Wiktionary:About Proto-Hellenic
Proto-Hellenic is the common ancestor of the Category:Hellenic languages, which include the various dialects of Greek.
Definitions edit
Various sources use a variety of terms and definitions that don't always agree with each other. In particular:
- Hellenic and Greek are synonyms, and include the Ancient Macedonian language. (Ancient Macedonian is then considered a divergent dialect of Greek.)
- Hellenic and Greek are synonyms, but do not include the Ancient Macedonian language. (The combination of Ancient Macedonian and Greek is then "Greco-Macedonian", but some sources may disagree on whether this existed.)
- Greek does not include Ancient Macedonian, while Hellenic includes it. (Thus, Hellenic is Greek plus Ancient Macedonian.)
It is important to take note of which definition is used in a given source. For example, what one source calls "Proto-Greek" may correspond to what another source calls "Proto-Hellenic" while a third source uses both terms synonymously.
For the purposes of consistency, Wiktionary has adopted the third definition. This means that Ancient Macedonian is considered a descendant of Proto-Hellenic and a sister of Ancient Greek.
Notation edit
- Voiceless stop consonants: p t k kʷ
- Voiceless aspirated consonants: pʰ tʰ kʰ kʷʰ
- Voiced stop consonants: b d g gʷ
- Fricatives: s h
- Sonorants: l r m n w y
- Palatalised voiceless stop consonants: ts pť ťť
- Palatalised voiced stop consonants: dz ďď
- Palatalised sonorants: ľľ ňň řř yy
- Short vowels: a e i o u ə
- Long vowels: ā ē ī ō ū
- Short diphthongs: ai ei oi au eu ou
- Long diphthongs: āi ēi ōi
The vowel *ə is a placeholder for the vowel that formed from the Proto-Indo-European syllabic sonorants *l̥, *r̥, *m̥ and *n̥. It usually appears as a in the attested forms of Greek, but some dialects have o in certain cases as well. Therefore this symbol is used to stand in for these different outcomes, without committing on any particular phonetic realisation.