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Proto-Timor–Alor–Pantar
The Timor–Alor–Pantar (TAP) languages are a family of Papuan (non-Austronesian) languages spoken in Timor, Kisar, and the Alor archipelago in Southern Indonesia. Holton and Klamer (2018) classify Timor–Alor–Pantar as an independent language family, since they find links with Trans-New Guinea too unconvincing.
  • 285
  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Tai
Proto-Tai is the reconstructed proto-language (common ancestor) of all the Tai languages, including modern Lao, Shan, Tai Lü, Tai Dam, Ahom, Northern Thai, Standard Thai, Bouyei, and Zhuang. The Proto-Tai language is not directly attested by any surviving texts, but has been reconstructed using the comparative method. It was reconstructed in 1977 by Li Fang-Kuei and by Pittayawat Pittayaporn in 2009.
  • 448
  • 19 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all the Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th century A.D. As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; scholars have reconstructed the language by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic languages and by taking into account other Indo-European languages. Rapid development of Slavic speech occurred during the Proto-Slavic period, coinciding with the massive expansion of the Slavic-speaking area. Dialectal differentiation occurred early on during this period, but overall linguistic unity and mutual intelligibility continued for several centuries, into the 10th century or later. During this period, many sound changes diffused across the entire area, often uniformly. This makes it inconvenient to maintain the traditional definition of a proto-language as the latest reconstructable common ancestor of a language group, with no dialectal differentiation. (This would necessitate treating all pan-Slavic changes after the 6th century or so as part of the separate histories of the various daughter languages.) Instead, Slavicists typically handle the entire period of dialectally-differentiated linguistic unity as Common Slavic. One can divide the Proto-Slavic/Common-Slavic time of linguistic unity roughly into three periods: Authorities differ as to which periods should be included in Proto-Slavic and in Common Slavic. The language described in this article generally reflects the middle period, usually termed Late Proto-Slavic (sometimes Middle Common Slavic) and often dated to around the 7th to 8th centuries. This language remains largely unattested, but a late-period variant, representing the late 9th-century dialect spoken around Thessaloniki in Greek Macedonia, is attested in Old Church Slavonic manuscripts.
  • 1.2K
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Samic
Proto-Sami is the hypothetical, reconstructed common ancestor of the Sami languages. It is a descendant of the Proto-Uralic language.
  • 463
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Romanian Language
Proto-Romanian (also known as "Common Romanian", româna comună or "Ancient Romanian", străromâna, Balkan Latin) is a hypothetical and unattested Romance language evolved from Vulgar Latin and considered to have been spoken by the ancestors of today's Romanians and related Balkan Latin peoples (Vlachs) before c. 900 (7th–11th century AD). In the 9th century Proto-Romanian already had a structure very distinct from the other Romance languages, with major differences in grammar, morphology and phonology and already was a member of the Balkan language area. Most of its features can be found in the modern Balkan Romance languages. It already contained around a hundred loans from Slavic languages, including words such as trup (body, flesh), as well as some Greek language loans via Vulgar Latin, but no Hungarian and Turkish words as these nations had yet to arrive in the region. According to the Romanian theory, it evolved into the following modern languages and their dialects: The first language that broke the unity was Aromanian, in the 9th century, followed shortly after by Megleno-Romanian. Istro-Romanian was the last to break the link with Daco-Romanian in the 11th century. The place where Proto-Romanian formed is still under debate; most historians put it just to the north of the Jireček Line. See: Origin of Romanians. The Roman occupation led to a Roman-Thracian syncretism, and similar to the case of other conquered civilisation (see Gallo-Roman culture developed in Roman Gaul), had as final result the Latinization of many Thracian tribes which were on the edge of the sphere of Latin influence, eventually resulting in the possible extinction of the Daco-Thracian language (unless, of course, Albanian is its descendant), but traces of it are still preserved in the Eastern Romance substratum. From the 2nd century AD, the Latin spoken in the Danubian provinces starts to display its own distinctive features, separate from the rest of the Romance languages, including those of western Balkans (Dalmatian). The Thraco-Roman period of the Romanian language is usually delimited between the 2nd century (or earlier via cultural influence and economic ties) and the 6th or the 7th century. It is divided, in turn, into two periods, with the division falling roughly in the 3rd to 4th century. The Romanian Academy considers the 5th century as the latest time that the differences between Balkan Latin and western Latin could have appeared, and that between the 5th and 8th centuries, the new language, Romanian, switched from Latin speech, to a vernacular Romance idiom, called Română comună.
  • 2.8K
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Philippine
The Proto-Philippine language is a reconstructed ancestral proto-language of the Philippine languages, a proposed subgroup of the Austronesian languages which includes all languages within the Philippines (except for the Sama–Bajaw languages) as well as those within the northern portions of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Proto-Philippine is not directly attested to in any written work, but linguistic reconstruction by the comparative method has found regular similarities among languages that cannot be explained by coincidence or word-borrowing.
  • 1.4K
  • 29 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Northwest Caucasian
Proto-Northwest Caucasian (sometimes abbreviated PNWC), also Proto-Adyghe-Abazgi or Proto-Adyghe-Abkhaz, is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Northwest Caucasian languages.
  • 643
  • 08 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Norse Language
Proto-Norse (also called Proto-Scandinavian, Proto-Nordic, Ancient Scandinavian, Proto-North Germanic and a variety of other names) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic in the first centuries CE. It is the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language, and the language attested in the oldest Scandinavian Elder Futhark inscriptions, spoken from around the 2nd to the 8th centuries CE (corresponding to the late Roman Iron Age and the Germanic Iron Age). It evolved into the dialects of Old Norse at the beginning of the Viking Age around 800 CE, which later themselves evolved into the modern North Germanic languages (Faroese, Icelandic, the three Continental Scandinavian languages, and their dialects).
  • 1.9K
  • 28 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Norse
Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic, Ancient Scandinavian, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Proto-Scandinavian, Proto-North Germanic and North Proto-Germanic) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia and a reconstructed proto-language of Old Norse that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic in the first centuries CE. It is the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language, and the language attested in the oldest Scandinavian Elder Futhark inscriptions, spoken from around the 2nd to the 8th centuries CE (corresponding to the late Roman Iron Age and the Germanic Iron Age). It evolved into the dialects of Old Norse at the beginning of the Viking Age around 800 CE, which later themselves evolved into the modern North Germanic languages (Faroese, Icelandic, the three Continental Scandinavian languages, and their dialects).
  • 651
  • 17 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Min Language
Proto-Min is a comparative reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Min group of varieties of Chinese. Min varieties developed in the relative isolation of the Chinese province of Fujian and eastern Guangdong, and have since spread to Taiwan, southeast Asia and other parts of the world. They contain reflexes of distinctions not found in Middle Chinese or most other modern varieties, and thus provide additional data for the reconstruction of Old Chinese. Jerry Norman reconstructed the sound system of proto-Min from popular vocabulary in a range of Min varieties, including new data on varieties from inland Fujian. The system has a six-way manner contrast in stops and affricates, compared with the three-way contrast in Middle Chinese and modern Wu varieties and the two-way contrast in most modern Chinese varieties. A two-way contrast in sonorants is also reconstructed, compared with the single series of Middle Chinese and all modern varieties. Evidence from early loans into other languages suggests that the additional contrasts may reflect consonant clusters or minor syllables.
  • 629
  • 10 Oct 2022
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