Proto-Language: PIE

The proto language is the single, common source which a group of genetically related languages shared. It has been conserved records of some proto languages, but most of existing proto languages is not recorded.

Moreover, Sir William Jones said that maybe the original source if the Indo-European languages “no longer exists” and, of course, PIE is unattested, it has been conserved no records. And Proto Germanic –the original language of all Germanic languages- is also unattested.

RECONSTRUCTION

Though deductive processes, scholars are able to partially reconstruct an unattested proto-language. It is possible, above all, regarding the vocabulary and the structures of languages. And, as it is not recorded, all reconstructed words must be marked by an asterisk.

For the process of reconstruction, it is used the comparative method, which uses sister languages and cognates. 

* Sister languages: languages assumed to be genetically related descendent of a common language.*Cognates: forms od a same word existing in different languages. They are similar, but not identical, and the process of identifying cognates presupposes the recognition of sound changes of one and the other language compared.  


Steps of reconstruction

  1.      Eliminating borrowing words
 2.    Establishing cognate sets
 3.    Sound correspondences are traced. 

The work of reconstruction is very hard, and many works of reconstruction, as well as of structure and vocabulary has been done. For reconstructions, the inflections can be used, as the recorded ancient Indo-European languages preserved in writing are also inflected. In the same way –still regarding the work of reconstruction-, it is known that PIE had a number of noun classes and a case system.


But, what is a cognate? And what are doublets and triplets? Follow this link and get a proper definition: 

Cognates, doublets and triplets