Division of Indo-European languages. What did the Indo-European proto-language sound like? How did the Indo-Europeans settle?

17. Indo-European family of languages.

Many language families are divided into branches, which are often called small families or groups. A language branch is a smaller subdivision of languages than a family. The languages of one branch retain fairly close family ties and have many similarities.

Among the languages of the Indo-European family, there are branches that unite the languages Slavic, Baltic, Germanic, Romance, Greek (Greek group), Celtic, Illyrian, Indian (otherwise Indo-Aryan), Indo-Iranian (Aryan), Tocharian, etc. In addition, in the Indo-European language the family has “single” languages (i.e., not forming special branches): Albanian, Armenian, Venetian, Thracian and Phrygian.

The term Indo-European languages ( English Indo- European languages) was first introduced by an English scientist Thomas Young V 1813.

The languages of the Indo-European family originate from a singleProto-Indo-European language , whose carriers probably lived about 5-6 thousand years ago. It is one of the largest families of Eurasian languages, which over the past five centuries has also spread to Northern and South America, Australia and partly in Africa. There are several hypotheses about the place of origin of the Proto-Indo-European language (in particular, regions such as East Europe, Western Asia, steppe territories at the junction Europe And Asia). With a high probability, the archaeological culture of the ancient Indo-Europeans (or one of their branches) can be considered the so-called "pit culture", whose carriers in the 3rd millennium BC. e. lived in the east of modern Ukraine and the south of Russia.

The ancient state of the source language of the Indo-European language (it would be imprudent to attribute the following picture necessarily to the Indo-European proto-language) was apparently characterized by the following features: in phonetics- the presence of “e” and “o” as options for a single morphonemes(it follows that for an earlier period vowels might not have been phonemes), the special role of “a” in the system, the presence laryngeal, related to the formation of the opposition longitude - shortness (or corresponding intonation or even tone differences); the presence of three rows of stops, usually interpreted as voiced, voiceless, aspirated (for an earlier period, the interpretation may have to be different, in particular, it should take into account the contrast between tension and non-tension), three rows of back linguals, previously reduced to simpler relations; tendency towards palatalization certain consonants in one group of the Indo-European language and to labialization them in another; possible positional (in a word) motivation for the appearance of certain classes of stops (i.e. rules distribution, subsequently often invalid); V morphology- heteroclitic declension, combining in one paradigm different types of declination, probable presence ergative(“active”) case, recognized by many researchers, is relatively simple case system with the further development of oblique cases from previously non-paradigmatic formations (for example, from the syntactic combination of a name with postposition, particle etc.); the known proximity of the nominative with ‑s and the genitive with the same element, suggesting a single source of these forms; the presence of an “indefinite” case (casus indefinitus); opposition animate and inanimate classes that subsequently gave rise to the three-generic (via two-generic) system; presence of two series verbal forms (conditionally on ‑mi and ‑Hi/oH), which determined the development of a number of other categories - thematic and athematic conjugations, media passive and perfect forms, transitivity/intransitivity, activity/inactivity; two series of personal verb endings, with the help of which, in particular, they differentiated real And past time, forms of moods, etc.; stems in ‑s, from which one of the classes of presentative stems, the sigmatic aorist, a number of mood forms and a derivative conjugation arose; V syntax- structure offers indicating the interdependence and place of its members, determined by the so-called Wackernagel law (see. Wackernagel's law); the role of particles and preverbs; the presence of full-valued status for words that later turned into auxiliary elements; some syntactic features of the original analyticism (with individual elements of the “isolating” structure), etc.

Just as during more than a century and a half of the development of Indo-European linguistics, the understanding of the composition of I. i. usually changed in the direction of increasing languages (thus, the original core - Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Germanic - expanded at the expense of Celtic, Baltic, Slavic, later Albanian and Armenian, already in the 20th century - at the expense of Hittite-Luwian and Tocharian, etc. etc.; however, opposite cases are also known - an exception from the number of Indo-European languages. Georgian or Kawi), it is not completely stable even now: on the one hand, there are some languages that are being intensively tested for their possible belonging to Indo-European languages (like Etruscan or some other, not yet deciphered languages), on the other hand, the Indo-European languages themselves in a number constructions are derived from an isolated state (for example, P. Kretschmer considered I. Ya. related to the so-called Reto-Tyrrhenian and raised them to a single Proto-Indo-European source). The theory of a deeper relationship between Indo-European languages was proposed by V. M. Illich-Svitych, who confirmed, on extensive material of phonetic and partly morphological correspondences, the family connections of the Indo-European language with the so-called Nostratic, which includes at least such large language families of the Old World as Afroasiatic, Ural, Altai, Dravidian and Kartvelian. The acquisition of the Indo-European language of its own linguistic “superfamily” allows us to outline new important perspectives in the study of their development.

The following groups of languages belong to the Indo-European language family:

1. Slavic(main): eastern - Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian; Western - Polish, Czech, Slovak; southern - Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Old Church Slavonic.

2. Baltic: Lithuanian, Latvian, Old Prussian (deceased).

3. Germanic: English, German, Dutch, Afrikaans (in South Africa), Yiddish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Gothic (deceased), etc.

4. Celtic: Irish, Welsh, Breton, etc.

5. Romanesque: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian and other languages formed on the basis of the Latin language.

6. Albanian.

7. Greek: ancient Greek and modern Greek.

8. Iranian: Afghan (Pashto), Tajik, Ossetian, Kurdish, Avestan (dead), etc.

9. Indian: Hindi, Urdu, Gypsy, Nepali, Sanskrit (dead), and other historically non-indigenous languages of India that appeared in it after the arrival of the Indo-Europeans.

10. Armenian.

11. Anatolian(deceased): Hittite, Luwian, etc.

12. Tocharian(dead): Turfan, Kuchan, etc.

When formal semantic similarities are detected between two or more languages, i.e. similarities in two planes simultaneously, both signifying and signified signs of these languages, the question naturally arises about the reasons for the emergence of such similarities in the signs of different languages. Based on the thesis about the limited arbitrariness of a sign, such a formal-semantic coincidence of different signs could be interpreted as the fact of a random coincidence of two or more signs of different languages. The probability of the coincidence hypothesis to account for such similarities will decrease in proportion to the increase in the number of languages in which such similar signs are found, and even more so as the number of signs in those languages in which such similarities or coincidences are found to increase. Another more likely hypothesis for explaining such coincidences in the corresponding signs of two or more languages should be the explanation of this similarity by historical contacts between languages and the borrowing of words from one language into another (or into several languages) or into both of these languages from a third source. A comparison of languages, focused on establishing regular phonemic correspondences, should logically lead to the reconstruction of the language model, the transformation of which in different directions gave us historically attested language systems. [Neroznak, 1988: 145-157]

Today, it is most often believed that the area of the original or fairly early distribution of speakers of the Indo-European language extended from Central Europe and the Northern Balkans to the Black Sea region (southern Russian steppes). At the same time, some researchers believe that the initial center of irradiation of Indo-European languages and cultures lay in the Middle East, in close proximity to the speakers of Kartvelian, Afroasiatic and, probably, Dravidian and Ural-Altaic languages. Traces of these contacts give rise to the Nostratic hypothesis.

Indo-European linguistic unity could have its source either in a single proto-language, a base language (or, rather, a group of closely related dialects), or in a situation of linguistic union as a result of the convergent development of a number of initially different languages. Both perspectives, in principle, do not contradict each other; one of them usually gains predominance in a certain period of development of a linguistic community.

Relations between members of the Indo-European family were constantly changing due to frequent migrations, and therefore the currently accepted classification of Indo-European languages must be adjusted when referring to different stages in the history of this linguistic community. Earlier periods are characterized by the closeness of the Indo-Aryan and Iranian, Baltic and Slavic languages; the closeness of the Italic and Celtic languages is less noticeable. Many common features Baltic, Slavic, Thracian, Albanian and Indo-Iranian languages have them, and Italic and Celtic languages have Germanic, Venetian and Illyrian languages.

The main features characterizing the relatively ancient state of the Indo-European source language:

1) in phonetics: the functioning of [e] and [o] as variants of one phoneme; the probability that vowels at an earlier stage lack phonemic status; [a] special role in the system; the presence of laryngeals, the disappearance of which led to the opposition of long and short vowels, as well as to the appearance of melodic stress; distinguishing between voiced, voiceless and aspirated stops; the difference between the three rows of back linguals, the tendency towards palatalization and labialization of consonants in certain positions;

2) in morphology: heteroclitic declination; the probable presence of an ergative (active) case; a relatively simple case system and the later appearance of a number of indirect cases from combinations of a name with a postposition, etc.; the proximity of the nominative with -s and the genitive with the same element; the presence of an “indefinite” case; the opposition of animate and inanimate classes, which gave rise to the three-genus system; the presence of two series of verb forms, which led to the development of thematic and athematic conjugation, transitivity/intransitivity, activity/inactivity; the presence of two series of personal endings of the verb, which became the reason for the differentiation of present and past tenses and mood forms; the presence of forms ending in -s, which led to the emergence of one of the classes of present stems, the sigmatic aorist, a number of mood forms and a derivative conjugation;

3) in syntax: interdependence of the places of sentence members; the role of particles and preverbs; the beginning of the transition of a number of full-valued words into service elements; some initial features of analyticism.

INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES, one of the largest language families of Eurasia, which over the past five centuries has also spread to North and South America, Australia and partly in Africa. Before the Age of Discovery, Indo-European languages occupied the territory from Ireland in the west to East Turkestan in the east and from Scandinavia in the north to India in the south. The Indo-European family includes about 140 languages spoken in total about 2 billion people (2007, estimate), the first place in the number of speakers is English.

The role of the study of Indo-European languages in the development of comparative historical linguistics is important. Indo-European languages were one of the first families of languages of great temporal depth to be postulated by linguists. Other families in science, as a rule, were identified (directly or at least indirectly), focusing on the experience of studying Indo-European languages, just as comparative historical grammars and dictionaries (primarily etymological) for other language families took into account the experience of corresponding works on the material of Indo-European languages for which these works were first created. It was during the study of Indo-European languages that the ideas of a proto-language, regular phonetic correspondences, linguistic reconstruction, and the family tree of languages were first formulated; A comparative historical method has been developed.

Within the Indo-European family, the following branches (groups), including those consisting of one language, are distinguished: Indo-Iranian languages, Greek, Italic languages (including Latin), descendants of Latin, Romance languages, Celtic languages, Germanic languages, Baltic languages, Slavic languages , Armenian language, Albanian language, Hittite-Luwian languages (Anatolian) and Tocharian languages. In addition, it includes a number of extinct languages (known from extremely scarce sources - as a rule, from a few inscriptions, glosses, anthroponyms and toponyms from Greek and Byzantine authors): Phrygian language, Thracian language, Illyrian language, Messapian language, Venetian language, Ancient Macedonian language. These languages cannot be reliably assigned to any of the known branches (groups) and may represent separate branches (groups).

There were undoubtedly other Indo-European languages. Some of them died out without a trace, others left a few traces in toponomastics and substrate vocabulary (see Substrate). Attempts have been made to reconstruct individual Indo-European languages from these traces. Most famous reconstructions this kind is the Pelasgian language (the language of the pre-Greek population Ancient Greece) and the Cimmerian language, which presumably left traces of borrowing in the Slavic and Baltic languages. Identification of a layer of Pelasgian borrowings in the Greek language and Cimmerian ones in the Balto-Slavic languages, based on the establishment of a special system of regular phonetic correspondences, different from those that are characteristic of the original vocabulary, allows us to elevate a whole series of Greek, Slavic and Baltic words that previously had no etymology to Indo-European roots. The specific genetic affiliation of the Pelasgian and Cimmerian languages is difficult to determine.

Over the past few centuries, during the expansion of Indo-European languages on a Germanic and Romance basis, several dozen new languages - pidgins - were formed, some of which were subsequently creolized (see Creole languages) and became fully fledged languages, both grammatically and functionally. These are Tok Pisin, Bislama, Krio in Sierra Leone, Gambia and Equatorial Guinea (in English based); Seshelwa on Seychelles, Haitian, Mauritian and Reunion (on the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean; see Creoles) creoles (French-based); Unserdeutsch in Papua New Guinea (on a German basis); palenquero in Colombia (Spanish based); Cabuverdianu, Crioulo (both in Cape Verde) and Papiamento on the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao (Portuguese based). In addition, some international artificial languages such as Esperanto are Indo-European in nature.

The traditional branching diagram of the Indo-European family is presented in the diagram.

The collapse of the Proto-Indo-European base language dates back to no later than the 4th millennium BC. The greatest antiquity of the separation of the Hittite-Luwian languages is beyond doubt; the time of the separation of the Tocharian branch is more controversial due to the paucity of Tocharian data.

Attempts were made to unite the various Indo-European branches with each other; for example, hypotheses were expressed about the special closeness of the Baltic and Slavic, Italic and Celtic languages. The most generally accepted is the unification of Indo-Aryan languages and Iranian languages (as well as Dardic languages and Nuristan languages) into the Indo-Iranian branch - in some cases it is possible to restore the verbal formulas that existed in the Indo-Iranian proto-language. The Balto-Slavic unity is somewhat more controversial; other hypotheses are rejected in modern science. In principle, different linguistic features divide the Indo-European language space in different ways. Thus, according to the results of the development of Indo-European back-lingual consonants, Indo-European languages are divided into the so-called Satem languages and Centum languages (unions are named according to their reflection in different languages Proto-Indo-European word “hundred”: in satem languages its initial sound is reflected in the form of “s”, “sh”, etc., in centum languages - in the form of “k”, “x”, etc.). The use of different sounds (bh and sh) in case endings divides Indo-European languages into so-called -mi-languages (Germanic, Baltic, Slavic) and -bhi-languages (Indo-Iranian, Italic, Greek). Different indicators of the passive voice are united, on the one hand, by Italic, Celtic, Phrygian and Tocharian languages (indicator -g), on the other - Greek and Indo-Iranian languages (indicator -i). The presence of an augment (a special verbal prefix that conveys the meaning of the past tense) contrasts Greek, Phrygian, Armenian and Indo-Iranian languages with all others. For almost any pair of Indo-European languages, you can find a number of common linguistic features and lexemes that will be absent in other languages; The so-called wave theory was based on this observation (see Genealogical classification of languages). A. Meillet proposed the above scheme of dialect division of the Indo-European community.

Reconstruction Indo-European proto-language facilitated by the presence of a sufficient number of ancient written monuments in the languages of different branches of the Indo-European family: from the 17th century BC, monuments of the Hittite-Luvian languages are known, from the 14th century BC - Greek, and a language (recorded much later) dates back to approximately the 12th century BC hymns of the Rigveda, by the 6th century BC - monuments of the ancient Persian language, from the end of the 7th century BC - by the Italic languages. In addition, some languages that received writing much later retained a number of archaic features.

The main consonant correspondences in the languages of different branches of the Indo-European family are shown in the table.

In addition, the so-called laryngeal consonants are restored - partly on the basis of the consonants h, hh attested in the Hittite-Luwian languages, and partly on the basis of systemic considerations. The number of laryngeals, as well as their exact phonetic interpretation, varies among researchers. Not the same in different jobs the structure of the system of Indo-European stop consonants is presented: some scientists believe that the Indo-European proto-language distinguished between voiceless, voiced and voiced aspirated consonants (this point of view is presented in the table), others suggest a contrast between voiceless, abortive and voiced or voiceless, strong and voiced consonants (in in the last two concepts, aspiration is an optional feature of both voiced and voiceless consonants), etc. There is also a point of view according to which in the Indo-European proto-language there were 4 series of stops: voiced, voiceless, voiced aspirate and voiceless aspirate - just as is the case, for example, in Sanskrit.

The reconstructed Indo-European proto-language appears, like the ancient Indo-European languages, as a language with a developed case system, rich verbal morphology, and complex accentuation. Both the name and the verb have 3 numbers - singular, dual and plural. The problem for the reconstruction of a number of grammatical categories in the Proto-Indo-European language represents the absence of corresponding forms in the oldest Indo-European languages - Hittite-Luwian: this state of affairs may indicate either that these categories developed in Proto-Indo-European quite late, after the separation of the Hittite-Luwian branch, or that the Hittite-Luwian languages have undergone significant changes in their grammatical systems.

The Indo-European proto-language is characterized by rich possibilities of word formation, including word composition; using reduplication. Alternations of sounds were widely represented in it - both automatic and those performing a grammatical function.

The syntax was characterized, in particular, by the agreement of adjectives and demonstrative pronouns with qualified nouns by gender, number and case, and the use of enclitic particles (placed after the first fully stressed word in a sentence; see Clitics). The word order in the sentence was probably free [perhaps the preferred order was “subject (S) + direct object (O) + predicate verb (V)”].

Ideas about the Proto-Indo-European language continue to be revised and clarified in a number of aspects - this is due, firstly, to the emergence of new data (a special role was played by the discovery of the Anatolian and Tocharian languages in the late 19th - early 20th centuries), and secondly, to the expansion of knowledge about the structure human language in general.

The reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European lexical fund makes it possible to judge the culture of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, as well as their ancestral homeland (see Indo-Europeans).

According to the theory of V. M. Illich-Svitych, the Indo-European family is component the so-called Nostratic macrofamily (see Nostratic languages), which makes it possible to verify the Indo-European reconstruction with external comparison data.

The typological diversity of Indo-European languages is great. Among them there are languages with a basic word order: SVO, such as Russian or English; SOV, such as many Indo-Iranian languages; VSO, such as Irish [cf. Russian offer“The father praises the son” and its translations in Hindi - pita bete kl tarif karta hai (literally - ‘A father praises his son’) and in Irish - Moraionn an tathar a mhac (literally - ‘A father praises his son’)]. Some Indo-European languages use prepositions, others use postpositions [compare Russian “near the house” and Bengali baritar kache (literally “near the house”)]; some are nominative (like the languages of Europe; see Nominative structure), others have an ergative construction (for example, in Hindi; see Ergative structure); some retained a significant part of the Indo-European case system (like Baltic and Slavic), others lost cases (for example, English), others (Tocharian) developed new cases from postpositions; some tend to express grammatical meanings within a significant word (synthetism), others - with the help of special function words (analyticism), etc. In Indo-European languages one can find such phenomena as izafet (in Iranian), group inflection (in Tocharian), and the opposition of inclusive and exclusive (Tok Pisin).

Modern Indo-European languages use scripts based on the Greek alphabet (languages of Europe; see Greek script), Brahmi script (Indo-Aryan language; see Indian script), and some Indo-European languages use scripts of Semitic origin. For a number of ancient languages, cuneiform (Hittite-Luwian, Old Persian) and hieroglyphics (Luwian hieroglyphic language) were used; The ancient Celts used the Ogham alphabetic writing.

Lit. : Brugmann K., Delbrück V. Grundriß der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen. 2. Aufl. Strasbourg, 1897-1916. Bd 1-2; Indogermanische Grammatik / Hrsg. J. Kurylowicz. Hdlb., 1968-1986. Bd 1-3; Semereni O. Introduction to comparative linguistics. M., 1980; Gamkrelidze T.V., Ivanov Vyach. Sun. Indo-European language and Indo-Europeans: Reconstruction and historical-typological analysis of the proto-language and protoculture. Tb., 1984. Part 1-2; Beekes R. S. R. Comparative Indo-European linguistics. Amst., 1995; Meillet A. Introduction to the comparative study of Indo-European languages. 4th ed., M., 2007. Dictionaries: Schrader O. Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde. 2. Aufl. IN.; Lpz., 1917-1929. Bd 1-2; Pokorny J. Indoger-manisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Bern; Münch., 1950-1969. Lfg 1-18.

The problem of reconstruction of the occipital

At the dawn of Indo-European studies, relying mainly on data from Sanskrit, scientists reconstructed a four-row system of stop consonants for the Proto-Indo-European language:

This scheme was followed by K. Brugman, A. Leskin, A. Meie, O. Semerenyi, G.A. Ilyinsky, F.F. Fortunatov.

Later, when it became obvious that Sanskrit was not equivalent to the proto-language, suspicions arose that this reconstruction was unreliable. Indeed, there were quite a few examples that made it possible to reconstruct a series of voiceless aspirates. Some of them were of onomatopoeic origin. The remaining cases, after F. de Saussure put forward the laryngeal theory, brilliantly confirmed after the discovery of the Hittite language, were explained as reflexes of combinations of voiceless stop + laryngeal.

Then the stop system was reinterpreted:

But this reconstruction also had drawbacks. The first drawback was that the reconstruction of a series of voiced aspirates in the absence of a series of voiceless aspirates is typologically unreliable. The second drawback was that in Proto-Indo-European b there were only three rather unreliable examples. This reconstruction could not explain this fact.

A new stage was the nomination in 1972 of T.V. Gamkrelidze and V.V. Ivanov's glottal theory (and independently of them by P. Hopper in 1973). This scheme was based on the shortcomings of the previous one:

This theory made it possible to interpret the laws of Grassmann and Bartholomew differently, and also gave a new meaning to Grimm’s law. However, this scheme also seemed imperfect to many scientists. In particular, it suggests for the late Proto-Indo-European period the transition of glottalized consonants to voiced ones, despite the fact that glottalized ones are rather unvoiced sounds.

The latest reinterpretation was made by V.V. Shevoroshkin, who suggested that in Proto-Indo-European there were not glottalized ones, but “strong” stops, which are found in some Caucasian languages. This type of stop can actually be voiced.

The problem of the number of guttural rows

If the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language were based solely on data from the Indo-Iranian, Baltic, Slavic, Armenian and Albanian languages, then it would be necessary to admit that in Proto-Indo-European there were two series of gutturals - simple and palatalized.

But if the reconstruction were based on data from Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Tocharian and Greek languages, then we would have to accept the other two rows - guttural simple and labialized.

The languages of the first group (Satem) do not have labializations, and the languages of the second group (Centum) do not have palatalizations. Accordingly, a compromise in this situation is to accept three series of gutturals for the Proto-Indo-European language (simple, palatalized and labialized). However, such a concept runs into a typological argument: there are no living languages in which such a guttural system would exist.

There is a theory that suggests that the situation in the Centum languages is primordial, and the Satem languages palatalized the old simple guttural ones, while the old labialized ones changed into simple ones.

The opposite hypothesis to the previous one states that in Proto-Indo-European there were simple guttural and palatalized ones. At the same time, in Centum languages, simple ones became labialized, and palatalized ones became depalatalized.

And finally, there are supporters of the theory according to which in Proto-Indo-European there was only one series of gutturals - simple.

Problems of reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European spirants

It is traditionally believed that Proto-Indo-European had only one spirant s, the allophone of which in position before voiced consonants was z. Three different attempts were made by different linguists to increase the number of spirants in the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language:

The first attempt was made by Karl Brugman. See Brugman's article Spiranta.
The second was undertaken by E. Benveniste. He tried to assign an affricate c to the Indo-European language. The attempt was unsuccessful.
T.V. Gamkrelidze and V.V. Ivanov, based on a small number of examples, postulated a series of spirants for Proto-Indo-European: s - s" - s w.

The problem of the number of laryngeal

The laryngeal theory in its original form was put forward by F. de Saussure in his work “Article on the original vowel system in Indo-European languages.” F. de Saussure blamed some alternations in Sanskrit suffixes on a certain “sonantic coefficient” unknown to any living Indo-European language. After the discovery and decipherment of the Hittite language, Jerzy Kurylowicz identified the “sonantic coefficient” with the laryngeal phoneme of the Hittite language, since in the Hittite language this laryngal was exactly where the “sonantic coefficient” was located according to Saussure. It was also found that the laryngals, being lost, actively influenced the quantity and quality of neighboring Proto-Indo-European vowels. However, at the moment there is no consensus among scientists regarding the number of laryngeals in Proto-Indo-European. The estimates vary over a very wide range - from one to ten.

Traditional reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European phonetics

Proto-Indo-European consonants

		Labial	Dental	Guttural			Laryngals
		Labial	Dental	palatal	velar	labio-velar	Laryngals
Nasals		m	n
Occlusive		p	t	ḱ	k	kʷ
	voiced	b	d	ǵ	g	gʷ
	voiced aspirates	bʰ	dʰ	ǵʰ	gʰ	gʷʰ
Fricatives			s				h₁, h₂, h₃
Smooth			r, l
Semivowels				j		w

Short vowels a, e, i, o, u
Long vowels ā, ē, ō, ī, ū .
Diphthongs ai, au, āi, āu, ei, eu, ēi, ēu, oi, ou, ōi, ōu
Vowel allophones of sonants: u, i, r̥, l̥, m̥, n̥.

Grammar

Language structure

Almost all modern and known ancient Indo-European languages are nominative languages. However, many experts hypothesize that the Proto-Indo-European language in the early stages of its development was an active language; Subsequently, the names of the active class became masculine and feminine, and those of the inactive class became neuter. This is evidenced, in particular, by the complete coincidence of the forms of the nominative and accusative cases of the neuter gender. The division of nouns in the Russian language into animate and inanimate (with the coincidence of the nominative and accusative case of inanimate nouns in many forms) is also perhaps a distant reflex of the active structure. To the greatest extent, remnants of the active system have been preserved in the Aryan languages; in other Indo-European languages, the division into active and passive is rigid. Structures reminiscent of the active system in modern English(he sells a book - he sells a book, but a book sells at $20 - the book is sold for 20 dollars) are secondary and not directly inherited from Proto-Indo-European.

Noun

Nouns in Proto-Indo-European had eight cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, disjunctive, locative, vocative; three grammatical numbers: singular, dual and plural. It was generally believed that there were three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. However, the discovery of the Hittite language, in which there are only two genders ("general" or "animate") and neuter, cast doubt on this. Various hypotheses have been put forward regarding when and how the feminine gender appeared in Indo-European languages.

Table of noun endings:

	(Beeks 1995)						(Ramat 1998)
	(Beeks 1995)						Athematic					Thematic
	Male and female			Average			Male and female			Average		Male			Average
	Unit	Plural	Two.	Unit	Plural	Two.	Unit	Plural	Two.	Unit	Plural	Unit	Plural	Two.	Unit
Nominative	-s, 0	-es	-h 1 (e)	-m,0	-h 2 , 0	-ih 1	-s	-es	-h 1 e?	0	(coll.) -(e)h 2	-os	-ōs	-oh 1 (u)?	-om
Accusative	-m	-ns	-ih 1	-m,0	-h 2 , 0	-ih 1	-m̥	-ms	-h 1 e?	0		-om	-ons	-oh 1 (u)?	-om
Genitive	-(o)s	-om	-h 1 e	-(o)s	-om	-h 1 e	-es, -os, -s	-ōm				-os(y)o	-ōm
Dative	-(e)i	-mus	-me	-(e)i	-mus	-me	-ei					-ōi
Instrumental	-(e)h 1	-bʰi	-bʰih 1	-(e)h 1	-bʰi	-bʰih 1		-bʰi				-ō	-ōjs
Separate	-(o)s	-ios	-ios	-(o)s	-ios	-ios
Local	-i, 0	-su	-h 1 ou	-i, 0	-su	-h 1 ou	-i, 0	-su, -si				-oj	-ojsu, -ojsi
Vocative	0	-es	-h 1 (e)	-m,0	-h 2 , 0	-ih 1		-es			(coll.) -(e)h 2

Pronoun

Table of declension of personal pronouns:

	Personal pronouns (Beekes 1995)
	First person		Second person
	Unity	Multiply	Unity	Multiply
Nominative	h 1 eǵ(oH/Hom)	uei	tuH	iuH
Accusative	h 1 mé, h 1 me	nsmé, nōs	tué	usme, wōs
Genitive	h 1 mene, h 1 moi	ns(er)o-, nos	teue, toi	ius(er)o-, wos
Dative	h 1 méǵʰio, h 1 moi	nsmei, ns	tébʰio, toi	usmei
Instrumental	h 1 moi	?	toí	?
Separate	h 1 med	nsmed	tuned	usmed
Local	h 1 moi	nsmi	toí	usmi

The 1st and 2nd person pronouns did not differ in gender (this feature is preserved in all other Indo-European languages). Personal pronouns of the 3rd person were absent in the Proto-Indo-European language and various demonstrative pronouns were used instead.

Verb

Table of verb endings:

		Buck 1933		Beekes 1995
		Athematic	Thematic	Athematic	Thematic
Unity	1st	-mi	-ō	-mi	-oH
	2nd	-si	-esi	-si	-eh₁i
	3rd	-ti	-eti	-ti	-e
Multiply	1st	-mos/mes	-omos/omes	-mes	-omom
	2nd	-te	-ete	-th₁e	-eth₁e
	3rd	-nti	-onti	-nti	-o

Numerals

Some cardinal numbers (masculine) are listed below:

	Sihler	Beekes
one	Hoi-no-/Hoi-wo-/Hoi-k(ʷ)o-; sem-	*Hoi(H)nos
two	*d(u)wo-	*duoh₁
three	trei- / tri-	*trees
four	kʷetwor- / kʷetur- (see also en:kʷetwóres rule)	*kʷetuōr
five	*penkʷe	*penkʷe
six	s(w)eḱs ; initially, perhaps* *weḱs	*(s)uéks
seven	*septm	*septm
eight	oḱtō , oḱtou or h₃eḱtō , h₃eḱtou	*h₃eḱteh₃
nine	*(h₁)newn̥	*(h₁)neun
ten	*deḱm̥(t)	*déḱmt
twenty	wīḱm̥t- ; initially, perhaps* *widḱomt-	*duidḱmti
thirty	trīḱomt- ; initially, perhaps* *tridḱomt-	*trih₂dḱomth₂
fourty	kʷetwr̥̄ḱomt- ; initially, perhaps* *kʷetwr̥dḱomt-	*kʷeturdḱomth₂
fifty	penkʷēḱomt- ; initially, perhaps* *penkʷedḱomt-	*penkʷedḱomth₂
sixty	s(w)eḱsḱomt- ; initially, perhaps* *weḱsdḱomt-	*ueksdḱomth₂
seventy	septm̥̄ḱomt- ; initially, perhaps* *septm̥dḱomt-	*septmdḱomth₂
eighty	oḱtō(u)ḱomt- ; initially, perhaps* *h₃eḱto(u)dḱomt-	*h₃eḱth₃dḱomth₂
ninety	(h₁)newn̥̄ḱomt- ; initially, perhaps* *h₁newn̥dḱomt-	*h₁neundḱomth₂
one hundred	ḱmtom ; initially, perhaps* *dḱmtom	*dḱmtom
thousand	ǵheslo- ; tusdḱomti	*ǵʰes-l-

Examples of texts

Attention! These examples are written in a form adapted to the standard Latin alphabet and reflect only one of the reconstruction options. Translations of texts are largely speculative, are of no interest to specialists and do not reflect the subtleties of pronunciation. They are placed here solely for demonstration and to get an initial idea of the language.

Ovis ecvosque (Sheep and horse)

(Schleicher's Tale)

Gorei ovis, quesuo vlana ne est, ecvons especet, oinom ghe guerom voghom veghontum, oinomque megam bhorom, oinomque ghmenum ocu bherontum. Ovis nu ecvobhos eveghuet: "Cer aghnutoi moi, ecvons agontum manum, nerm videntei." Ecvos to evequont: “Cludhi, ovei, cer ghe aghnutoi nasmei videntibhos: ner, potis, oviom egh vulnem sebhi nevo ghuermom vestrom cvergneti; neghi oviom vulne esti.” Tod cecleus ovis agrom ebheguet.

Approximate translation:

On the mountain, a sheep that had no wool saw horses: one was carrying a heavy cart, one was carrying a large load, one was quickly carrying a man. The sheep says to the horses: “My heart burns when I see horses carrying people, men.” The horse replies: “Listen, sheep, our hearts also burn when we see a man, a craftsman making new warm clothes for himself from sheep’s wool; and the sheep remains without wool.” Hearing this, the sheep in the field ran away.

Regs deivosque (King and God)

Version 1

Potis ghe est. Soque negenetos est. Sunumque evelt. So gheuterem precet: “Sunus moi gueniotam!” Gheuter nu potim veghuet: “Iecesuo ghi deivom Verunom.” Upo pro potisque deivom sesore deivomque iecto. "Cludhi moi, deive Verune!" So nu cata divos guomt. “Quid velsi?” "Velnemi sunum." "Tod estu", vequet leucos deivos. Potenia ghi sunum gegone.

Version 2

To regs est. So nepotlus est. So regs sunum evelt. So tosuo gheuterem precet: “Sunus moi gueniotam!” So gheuter tom reguem eveghuet: “Iecesuo deivom Verunom.” So regs deivom Verunom upo sesore nu deivom iecto. "Cludhi moi, pater Verune!" Deivos verunos cata divos eguomt. “Quid velsi?” "Velmi sunum." "Tod estu", veghuet leucos deivos Verunos. Regos potenia sunum gegone.

Approximate translation:

Once upon a time there lived a king. But he was childless. And the king wanted a son. And he asked the priest: “I want a son to be born to me!” The priest answers that king: “Turn to the god Varuna.” And the king came to the god Varuna to make a request to him. “Listen to me, father of Varun!” God Varuna descended from heaven. “What do you want?” “I want a son.” “So be it,” said the radiant god Varuna. The king's wife gave birth to a son.

Pater naseros

Version 1

Pater naseros cemeni, nomen tovos estu cventos, reguom tevem guemoit ad nas, veltos tevem cvergeto cemeni ertique, edom naserom agheres do nasmebhos aghei tosmei le todque agosnes nasera, so lemos scelobhos naserobhos. Neque peretod nas, tou tratod nas apo peuces. Teve senti reguom, maghti decoromque bhegh antom. Estod.

Version 2

Pater naseros cemeni, nomen tovos estu iseros, reguom tevem guemoit ad nasmens, ghuelonom tevom cvergeto cemeni ed eri, edom naserom agheres do nasmebhos tosmei aghei ed le agosnes nasera, so lemos scelobhos naserobhos. Neque gvedhe nasmens bhi perendom, tou bhegue nasmens melguod. Teve senti reguom, maghti ed decorom eneu antom. Estod.

Approximate translation:

Our heavenly Father, hallowed be your name, may your kingdom come over us, your will be done in heaven and on earth, give us our daily food this day, and forgive our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory without end. Amen.

Aquan Nepot

Puros esiem. Deivons aisiem. Aquan Nepot dverbhos me rues! Meg moris me gherdmi. Deivos, tebherm gheumi. Vicpoteis tebherm gheumi. Ansues tebherm guemi. Nasmei guertins dedemi! Ad bherome deivobhos ci sime guerenti! Dotores vesvom, nas nasmei creddhemes. Aquan Nepot, dverons sceledhi! Dghom Mater toi gheumes! Dghemia Mater, tebhiom gheumes! Meg moris nas gherdmi. Eghuies, nasmei sercemes.

Approximate translation:

Cleaning myself up. I worship the gods. Son of Water, open the doors for me! The big sea surrounds me. I make offerings to the gods. I make offerings to my ancestors. I make offerings to the spirits. Thank you! We are here to honor the gods. Donors to the gods, we have dedicated our hearts to you. Son of Water, open the doors for us! Mother of the Earth, we worship you! We make offerings to you! We are surrounded by a large sea. (...)

Mari

Decta esies, Mari plena gusteis, arios com tvoio esti, guerta enter guenai ed guertos ogos esti tovi bhermi, Iese. Isere Mari, deivosuo mater, meldhe nobhei agosorbhos nu dictique naseri merti. Estod.

Approximate translation:

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed among women and blessed is the Fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Creddheo

Creddheo deivom, paterom duom dheterom cemenes ertique, Iesom Christomque sunum sovom pregenetom, ariom naserom. Ansus iserod tectom guenios Mariam genetom. (...) ad lendhem mertvos, vitero genetom agheni tritoi necubhos, uposteightom en cemenem. Sedeti decsteroi deivosuo pateronos. Creddheo ansum iserom, eclesiam catholicam iseram, (…) iserom, (…) agosom ed guivum eneu antom. Decos esiet patorei sunumque ansumque iseroi, agroi ed nu, ed eneu antom ad aivumque. Estod.

Approximate translation:

I believe in God, the Almighty Father, creator of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ, his own Son, our Lord. By the conception of the Holy Spirit the Virgin Mary was born. (...) to the ground dead, and resurrected on the third day after death, ascended into heaven, sat down to the right of God his Father. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, (...) saints, (forgiveness of) sins and life without end. Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit equally, now and without end and forever. Amen