PIE Correspondences

Indo-European Sound Correspondences

The table on this page gives the main correspondences between the sounds of several Indo-European languages, as well as their reconstructed origin in Proto Indo-European (PIE). Where multiple symbols appear, hovering over them will show under what circumstances that correspondence is found. The first symbol stands for the development in all other cases. For the symbols used see the notes under the table.

These correspondences are not exhaustive, and represent rather an overview of the main developments - especially some particular groups of sounds (e.g. consonant clusters or changes conditioned by vowels in other syllables) may have special developments which have not been listed. The table also gives a good idea of the derivations produced on the Sound Change Transducers page, which generally uses rules in line with these correspondences. The table is chiefly based on R.S.P. Beekes' Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction (John Benjamins, 1995).

example...

Find the phonemes (i.e. distinctive sounds) that make up a word in the table (remember: sounds and spelling can be two different things - use the symbol legend below). For instance, Eng. fish has three phonemes: /f/;/i/;/š/.
Try to figure out what sources these phonemes could have:
- English /f/ only appears on the row of PIE *p, and is said to appear initially.
- /i/ has several possible sources: *e, *i, and *u. *e can be ruled out since a nasal doesn't follow.
- /š/ can only come from *sk.
We now have two possible proto-forms: *pisk- and *pusk- (note that English generally drops old case endings). Now try to see what these forms would look like in another language:
- German would have the same developments, thus Fisch - the word is at least West Germanic
- Latin would preserve both pisk and pusk. We look in a Latin dictionary and find the word piscis which means "fish" (compare the star sign pisces, a Latin loan word, lit. "fishes").
- To know if we have a *k or a *ḱ in the proto-form we need a language that distinguishes them (which Latin and English don't). We try to reconstruct a Sanskrit form: *pisḱ- would give picc^h-; we find this root in a Sanskrit dictionary in the word picc^hala- "slippery". Semantically the connection is reasonable - it seems that at least the root is Proto Indo-European and its protoform was *pisḱ.
- You can use the Sound Change Transducers page to test various proto-forms and see what words they might produce in the different languages.
In general, it's important to remember that not all forms can be derived directly from a proto-form - some words were created late by analogy or loaned from other languages, in which case these correspondences will not hold

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Symbol Conventions

General

as in show

as in garage

as in chip

as in Scottish loch

k^ṷ

as in queen

g^ṷ

as in Guinevere

⟨^h

an aspirated consonant

[ts], as in klutz

English

as in yes

as in this

as in three

as in put

as in man

Sanskrit

as in yes

as in John

as in chip

as in Spanish niño

ṇ ṣ ṭ ḍ ṭ^h ḍ^h

retroflex consonants

a palatal sh

ṅ

as in sing

OCS

as in French main

as in French mon

as in pit

as in put

as in man

as in yes

PIE	Sanskrit	Greek	OCS	Latin	English	German
*p	p, before h₂V p^h	p	p	p	v, after s p, initially or after PIE stress f	b, after s p, initially or after PIE stress f
*b	b	b	b	b	p	pf, between vowels f
*b^h	b^h	p^h	b	b, initially f	b	b
*t	t, before h₂V t^h, following a retroflex ṭ, following a retroflex and before h₂V ṭ^h	t, before i except after n s	t	t	ð, initially before consonant þ	d, after unstressed vowel t
*d	d, following a retroflex ḍ	d, before j z	d	d, before ṷ b	t	a [ts] sound, usually spelled z c, between vowels and finally after vowel ss
*d^h	d^h, following a retroflex ḍ^h	t^h	d	d, initially f, before l or r and after u or r b	d	t
*ḱ	s	k	s	k	h	h
*ǵ	j	g	z	g	k, before front vowels č	k
*ǵ^h	h	k^h	z	g, between vowels and initially h	g, before or after front vowels y	k, between vowels, spelled ch x
*k	k, before front vowels and i̭ c, before h₂V k^h	k	k, before front vowels č, before monophthongized oi, ai, and after i, e and en c	k	h	h
*g	g, before front vowels and i̭ j	g	g, before front vowels ž, before monophthongized oi, ai, and after i, e and en dz	g	k, before front vowels č	k
*g^h	g^h, before front vowels and i̭ h	k^h	g, before front vowels ž, before monophthongized oi, ai, and after i, e and en dz	g, between vowels and initially h	g, before or after front vowels y	k, between vowels, spelled ch x
*k^ṷ	k, before front vowels and i̭ c, before h₂V k^h	p, before front vowels t, before and after u k, before velars ku	k, before front vowels č, before monophthongized oi, ai, and after i, e and en c	spelled qu k^ṷ, spelled c, before u, o and consonants k	spelled wh, still pronounced hw in some places w, between vowels and before t Ø, before o and u h	spelled w v, between vowels h, spelled ch, before t x
*g^ṷ	g, before front vowels and i̭ j	b, before e d, before and after u g, before velars gu	g, before front vowels ž, before monophthongized oi, ai, and after i, e and en dz	v, before o, u or a consonant g, after n gu	k^ṷ, before o, u k	k^v, before o, u k
*g^ṷh	g^h, before front vowels and i̭ h	p^h, before front vowels t^h, before and after u k^h, before velars k^hu	g, before front vowels ž, before monophthongized oi, ai, and after i, e and en dz	v, before o, u or a consonant g, after n gu	w, after n g	Ø , after n g
*s	s, after r, u, k or i, except in final position or before r. ṣ, along with following ḱ (sḱ > cc^h) cc^h	in some positions with compensatory lengthening Ø , before or after stops and in final position s, before initial vowel h	s, after r, u, k, i and before a non diphthong back vowel x, after r, u, k, i and before a front vowel or before i̭ š	s, between vowels r	initially and after the stress s, after a stressed vowel and before another vowel z, between two vowels where the first is not stressed r , along with a following k (sk > š) š	initially and after the stress s, after a stressed vowel and before another vowel z, between two vowels where the first is not stressed r, before t, p, l, r in same syllable; with following k: sk > š š
*l	r	l, when syllabic non-initially la, when syllabic initially al	l, when syllabic lu	l, when syllabic ol	l, when syllabic ʌl	l, when syllabic ul
*r	r	r, when syllabic non-initially ra, when syllabic initially ar	r, when syllabic ru	r, when syllabic or	r, when syllabic ʌr	r, when syllabic ur
*n	n, when syllabic a, following a retroflex ṇ, before velars ṅ, after palatals ñ	n, when syllabic a	n, when syllabic or along with e, i or u before a consonant ę, along with preceding a or o before a consonant ǫ	n, when syllabic en	n, when syllabic ʌn, before s Ø	n, when syllabic un
*m	m, when syllabic a, before consonants ṃ	m, when syllabic a	m, when syllabic or along with e, i or u before a consonant ę, along with preceding a or o before a consonant ǫ	m, when syllabic em	m, when syllabic non-finally ʌm, when syllabic finally n, before s Ø	m, when syllabic non-finally um, when syllabic finally n
*h₁	Ø , when syllabic i	Ø , when syllabic e, initially along with following i̭ h	Ø	Ø, when syllabic a	Ø, when syllabic a	Ø, when syllabic non-initially a
*h₂	Ø , when syllabic i	Ø , when syllabic a	Ø	Ø, when syllabic a	Ø, when syllabic a	Ø, when syllabic non-initially a
*h₃	Ø , when syllabic i	Ø , when syllabic o	Ø	Ø, when syllabic a	Ø, when syllabic a	Ø, when syllabic non-initially a
*i	i, before vowel y	i, between vowels Ø, initially z, initially along with preceding laryngeal h	ĭ, before vowel j	i, between vowels Ø	i, before vowel y	i, before vowel j
*u	u, before vowel v	u, before vowel Ø, initially along with preceding laryngeal h	ŭ, before vowel v	u, before vowel v, in medial open syllable i	ʌ , before vowel w, if following syllable had i i, if following syllable had the vowel a o	u, before vowel v, if following syllable hadl i ü, if following syllable had the vowel a o, by later i-mutation of the o development ö
*e	a	e	e	e, in medial open syllable i	e, before n or if following syllable had i i	e, before n or if following syllable had i i
*o	a, in open syllables ā	o	o	o	æ, before a nasal o	a, before a nasal o
*ē or eh₁	ā	ē	ĕ	ē	ī, before nasals ū	ā, before nasals ō
*ō or eh₃	a	o	a	o	ū, if following syllable had i ī	ū, if following syllable had i ĕ
*h₂e (=a)	a	a	o	a	æ, before a nasal o	a, before a nasal o
*eh₂(=ā)	ā	ē, after r, i or e ā	a	ā	ū, if following syllable had i ī	ū, if following syllable had i ĕ
*ei	e	ei	i	ī	ai	usually spelled ei ai
*oi	e	oi	ĕ	ū	diphthong pronounced ow, usually spelled oCe ou, if following syllable had i ī	usually spelled ei ai
*h₂ei (=ai)	e	ai	ĕ	ae	diphthong pronounced ow, usually spelled oCe ou, if following syllable had i ī	usually spelled ei ai
*eu	o	eu	ju	u	ū, if following syllable had i ī	ǖ
*ou	o	ou	u	ū	ī	ō
*h₂eu (=au)	o	au	u	au	ī	ō
PIE	Sanskrit	Greek	OCS	Latin	English	German