--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "David Rönnqvist"
<djwebb2002@...> wrote:
> having googled (and gurgled!) for a while, I notice Albanian is
often
> said to be possibly neither centum nor satem. Can anyone shed any
> light on this?
The usual ground is that Albanian is unique among the satem
languages in preserving distinct phonemes for the three PIE
velar stops k, k', and kW, at least before front vowels. All
other satem languages merge k and kW. In fact, centum languages
merge k and k', so that, if true, Albanian is the ONLY surviving
IE language that distinguishes the original three velar stops.
This has been often discussed in this forum, most authoritatively
by Piotr Gasiorowski in Message 29877 in the archives. The
evidence is solid but a bit meager.
Best - Greg