Talk:Proto-Indo-European language

Desinence?

Isn't a "desinence" always an ending, suffix, or terminator?

In the examples of cognate words, English "cow" paired with "bos" -- which is "bull" in Latin. Wouldn't Latin "bos" pair with English "bull"?

I'm no linguist nor really I even dabble in the subject with any serious degree of hobbyism, but to me it seems that the true cognate of Latin "bos" in English would be "bull." AFAIK "bos" is male (as "boi," "bou," "bue," "buey," "boeuf" in Portuguese, Romanian, Italian, Spanish, and French, respectively); the female, "cow," in Latin is "vacca" (and almost that in most contemporary Latin-derived languages, Italian "mucca" being the odd one out, but the end remains the same). Which, if it has a link to the other languages listed, I guess would be something along the lines of "cca" in "vacca" corresponding to "cow" or "gáu-", which may have lost an ancestral "va" part, or never added this part to it, if it's a Latin "apomorphy," a "new" thing added. But I don't know, maybe somehow "*gʷṓus" was "gender neutral" and split into both "cow" and "bull" and/or some of the corresponding words in different language lineages. ~2026-96601-7 (talk) 22:48, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for asking a great question. We are talking about cognates here, not translations. That means, it is not relevant whether the two words have the same meaning, it only matters that they are descended from the same source, and of course words change their meanings over time. Cow really is cognate with bos (bov-). There are sound rules that explain the b:k alternation, and that point about gender is very minor. Bull is from a different source: see https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=bull. Doric Loon (talk) 23:14, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

Similarly the Latin and Greek words for 'sheep' are cognate to English ewe. —Antonissimo (talk) 01:48, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Root that starts with a vowel.

In the article, it says:

All roots .... appear to have started with a consonant as well.

But this is false. Look at this root:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/up- 奎章閣大提學兼弘文館大提學藝文館大提學知成均館事Blahhmosh (talk). 02:12, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Can someone move /j/ and [i] into a new palatal column?

Currently, it's under the palatalized velar column, which isn't correct since it isn't velar. I'm not good with table editing so could someone else do that? Thank you. ICommandeth (talk) 06:51, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Helsinki "PIE Lexicon" is fringe

@Jeppiz Although the University of Helsinki is reputable, the reconstruction used by the lexicon project is not and linking it would be undue weight. The website adopts the extremely idiosyncratic "System PIE" reconstruction by Jouna Pyysalo, against the overwhelming scholarly consensus that Proto-Indo-European had three laryngeals (see the page on laryngeal theory for the mainstream view). As far as I can tell (and I double checked on Scopus, Google Scholar, and two major journals of the field, Indogermanische Forschungen and Indo-European Linguistics), his work has never been cited in a peer-reviewed publication, aside from this article by Martin Kümmel, who said "Sie produziert keine plausiblen Rekonstrukte und vor allem keine plausiblen Hypothesen über die Entwicklung der belegten Sprachen aus der Grundsprache." Also relevant context on Wikipedia are Talk:Laryngeal_theory#Criticism_section and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Proto-Indo-European Lexicon (PIE Lexicon), where the consensus was to remove the relevant material. The scholarly situation, as far as I can tell, has not changed in the intervening years. Kisseran (talk) 20:49, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Hopefully this is justification is satisfactory. I've gone ahead and reverted the revert. Kisseran (talk) 21:00, 12 June 2026 (UTC)