and Armenian; among its common phonological innovations are Grassmann's law in Greek and Indo-Iranian, and weakening of pre-vocalic /s/ to /h/ in Greek, Iranian and Armenian.

Consonants

The following table shows the Proto-Indo-European consonants and their reflexes in selected Indo-European daughter languages. Background and further details can be found in various related articles, including Proto-Indo-European phonology,

Centum and satem languages 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 ...

, the articles on the various sound laws referred to in the introduction, and the articles on the various IE proto-languages, language groups and language phonologies. For development of the

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 ...

and syllabic consonants, see the

vowels A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

table below. Notes for table 1:

Consonant clusters

Proto-Indo-European also had numerous

consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...

s, such as , . In most cases in most languages, each consonant in a cluster develops according to the normal development given in the table above. Many consonant clusters however also show special developments in multiple languages. Some of these are given by the following table (with cases of otherwise predictable development in gray): Notes to Table 2:

Vowels and syllabic consonants

This table shows the Proto-Indo-European vowels and syllabic consonants (as reconstructed both before and after the acceptance of

laryngeal theory 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, th ...

), and their reflexes in selected Indo-European daughter languages. Background and further details can be found in various related articles, including Proto-Indo-European phonology, the articles on the various sound laws referred to in the introduction, and the articles on the various IE proto-languages, language groups and language phonologies. Notes:

Examples

See the list of Proto-Indo-European roots hosted at Wiktionary.

, ~ , "foot". *

Vedic Sanskrit Vedic Sanskrit was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid- 2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preser ...

: ''pā́t'', ''pád-'' * Avestan: ''paδa'', ''pāδa'' *

Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with Standard language, standardizing the lan ...

: ''pěšĭ'', "on foot" * Lithuanian: ''pėda'', "foot bottom" *

: ''otn'' * Tocharian: A ''pe'', B ''pai'' *

Luwian The Luwians were a group of Anatolian peoples who lived in central, western, and southern Anatolia, in present-day Turkey, during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. They spoke the Luwian language, an Indo-European language of the Anatolian sub-fam ...

: ''pa-da-'', ''pa-ta-'' *

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

: ''poús'', ''podós'' *

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

: ''pēs'', ''pedis'' * Celtiberian: ''ozas'' *

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

: ''fotus'' (*p -> f by Grimm's Law)

, "three". *

: ''tráyas'' * Avestan: ''θrāiiō'' *

: ''trĭje'' * Lithuanian: ''trỹs'' * Albanian: ''tre'' *

: ''treĩs'' *

: ''trēs'' *

Old Irish Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic ( sga, Goídelc, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ga, Sean-Ghaeilge; gd, Seann-Ghàidhlig; gv, Shenn Yernish or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive writt ...

: ''trí'' *

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

: ''tri'' *

: ''erekʿ'' *

: ''þreis'' (*t -> þ by Grimm's Law)

, "hundred" (from earlier ) *

: ''śatám'' * Younger Avestan: ''satəm'' *

: ''sŭto'' * Lithuanian: ''šim̃tas'' * Tocharian: A ''känt'', B ''känte'' *

: ''hekatón'' *

: ''centum'' (pronounced ''kentum'') *

: ''cét'' *

: ''cant'' *

: ''hund'' (from

proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...

''*xund-'')

, "raw flesh" *

: ''kravís-'', "raw meat" * Lithuanian: ''kraũjas'', "blood" *

: ''kry'', "blood" *

: ''kréas'', "meat" *

: ''cruor'', "raw blood" *

: ''crú'', "blood, gore" *

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

: ''hrǣw'', "raw"

Sound laws within PIE

A few phonological laws can be reconstructed that may have been effective prior to the final breakup of PIE by

internal reconstruction Internal reconstruction is a method of reconstructing an earlier state in a language's history using only language-internal evidence of the language in question. The comparative method compares variations between languages, such as in sets of c ...

. *

Sievers' law Sievers's law in Indo-European linguistics accounts for the pronunciation of a consonant cluster with a glide ( or ) before a vowel as it was affected by the phonetics of the preceding syllable. Specifically it refers to the alternation betwee ...

( Edgerton's law, Lindeman's option) * Bartholomae's law * Szemerényi's law * Stang's law * Siebs' law

References

{{Proto-Indo-European language Indo-European linguistics Sound laws