this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2025
204 points (98.6% liked)
Data is Beautiful
1339 readers
267 users here now
Be respectful
founded 6 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Those are placeholders. "We don't know what this sound is supposed to be, so we plop h+number there and call it a day." You'll see some reconstructions using *ə₁ *ə₂ *ə₃ instead, same deal.
That said, the Anatolian languages (Hittite, Luwian etc. - the whole branch is extinct) preserved a few of those laryngeals; compare for example Latin ⟨ouis⟩ and Hittite ⟨𒇻𒅖⟩ ḫāwis, from PIE *h₂ówis (sheep). Since Anatolian split way before the other languages, this makes me wonder if they weren't vocalised already in Late Proto-Indo-European.