Proto-Indo-Iranian language

Proto-Indo-Iranian was a satem language, likely removed less than a millennium from its ancestor, the late Proto-Indo-European language, and in turn removed less than a millennium from its descendants: Vedic Sanskrit (of the Rigveda) and Old Avestan (of the Gathas).

It is the ancestor of Indo-Aryan languages, the Iranian languages, and the Nuristani languages, predominantly spoken in the Southern Asian subregion of Eurasia.

Descriptive phonology

In addition to the vowels, *H, and *r̥ could function as the syllabic core. In many reconstructions, instances of *iH and *uH occur instead of *ī and *ū.

Two palatal series

Proto-Indo-Iranian is hypothesized to have contained two series of stops or affricates in the palatal to postalveolar region. The phonetic nature of this contrast is not clear, and hence they are usually referred to as the primary or first series (*ć *ȷ́ *ȷ́ʰ, continuing Proto-Indo-European palatovelar *ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ) and the second or secondary series (*č *ǰ *ǰʰ, continuing Proto-Indo-European plain and labialized velars, *k, *g, *gʰ and *kʷ, *gʷ, *gʷʰ, in palatalizing contexts). The following table shows the most common reflexes of the two series (Proto-Iranian is the hypothetical ancestor to the Iranian languages, including Avestan and Old Persian):

Laryngeal

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

Accent

Like Proto-Indo-European and Vedic Sanskrit (and also Avestan, though it was not written down), Proto-Indo-Iranian had a pitch accent system similar to present-day Japanese, conventionally indicated by an acute accent over the accented vowel.

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Historical phonology

The most distinctive phonological change separating Proto-Indo-Iranian from Proto-Indo-European is the collapse of the ablauting vowels *e, *o into a single vowel, Proto-Indo-Iranian *a (but see Brugmann'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 *ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ are fronted or affricated, eventually resulting in PII *ć, *ȷ́, *ȷ́ʰ, while the PIE labiovelars *kʷ *gʷ *gʷʰ merge with the velars *k *g *gʰ.

Word final *r was lost after long vowels.

The PIE liquids *l *r *l̥ *r̥ merge as *r *r̥.

The PIE syllabic nasals *m̥ *n̥ merge with *a. Word final *m̥ instead became *am.

Bartholomae's law: an aspirate immediately followed by a voiceless consonant becomes voiced stop + voiced aspirate.

The PIE double-dental rule is phonemicized with the sequence DD becoming *tˢt (or *dᶻdʰ if one of the dental consonants is an aspirate). Additionally, DsC̥ > tˢC̥ and DsC̬ > dᶻC̬.

The Ruki rule: *s is retracted to *š when immediately following a liquid (*r *r̥ *l *l̥), a high vowel (*i *u), a PIE velar (*ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ *k *g *gʰ *kʷ *gʷ *gʷʰ) or the syllabic laryngeal *H̥. Its allophone *z likewise becomes *ž.

Before a dental occlusive, *ć becomes *š and *ȷ́ becomes *ž. *ȷ́ʰ also becomes *ž, with aspiration of the occlusive.

The sequence *ćš was simplified to *šš.

The "second palatalization" or "law of palatals": *k *g *gʰ develop palatal allophones *č *ǰ *ǰʰ before the front vowels *i, *e. through an intermediate *kʲ *gʲ *gʲʰ.

Brugmann's law: *o or *ó in an open syllable lengthens to *ā.

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.

Following a consonant, and preceding a consonant cluster

Following a consonant and word-final

The laryngeal *h₂ (and possibly *h₁) aspirates the previous stop consonant and satem palatals. Notably this creates new voiceless aspirated stops. The laryngeal also disappears if it's followed by a vowel.

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.

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

Subsequent sound changes

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

Morphology and basic vocabulary

Proto-Indo-Iranian has preserved much of the morphology of Proto-Indo-European (PIE): thematic and athematic inflection in both nouns and verbs, all three numbers (singular, dual and plural), all the tense, mood and voice categories in the verb, and the cases in the noun.

Personal pronouns (nominative case)

Pronouns, nouns and adjectives are inflected into the eight cases of PIE: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, ablative, locative and instrumental (with also a comitative/sociative meaning).

Three examples of verbs

In verbs, the chief innovation is the creation of a passive conjugation with the suffix *-yá, with middle inflection.

The following examples lack the dual plural and are conjugated in the present tense.

Examples of noun declension

Despite Proto-Indo-Iranian preserving much of the original morphology of Proto-Indo-European, an important innovation in the noun is the creation of a genitive plural ending *-nām used with vowel stems.

The following examples lack the dual number.

Masculine noun

Feminine noun

Neuter noun

An example of adjectival declension

The morphology in adjectival declension is identical to the one in noun declension. The following example lacks the dual number.