Para-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European is the ancestor of most languages of Europe and much of South Asia, spoken some six thousand years ago and never written down. Linguists rebuild it from its daughters, and they disagree on many details. Para-Indo-European is a version you can speak: one reconstruction, with every open question answered by one stated choice that is kept everywhere. That makes it a para-language, a variety that could have been spoken alongside the real one, not a record of it.
How to read it
Para-Indo-European writes reconstructed Proto-Indo-European with plain letters and one accent mark.
| Sound | Written | Sound | Written | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| h₁ h₂ h₃ (laryngeals) | h x f | ḱ ǵ ǵʰ (palatals) | c j jh | |
| bʰ dʰ gʰ (breathy stops) | bh dh gh | kʷ gʷ gʷʰ (labiovelars) | q v vh | |
| u̯ i̯ | w y | long vowel | doubled: ee oo |
A laryngeal between consonants is its own syllable, said with a short schwa: pxtéer "father" is [pəχˈteːr],
the a of Greek patḗr and Latin pater. xw is always h₂ followed by w.
It never borrows. Modern words are built from old roots: a car is swéwéjhnos "self-wagon", a phone
qélwoqax "far-voice", a computer réetotlom "reckoning-device", a hotel ghóstidomom "guest-house".
The verb comes last and there are no articles. The verb ending says who acts. "Will" is the subjunctive, "should" the optative, and a passive is the mediopassive. There are eight cases, and prepositions come after their noun.
Every choice between rival reconstructions is written down, with the main alternative, on the positions page.
The cuneiform is a script designed for the language on the Hittite model: syllable signs for most words, Sumerian word signs for common nouns, Akkadian stand-ins for the little words, and silent classifiers.