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Phonology
The table gives the most common notation in modern publications. Variant transcriptions are given below. Raised ʰ stands for aspiration.

Labials
PIE */p/, */b/, */bʰ/ are conveniently grouped with the cover symbol P. The phonemic status of */b/ is disputed: it only appears in handful of reconstructible roots that themselves are often disputed. All of the reconstructed roots with */b/ inside are usually confined to a few Indo-European branches, likely representing late PIE dialectalism.

Some have attempted to explain away the few roots with */b/ as a result of recent phonological developments. Suggested such developments include
 * ml- > *bl-, connecting the root *bel- 'power, strength' (> Sanskrit bálam, Ancient Greek beltíōn) with mel- in Latin melior, and *h₂ebl-/*h₂ebōl 'apple' with a hypothetical earlier form *h₂eml-, which is in unmetathesized form attested in another reconstructible PIE word for apple, *méh₂lom (> Hittite maḫla-, Latin mālum, Ancient Greek mēlon).
 * In PIE *ph₃ the *p regularly gives *b in PIE; for example, the reduplicated present stem of *peh₃- 'to drink' > *pi-ph₃- > Sanskrit píbati.
 * In PIE *ph₃ the *p regularly gives *b in PIE; for example, the reduplicated present stem of *peh₃- 'to drink' > *pi-ph₃- > Sanskrit píbati.

At best, PIE */b/ remains a highly marginal phoneme.

Coronals/dentals
The standard reconstruction identified three coronal/dental stops: */t/, */d/, */dʰ/}}. They are symbolically grouped with the cover symbol T.

In so-called "thorn clusters" of the form TK in all branches except Anatolian and Tocharian a metathesis occurred, resulting in dorsal-coronal clusters of non-obvious phonetic makeup. Metathetized and unmetathetized forms survive in different ablaut grades of the root *dʰégʷʰ "burn" (whence also English day) in Sanskrit, dáhati "is being burnt" < *dʰégʷʰ-e- and kṣā́yat "burns" < *dʰgʷʰ-éh₁-. See the section on PIE phonological rules, below, for more discussion and examples.

Dorsals
According to the traditional reconstruction, three series of velars are reconstructed for PIE:
 * "Palatovelars" (or simply "palatals"), */ḱ/, */ǵ/, */ǵʰ/ (also transcribed */k'/, */g'/, */g'ʰ/ or */k̑/, */g̑/, */g̑ʰ/ or */k̂/, */ĝ/, */ĝʰ/).
 * "Plain velars" (or "pure velars"), */k/, */g/, */gʰ/.
 * Labiovelars, */kʷ/, */gʷ/, */gʷʰ/ (also transcribed */ku̯/, */gu̯/, */gu̯h/}}). Raised ʷ stands for labialisation (lip-rounding) accompanying the articulation of velar sounds.

The terms "palatovelar" and "plain velar" are in quotes because they are traditional terms but are unlikely to represent the actual pronunciation of these sounds in PIE. One current idea is that the "palatovelars" were in fact simple velars, i.e. *[k], *[g], *[gʰ], while the "plain velars" were pronounced farther back, perhaps actually uvular consonants, i.e. *[q], *[ɢ], *[ɢʰ]. Meanwhile, the labiovelars were exactly like the "plain velars" but labialized, i.e. *[qʷ], *[ɢʷ], *[ɢʷʰ] in the current understanding. These conclusions are suggested by the following evidence:


 * The "palatovelar" series was the most common; meanwhile the "plain velar" was by far the least common, and never occurred in any affixes. In known languages with multiple velar series, the normal velar series is usually the most common.


 * There is no evidence whatsoever of there ever having been any palatalization in the early history of the velars in any of the centum branches. If the "palatovelars" were in fact palatalized in PIE, there would have had to be a single, very early, uniform depalatalization in all (and only) the centum branches &mdash; depalatalization is cross-linguistically far less likely than palatalization, and hence unlikely to have occurred separately in each centum branch, and if such a situation did occur, it almost certainly would have left evidence of prior palatalization in some of the branches. However, there is no evidence at all that the centum branches ever formed a clade (i.e. possess a common ancestor that is later than PIE as a whole, in which the putative depalatalization would have occurred). Quite the contrary, some evidence indicates that Anatolian and Tocharian, two of the centum branches (note, however, that the Luwian branch of Anatolian seems to have satem reflexes, and Melchert reconstructs the palatal stops traditionally assumed for PIE for Proto-Anatolian, as well), were the first and second branches, respectively, to have split off from PIE, but this is uncertain and disputed.

Three velar series
The existence of all three dorsal columns (series) has been disputed since the beginning of Indo-European studies. Today, most PIE linguists believe that all three series were distinct by the time of Late Proto-Indo-European, although a minority believe that the distinction between plain velar and palatovelar consonants was a later development of certain satem languages; this belief was originally articulated by Antoine Meillet in 1894 and argued more recently by Frederik Kortlandt and others. This argument contends that PIE had only two series, a simple velar and a labiovelar. The satem languages palatalized the plain velar series in most positions, but the plain velars remained in some environments. These environments are typically reconstructed as before or after /u/, after /s/, and before /r/ or /a/; also apparently before /m/ and /n/ in some Baltic dialects. (This is conceptually similar to the change in Proto-Germanic whereby e.g. /t/ became /θ/ in most instances, but remained as /t/ after original /s/, /k/ or /p/.) The original allophonic distinction was disturbed when the labiovelars were merged with the plain velars. This produced a new phonemic distinction between palatal and plain velars, with an unpredictable alternation between palatal and plain in related forms of some roots (those from original plain velars) but not others (those from original labiovelars). Subsequent analogical processes generalized either the plain or palatal consonant in all forms of a particular root. Those roots where the plain consonant was generalized are those traditionally reconstructed as having "plain velars" in the parent language, in contrast to "palatovelars".

The basic arguments in favor of two velar series are:
 * The plain velar series is statistically rarer than the other two, is almost entirely absent from affixes, and appears most often in certain phonological environments (described above).
 * Alternations between plain velars and palatals are common in a number of roots across different satem languages, where the same root appears with a palatal in some languages but a plain velar in others (most commonly Baltic or Slavic; occasionally Armenian, but rarely or never the Indo-Iranian languages). This is consistent with the analogical generalization of one or another consonant in an originally alternating paradigm, but difficult to explain otherwise.
 * The above explanation suggests that in Late PIE times the satem languages were in close contact with each other. This is confirmed by independent evidence: The geographical closeness of current satem languages and certain other shared innovations (the Ruki sound law and early palatalization of velars before front vowels).
 * The traditional explanation of a three-way dorsal split requires that all centum languages share a common innovation that eliminated the palatovelar series. Unlike for the satem languages, however, there is no evidence of any areal connection among the centum languages, and in fact there is evidence against such a connection—the centum languages are geographically noncontiguous. Furthermore, if such an areal innovation happened, we would expect to see some dialect differences in its implementation (cf. the above differences between Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian), and residual evidence of a distinct palatalized series (such evidence for a distinct labiovelar series does exist in the satem languages; see below). In fact, however, neither type of evidence exists, suggesting that there was never a palatovelar series in the centum languages.

The basic arguments in favor of three velar series are:
 * Many instances of plain velars occur in roots that have no evidence of any of the putative environments that trigger plain velars, and no obvious mechanism for the plain velar to have come in contact with any such environment; as a result, the comparative method requires us to reconstruct three series.
 * Evidence from the Anatolian language Luwian attests a three-way velar distinction *ḱ > z (probably [ts]); *k > k; *kʷ > ku (probably [kʷ]). There is no evidence of any connection between Luwian and any satem language (labiovelars are still preserved, Ruki sound law is absent), and the Anatolian branch split off very early from PIE. Hence, the three-way distinction must be reconstructed for the parent language. (This is a strong argument in favor of the traditional three-way system; in response, proponents of the two-way system have attacked the underlying evidence, claiming that it "hinges upon especially difficult or vague or otherwise dubious etymologies". Melchert originally claimed that the change *ḱ > z was unconditional, and subsequently revised the assertion to a conditional change occurring only before front vowels, /y/, or /w/; however, this does not fundamentally alter the situation, as plain-velar *k apparently remains as such in the same context. Melchert also asserts that, contrary to Sihler, the etymological distinction between *ḱ and *k in the relevant positions is well-established.
 * According to Ringe (2006), there are root constraints that prevent the occurrence of a "palatovelar" and labiovelar, or two "plain velars", in the same root; but these do not apply to roots containing, e.g. a palatovelar and plain velar.

It should be noted that there is residual evidence of various sorts in the satem languages of a former distinction between velar and labiovelar consonants:


 * In Sanskrit and Balto-Slavic, in some environments, resonant consonants (denoted by /R/) become /iR/ after plain velars but /uR/ after labiovelars.
 * In Armenian, some linguists assert that /kʷ/ is distinguishable from /k/ before front vowels.
 * Some linguists assert that in Albanian, /kʷ/ and /gʷ/ are distinguishable from /k/ and /g/ before front vowels.

This evidence shows that the labiovelar series was distinct from the plain velar series in PIE, and cannot have been a secondary development in the centum languages; but it says nothing about the palatovelar vs. plain velar series.

In addition, modern proponents of the three-way distinction do not deny the final two points made in the arguments in favor of the two-way distinction, concerning the unity of the satem group and lack of such unity in the centum group. Rather, they claim that the centum change did indeed occur independently in multiple centum subgroups (at the very least, Tocharian, Anatolian and Western IE), but was a phonologically natural change given the current interpretation of the "palatovelar" series as plain-velar and the "plain velar" series as back-velar or uvular, and given the minimal functional load of the plain-velar/palatovelar distinction. Since there was never any palatalization in the IE dialects leading to the centum languages, there is no reason to expect any palatal residues; furthermore, it is phonologically entirely natural that a former plain-velar vs. back-velar/uvular distinction would leave no distinctive residues on adjacent segments.

It is quite possible to use the traditional three-way distinction while remaining agnostic on the issue of whether it represents the actual state of the parent language or is an artifact of later developments in the satem branch. It is also quite possible to take a compromise position asserting that the three-way distinction did indeed exist in late PIE but simultaneously did in fact develop from an earlier two-way distinction through the same mechanism and in the same environments traditionally claimed to have triggered the plain/palatal distinction in the satem languages.

Fricatives
The only certain PIE fricative phoneme */s/ was a strident sound, whose phonetic realization could possibly range from [s] to palatalized [ ɕ ] or [ ʃ ]. It had a voiced allophone *z that emerged by assimilation in words such as *nisdós 'nest', and which later became phonemicized in some daughter languages. Some PIE roots have variants with *s appearing initially: such *s is called s-mobile.

The "laryngeals" may have been fricatives, but there is no consensus as to their phonetic realization.

Laryngeals
The phonemes */h₁/, */h₂/, */h₃/, with cover symbol H also denoting "unknown laryngeal" (or ə₁, ə₂, ə₃ and ə), stand for three "laryngeal" phonemes. One should note that the term laryngeal as a phonetic description is out of date, retained only because its usage has become standard in the field.

The phonetic values of the laryngeal phonemes are disputable; various suggestions for their exact phonetic value have been made, ranging from cautious claims that all that can be said with certainty is that */h₂/ represented a fricative pronounced far back in the mouth, and that *h₃ exhibited lip-rounding up to more definite proposal; e.g. Meier-Brügger writes that realizations of *h₁ =[h], *h₂ = [χ] and *h₃ = [ɣ] or [ɣʷ] "are in all probability accurate". Other commonly cited speculations for *h₁ *h₂ *h₃ are [ʔ ʕ ʕʷ] (e.g. Beekes) and [x χ~ħ xʷ]. It is sometimes claimed that *h₁ may have been two consonants, ʔ and h, that fell together. A consensus seems to be emerging, however, that *h₁ is unlikely to have been a glottal stop /ʔ/, as all three laryngeals pattern similarly to each other and to fricatives in other languages (and similarly to PIE /s/, the only other fricative); in contrast, Simon (2013) has argued that the Hieroglyphic Luwian sign *19 stood for /ʔa/ (distinct from /a/) and represents the reflex of */h₁/. It is possible, however, that all three laryngeals ultimately fell together as a glottal stop in some languages. Evidence for this development in Balto-Slavic comes from the eventual development of post-vocalic laryngeals into a register distinction commonly described as "acute" (vs. "circumflex" register on long vocalics not originally closed by a laryngeal) and marked in some fashion on all long syllables, whether stressed or not; furthermore, in some circumstances original acute register is reflected by a "broken tone" (i.e. glottalized vowel) in modern Latvian.

The schwa indogermanicum symbol ə is sometimes used for a laryngeal between consonants, in a "syllabic" position.

Glottalic theory
The phonetical values of the three stop series are traditionally reconstructed as voiceless (e.g. */t/), voiced (e.g. */d/) and voiced aspirated (e.g. */dʰ/). However, this system is not found in any descendant language (Sanskrit still has all three, but has added a fourth series of voiceless aspirated, e.g. /tʰ/), and is vanishingly rare in any recorded languages. The rarity of */b/ is also unusual. Additionally, PIE roots have a constraint which prohibits roots mixing voiceless and voiced aspirate stops, as well as roots containing two voiced stops. These facts have led some scholars to reassess this part of the reconstruction, replacing the voiced stops by glottalized and the voiced aspirated stops by plain voiced. Direct evidence for glottalization is limited, but there is some indirect evidence, including Winter's law in Balto-Slavic, and in the fact that the voiceless consonants and the voiced aspirate consonants develop in parallel in Germanic, with both becoming fricatives while the glottalised (plain voiced in traditional theory) consonants remain stops.

Sonorants
In a phonological sense, sonorants in Proto-Indo-European were those segments that could appear both in the syllable nucleus (i.e. they could be syllabic) and out of it (i.e. they could be non-syllabic). PIE sonorants are the liquids, nasals and glides: */r/, */l/, */m/, */n/, */y/ (or *i̯), */w/ (or *u̯), all grouped with the cover symbol R.

All of them had allophones in a syllabic position, which is generally between consonants, word-initially before consonants and word-finally after a consonant. They are marked as: *r̥, *l̥,*m̥, *n̥, *i, *u. One should note that, even though *i and *u were phonetically certainly vowels, phonologically they were syllabic sonorants.

Introduction
It is disputed how many vowels Proto-Indo-European (PIE) had, as well as what counts as a "vowel" in that language. It is generally agreed that at least four vowel segments existed, normally denoted as */e/, */o/, */ē/ and */ō/. All of these vowels are morphologically conditioned to varying extents. The two long vowels are less common than the short vowels and their morphological conditioning is especially strong, suggesting that in an earlier stage there may not have been a length opposition, and a system with as few as two vowels (or even only one vowel, according to some researchers) may have existed.

In addition, the surface vowels *i and *u were extremely common, and syllabic sonorants *r̥, *l̥, *m̥, *n̥ existed. All of these alternate in a syllabic position with sonorant consonants *y, *w, *r, *l, *m, *n. For example, the root of the PIE word *yugóm "yoke" with a *u also appears in the verb *yewg- "to yoke, harness, join" with *w. Similarly, the PIE word *dóru "tree, wood" is reconstructed with genitive singular *dréws and dative plural *drúmos. Some authors (e.g.) have argued that there is strong evidence for reconstructing a non-alternating phoneme *i in an addition to an alternating phoneme *y, as well as weaker evidence for a non-alternating phoneme *u.

In addition, all daughter Indo-European languages have a segment */a/, and those languages with long vowels generally have long /aː/ /iː/ /uː/. Up until the mid-20th century, PIE was reconstructed with all of these vowels. Modern versions incorporating the laryngeal theory, however, tend to view these vowels as later developments of sounds that should be reconstructed in PIE as laryngeals *h₁, *h₂, h₃. For example, what used to be reconstructed as PIE *ā is now reconstructed as *eh₂; *ī, *ū are now reconstructed as */iH/ */uH/, where *H represents any laryngeal; and *a has various origins, among which are a "syllabic" [H̩] (i.e. any laryngeal when not adjacent to a vowel, or an *e next to the "a-coloring" laryngeal *h₂e. Some researchers, however, have argued that a phoneme *a must be reconstructed that cannot be traced back to any laryngeal.

Any of the sonorant consonants can comprise the second part of a complex syllable nucleus, i.e. they can form diphthongs with any of the vowels *e, *o, *ē, *ō; e.g. *ey, *oy, *ēy, *ōy, */ew/, */ow/, */em/, */en/, etc.

Lengthened vowels
In certain morphological (e.g., as a result of Proto-Indo-European ablaut) and phonological conditions (e.g. in the last syllable of nominative singular of a noun ending on sonorant, in root syllable in sigmatic aorist etc.; cf. Szemerényi's law, Stang's law) vowels *e and *o would lengthen, yielding respective lengthened-grade variants. Basic, lexical forms of words in PIE contain therefore only short vowels; on the basis of well-established morphophonological rules forms with long vowels *ē and *ō appear.

Lengthening of vowels may have been a phonologically conditioned change in Early Proto-Indo-European, but at the period just before the dissolution of Proto-Indo-European speaking community, which is usually reconstructed, it is not possible to phonologically predict the appearance of all long vowels, because the phonologically justified resulting long vowels have begun to spread analogically to other forms in which they were not phonologically justified. Hence, the prosodically long */e/ in *ph₂tḗr 'father' results by the application of Szemerényi's law, a synchronic phonological rule that operated within the PIE, but prosodically long */o/ in *pṓds 'foot' is analogically leveled.

/a/
It is possible that Proto-Indo-European had a few morphologically isolated words that contained the vowel *a, e.g. *dap- 'sacrifice' (Latin daps, Ancient Greek dapánē, Old Irish dúas); or appearing as a first part of a diphthong *ay, e.g. *laywos 'left' (Latin laevus, Ancient Greek laiós, OCS lěvъ). The phonemic status of *a has been fiercely disputed; for example Beekes expressly concludes: There are thus no grounds for PIE phoneme *a, and the same conclusion is reached by his former student Alexander Lubotsky. After the discovery of Hittite and the advent of laryngeal theory, basically every instance of previous *a could be reduced to the vowel *e either preceded or followed by the laryngeal *h₂ (rendering the previously reconstructed short and long *a, respectively). Against the possibility of PIE phoneme *a, that is even today held by some Indo-Europeanists, the following can be said: vowel *a does not participate in ablaut alternations (i.e. it does not alternate with other vowels, as the "real" PIE vowels *e, *o, *ē, *ō do), it makes no appearance in suffixes and endings, it appears in very confined set of positions (usually after initial *k, which could be the result of that phoneme being a-coloring—particularly likely if it was in fact uvular /q/) and the reflexes of words upon which *a is reconstructed are usually confined only to a few Indo-European languages which makes it possible to ascribe it to some late PIE dialectalism, or are of expressive character thus not being suitable for comparative analysis, or are argued to have been borrowed from some other language which had phonemic *a (e.g. Proto-Semitic *θawru > PIE *táwros "wild bull, aurochs").

However, others, like Mayrhofer, argue that PIE did in fact have *a and *ā phonemes independent of *h₂.

Accent
PIE had a free pitch accent, which could appear on any syllable and whose position often varied among different members of a paradigm (e.g. between singular and plural of a verbal paradigm, or between nominative/accusative and oblique cases of a nominal paradigm). The location of the pitch accent is closely associated with ablaut variations, especially between normal-grade vowels (/e/ and /o/) and zero-grade vowels (i.e. lack of a vowel).

Generally, thematic nouns and verbs (those with a "thematic vowel" between root and ending, usually /e/ or /o/) had a fixed accent, which (depending on the particular noun or verb) could be either on the root or the ending. These words also had no ablaut variations within their paradigms. (However, accent and ablaut were still associated; for example, thematic verbs with root accent tended to have e-grade ablaut in the root, while those ending accent tended to have zero-grade ablaut in the root.) On the other hand, athematic nouns and verbs usually had mobile accent, with varied between strong forms, with root accent and full grade in the root (e.g. the singular active of verbs, and the nominative and accusative of nouns), and weak forms, with ending accent and zero grade in the root (e.g. the plural active and all forms of the middle of verbs, and the oblique cases of nouns). Some nouns and verbs, on the other hand, had a different pattern, with ablaut variation between lengthened and full grade and mostly fixed accent on the root; these are termed Narten stems. Additional patterns exist for both nouns and verbs. For example, some nouns (so-called acrostatic nouns, one of the oldest classes of noun) has fixed accent on the root, with ablaut variation between o-grade and e-grade, while hysterodynamic nouns have zero-grade root with a mobile accent that varies between suffix and ending, with corresponding ablaut variations in the suffix.

The accent is best preserved in Vedic Sanskrit and (in the case of nouns) Ancient Greek. It is also reflected to some extent in the accentual patterns of the Balto-Slavic languages (e.g. Latvian, Lithuanian and Serbo-Croatian). It is indirectly attested in a number of phenomena in other PIE languages, especially the Verner's law variations in the Germanic languages. In other languages (e.g. the Italic languages and Celtic languages) it was lost without a trace. Other than in Modern Greek, the Balto-Slavic languages and (to some extent) Icelandic, few traces of the PIE accent remain in any modern languages.