Sounds of the letters
From Indo-European Languages
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2.3.1 The following pronunciation scheme is substantially that used by the common Europe’s Indo-European speakers in ca. 2500 BC, when the laryngeal phonemes had already disappeared, having coloured following vowels, and lengthened preceding ones.
NOTE. MIE cannot permit dialectal phonetic differences, whether vocalic or consonantal – like Grimm’s Law effects in PGmc. consonants, already seen –, because a homogeneous pronunciation system is especially needed when targeting a comprehensible common language. Some differences exist in sister dialects Hellenic, Aryan and Anatolian, though.
2.3.2. Vowels:
| ā as in father | a as in idea |
| ē as in they | e as in met |
| ī as in meet | i as in chip |
| ō as in note | o as in pot |
| ū as in rude | u as in put |
NOTE 1. Following the mainstream laryngeals’ theory, Proto-Indo-Hittite knew only two vowels, *e and *o, while the other commonly reconstructed vowels were earlier combinations with laryngeals. Thus, short vowels PIE a < *h2e; e < *(h1)e; o < *h3e, *(h1)o; long vowels ā < *eh2; ē < *eh1; ō < *eh3, *oh. The output of *h2o in Late PIE was either a or o, after the different schools. Short and long vowels i and u were just variants of the semivowels PIH *j and *w.
NOTE 2. The sonants may have been lengthened too (usually from older sequences of sonant + laryngeal, or because of compensatory lengthenings), especially in the conjugation of verbs, giving thus [r̥ː], [l̥ː], [m̥ː], [n̥ː], written as r̅, l̅, m̅, n̅. The semivowels can also have a prolonged pronunciation, giving allophones ij and uw. For more details on this see § 2.7.2.
2.3.3. Falling Diphthongs and equivalents in English:
| ei as in vein | eu e (met) + u (put) |
| oi as in oil | ou as ow in know |
| ai as in Cairo | au as ou in out |
2.3.4. Consonants:
- b, d, h, l, m, n, are pronounced as in English. n might also be pronounced as guttural [ŋ] when it is followed by another guttural, as in Eng. sing or bank.
- p, k, t are plain as in Romance, Slavic or Greek languages, not aspirated as in English; t is never pronounced as sh, as in English oration or creation.
- g always as in get. It had two dialectal pronunciations, the common simple velar and the ‘eastern’ (later generalized in PII) palatovelar. Compare the initial consonants in garlic and gear, whispering the two words, and it will be observed that before e and i the g is sounded farther forward in the mouth (more ‘palatal’) than before a or o. That is what we represent as ģ, similar to ķ, pronounced as k in key, compared to c in cold.
- c is pronounced similar to [g] but with rounded lips. Compare the initial consonant in good with get to feel the different articulation. The voiceless q is similar to [k] but pronounced with rounded lips; as c in cool, compared to c in car.
- bh, dh, gh, ch are uncertain in sound, but the recommended pronunciation is that of the Hindustānī’s “voiced aspirated stops” bh, dh, gh, as they are examples of living voiced aspirates in an Indo-European language (see note to the left).
- The voiceless aspirated ph, kh, th, frequently of Hellenic origin, are pronounced very nearly like English word-initial p, k, t, as in pen, ten, Ken. Their sound is also described as equivalent to p+h, t+h, k+h, i.e. to the corresponding mutes with a following breath, as in loop-hole, hot-house, block-house.
- j as the sound of y in yes, never the common English [dʒ], as j in join; w as w in will.
- Indo-European r was probably slightly trilled with the tip of the tongue (still common today in many IE languages), as in Scottish English curd. Another pronunciation is common today among modern IE languages, and was possibly heard in PIE, the alveolar tap [ɾ], pronounced like the intervocalic t or d in American or Australian English, as in better.
- s is voiceless as in sin, but there are situations in which it is voiced, depending on the surrounding phonemes. Like the aforementioned [r], modern speakers will probably pronounce [s] in slightly different ways, but this should not usually lead to misunderstandings, as there are no proper IE roots with original [z] or [ʃ], even though the former appeared in some phonetic environments, v.s.
- Doubled letters, like ll, mm, tt, etc., should be so pronounced that both members of the combination are distinctly articulated.
12. Regarding foreign sounds:
- kh might represent [x], whether strong, with ‘ach-laut’, such as kh in Russian Khrushenko, or ch Chanukah, or soft, with ‘ich-laut’, such as ch in German Kirche or Liechtenstein. Also, th might be pronounced as English th in thing, and dh as th in this.
- z, v, f, sh, are pronounced as in English.
- zh is pronounced as s in English leisure.
- tsh corresponds to English ch in chain, and tzh to j in jump.
References
- Quiles, Carlos, López-Menchero, Fernando, A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, Second Edition, Indo-European Language Association, 2009, ISBN 9781448682065
