The laryngeal theory is a widely accepted hypothesis in the historical linguistics of the Indo-European languages positing that:
In Indo-European studies, a thematic vowel or theme vowel is the vowel *e or *o from ablaut placed before the ending of a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word. Nouns, adjectives, and verbs in the Indo-European languages with this vowel are thematic, and those without it are athematic. Used more generally, a thematic vowel is any vowel found at the end of the stem of a word.
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the linguistic reconstruction of the ancient common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, the most widely spoken language family in the world.
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 proto-language from which all of these languages are descended, a language dubbed Proto-Indo-European (PIE), and its speakers, the Proto-Indo-Europeans, including their society and Proto-Indo-European mythology. The studies cover where the language originated and how it spread. This article also lists Indo-European scholars, centres, journals and book series.
The Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch was published in 1959 by the Austrian-German comparative linguist and Celtic languages expert Julius Pokorny. It is an updated and slimmed-down reworking of the three-volume Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen.
An etymological dictionary discusses the etymology of the words listed. Often, large dictionaries, such as the Oxford English Dictionary and Webster's, will contain some etymological information, without aspiring to focus on etymology.
The Proto-Celtic language, also called Common Celtic, is the partially reconstructed proto-language of all the known Celtic languages. Its lexis, or vocabulary, can be confidently reconstructed on the basis of the comparative method of historical linguistics, in the same manner as Proto-Indo-European, the proto-language which has been most thoroughly reconstructed. Proto-Celtic is a descendant of the Proto-Indo-European language and is itself the ancestor of the Celtic languages which are members of the modern Indo-European language family, the most commonly spoken language family. Modern Celtic languages share common features with Italic languages that are unseen in other branches and according to one theory they may have formed an ancient Italo-Celtic branch. The duration of the cultures speaking Proto-Celtic was relatively brief compared to PIE's 2,000 years. The earliest archaeological culture that may justifiably be considered as Proto-Celtic is the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of Central Europe c.1300 BCE. By the Iron Age Hallstatt culture of around 800 BC these people had become fully Celtic.
Robert Stephen Paul Beekes was a Dutch linguist who was emeritus professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University and an author of many monographs on the Proto-Indo-European language.
Grundriß der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen is a major work of historical linguistics by Karl Brugmann and Berthold Delbrück, published in two editions between 1886 and 1916. Brugmann treated phonology and morphology, and Delbrück treated syntax. The grammar of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is reconstructed from those of its daughter languages known in the late 19th century. The work represents a major step in Indo-European studies, after Franz Bopp's Comparative Grammar of 1833 and August Schleicher's Compendium of 1871. Brugmann's neogrammarian re-evaluation of PIE resulted in a view that in its essence continued to be valid until present times.
The so-called kʷetwóres rule of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) has been observed by earlier scholars, but has only since the 1980s attracted enough attention to be named, probably first by Helmut Rix in 1985. It is a sound law of PIE accent, stating that in a word of three syllables é-o-X the accent will be moved to the penultimate, e-ó-X. Examples include
The Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben is an etymological dictionary of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) verb. The first edition appeared in 1998, edited by Helmut Rix. A second edition followed in 2001. The book may be seen as an update to the verb entries of the Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (IEW) by Julius Pokorny. It was the first dictionary fully utilizing the modern three-laryngeal theory with reconstructions of Indo-European verbal roots.
Brugmann's law, named for Karl Brugmann, is a sound law stating that in the Indo-Iranian languages, the earlier Proto-Indo-European *o normally became *a in Proto-Indo-Iranian but *ā in open syllables if it was followed by one consonant and another vowel. For example, the Proto-Indo-European noun for 'wood' was *dόru, which in Vedic became dāru. Everywhere else, the outcome was *a, the same as the reflexes of PIE *e and *a.
Proto-Indo-European nominals include nouns, adjectives, and pronouns. Their grammatical forms and meanings have been reconstructed by modern linguists, based on similarities found across all Indo-European languages. This article discusses nouns and adjectives; Proto-Indo-European pronouns are treated elsewhere.
The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) are basic parts of words that carry a lexical meaning, so-called morphemes. PIE roots usually have verbal meaning like "to eat" or "to run". Roots never occur alone in the language. Complete inflected verbs, but also nouns and adjectives are formed by adding further morphemes to a root and by changing the root's vowel in a process called ablaut.
The Indo-European Etymological Dictionary is a research project of the Department of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University, initiated in 1991 by Peter Schrijver and others. It is financially supported by the Faculty of Humanities and Centre for Linguistics of Leiden University, Brill Publishers, and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.
The particles of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) have been reconstructed by modern linguists based on similarities found across all Indo-European languages. They have long been ignored by Indo-Europeanists, who are generally interested only in nouns and verbs. The following article makes no reference to the new standard treatment, George Dunkel's Lexikon der indogermanischen Partikeln und Pronominalstämme, which presents the material for the first time in a systematic manner. Among other things, it proves that almost all of the laryngeals cited below must be deleted.
The following is a table of many of the most fundamental Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) words and roots, with their cognates in all of the major families of descendants.
The Proto-Italic language is the ancestor of the Italic languages, most notably Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages. It is not directly attested in writing, but has been reconstructed to some degree through the comparative method. Proto-Italic descended from the earlier Proto-Indo-European language.
The Lexikon der indogermanischen Partikeln und Pronominalstämme is an etymological dictionary of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) particles and pronouns, published in 2014. It consists of two volumes; number 1 containing an introduction, terminology, sound laws, adverbial endings, nominal suffixes, appendices, and indices, and number 2 containing the lexicon.
