Proto-Indo-Iranian language

Proto-Indo-Iranian is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd millennium BC, and are usually connected with the early Andronovo archaeological horizon.

Proto-Indo-Iranian was a Satem language, likely removed less than a millennium from the late Proto-Indo-European language, and in turn removed less than a millennium from the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda. It is the ancestor of the Indo-Aryan languages, the Iranian languages, the Dardic languages and the Nuristani languages.

Descriptive phonology

In addition to the vowels, *H, and *r̥ could function as the syllabic core.

Two palatal series

Proto-Indo-Iranian is hypothesized to contain two series of stops or affricates in the palatal to postalveolar region.¹ The following table shows the most common reflexes and origins of the two series (Proto-Iranian is the hypothetical ancestor to the Iranian languages, including Avestan and Old Persian):²³

Laryngeal

Proto-Indo-European is usually hypothesized to have three to four laryngeal consonants, each of which could occur in either syllabic or non-syllabic position. In Proto-Indo-Iranian, the laryngeals merged together as one phoneme /*H/. Beekes suggests that some instances of this /*H/ survived into Avestan as unwritten glottal stops.⁴

Accent

Like Proto-Indo-European and Vedic Sanskrit (and also Avestan, though it was not written down⁵), Proto-Indo-Iranian had a pitch accent, indicated by an acute accent over the accented vowel.

Historical phonology

The most distinctive phonological change separating Proto-Indo-Iranian from Proto-Indo-European is the collapse of the ablauting vowels *e, *o, *a into a single vowel, Proto-Indo-Iranian *a (but see Brugmann's law). Grassmann's law, Bartholomae's law, and the Ruki sound law were also complete in Proto-Indo-Iranian.

A fuller list of some of the hypothesized sound changes from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Indo-Iranian follows:

• The Satem shift, consisting of two sets of related changes. The PIE palatals *k̂ *ĝ *ĝʰ are fronted or affricated, eventually resulting in PII *ĉ, *ĵ, *ĵʰ, while the PIE labiovelars *kʷ *gʷ *gʷʰ merge with the velars *k *g *gʰ.⁶

• The PIE syllabic liquids *l̥, *r̥ merge as *r̥.⁷

• The PIE syllabic nasals *m̥ *n̥ merge with *a.⁷

• Bartholomae's law: an aspirate immediately followed by a voiceless consonant becomes voiced stop + voiced aspirate. In addition, dʰ + t > dzdʰ.⁸

• The Ruki rule: *s is retracted to *š when immediately following *r *r̥ *u *k or *i. Its allophone *z likewise becomes *ž.⁷

• Before a dental occlusive, *ĉ becomes *š and *ĵ becomes *ž. *ĵʰ also becomes *ž, with aspiration of the occlusive.⁹

• The sequence *ĉs was simplified to *šš.¹⁰

• The "second palatalization" or "law of palatals": *k *g *gʰ develop palatal allophones *č *ǰ *ǰʰ before the front vowels *i, *e.⁸

• Brugmann's law: *o in an open syllable lengthens to *ō. ¹¹

• The vowels *e *o merge with *a. Similarly, *ē, *ō merge with *ā. This has the effect of giving full phonemic status to the second palatal series *č *ǰ *ǰʰ.

• In certain positions, laryngeals were vocalized to *i. This preceded the second palatalization.¹²¹³
  • Following a consonant, and preceding a consonant cluster

• Following a consonant and word-final

• The Indo-European laryngeals all merged into one phoneme *H, which may have been a glottal stop. This was probably contemporary with the merging of *e and *o with *a.¹⁴

• According to Lubotsky's Law, *H disappeared when followed by a voiced nonaspirated stop and another consonant:¹⁵

Subsequent sound changes

Among the sound changes from Proto-Indo-Iranian to Indo-Aryan is the loss of the voiced sibilant *z, among those to Iranian is the de-aspiration of the PIE voiced aspirates.

See also

• Iran and India
• Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit

Notes

Bibliography

• Beekes, Robert Stephen Paul (1988). A Grammar of Gatha-Avestan. Leiden; New York: Brill. ISBN 9004083324. http://books.google.com/books?id=ysQUAAAAIAAJ. 
• Burrow, T. (2001). The Sanskrit Language (1st Indian ed.). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 8120817672. http://books.google.com/books?id=cWDhKTj1SBYC. 
• Fortson, Benjamin W. (2004). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction (illustrated ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1405103167. http://books.google.com/books?id=5hOtPBF6XWwC. 
• Lubotsky, A. M. (1988). The System of Nominal Accentuation in Sanskrit and Proto-Indo-European. Leiden; New York: Brill. ISBN 9004088350. http://books.google.com/books?id=6jBnmLnhXWwC. 
• Alexander Lubotsky, "The Indo-Iranian substratum" in Early Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European, ed. Carpelan et al., Helsinki (2001).
• Asko Parpola, 'The formation of the Aryan branch of Indo-European', in Blench and Spriggs (eds), Archaeology and Language III, London and New York (1999).