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 cha ...

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 groups ...

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, D ...

. Especially notable is the palatalization that produced the

satem language 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 ...

s, along with the associated ruki sound law. Other notable changes include: * Grimm's law and Verner's law in

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 br ...

* an independent change similar to Grimm's law in Armenian * 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 reconstructed through the comparative method. Proto-Celt ...

Brugmann's law Brugmann's law, named for Karl Brugmann, is a sound law stating that in the Indo-Iranian languages, the earlier Proto-Indo-European ' normally became in Proto-Indo-Iranian but in open syllables if it was followed by one consonant and another vow ...

Proto-Indo-Iranian Proto-Indo-Iranian, also Proto-Indo-Iranic is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian/Indo-Iranic branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd millennium ...

* Winter's law and Hirt's law in

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 br ...

* merging of voiced and breathy-voiced stops, and /a/ and /o/, in various "northern" languages

Bartholomae's law Bartholomae's law (named after the German Indo-Europeanist Christian Bartholomae) is an early Indo-European (PIE) sound law affecting the Indo-Iranian family. It states that in a cluster of two or more obstruents (stops or the sibilant ), any on ...

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 and morphological, represent areal features 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 Foo ...

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 i ...

" and " q-Celtic" 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 biology, a reflex, or reflex action, is an involuntary, unplanned sequence or action and nearly instantaneous response to a stimulus. Reflexes are found with varying levels of complexity in organisms with a nervous system. A reflex occurs ...

in selected Indo-European daughter languages. Background and further details can be found in various related articles, including

Proto-Indo-European phonology The phonology of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) has been reconstructed by linguists, based on the similarities and differences among current and extinct Indo-European languages. Because PIE was not written, linguists must rely on the evi ...

, Centum and satem languages, 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 and syllabic consonants, see the vowels 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 consonant A syllabic consonant or vocalic consonant is a consonant that forms a syllable on its own, like the ''m'', ''n'' and ''l'' in some pronunciations of the English words ''rhythm'', ''button'' and ''bottle''. To represent it, the understroke diacrit ...

s (as reconstructed both before and after the acceptance of laryngeal theory), and their

in selected Indo-European daughter languages. Background and further details can be found in various related articles, including

, 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 Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...

: ''paδa'', ''pāδa'' *

Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and othe ...

: ''pěšĭ'', "on foot" * Lithuanian: ''pėda'', "foot bottom" * Armenian: ''otn'' * Tocharian: A ''pe'', B ''pai'' * Luwian: ''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 pe ...

: ''poús'', ''podós'' *

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, 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 ...

: ''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'' *

: ''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 writte ...

: ''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 peopl ...

: ''tri'' * Armenian: ''erekʿ'' *

: ''þreis'' (*t -> þ by Grimm's Law)

, "hundred" (from earlier ) *

: ''śatám'' *

Younger Avestan Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...

: ''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 br ...

''*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 settlers in the mid-5th ...

: ''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 ( Edgerton's law, Lindeman's option) *

Szemerényi's law Szemerényi's law (or Szemerényi's lengthening) is both a sound change and a synchronic phonological rule that operated during an early stage of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). Though its effects are evident in many reconstructed as we ...

Stang's law Stang's law is a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) phonological rule named after the Norwegian linguist Christian Stang. Overview The law governs the word-final sequences of a vowel, followed by a semivowel ( or ) or a laryngeal ( or ), followed by a na ...

* Siebs' law

References

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