Re: [tied] Laryngeals revisited

>From: "C. Darwin Goranson" <cdog_squirrel@...>

>
>Form what I can tell, the 3 laryngeals are vowel-changing sounds. I've
>seen several views on their indentities: aspirated (like the Russian X
>or German "ch" in "Bach"), as variants on the schwa, and as sounds
>like the Arabic or old Hebrew ayin (glottal plosive), aleph (glottal
>stop), and heh (an "h"). Which is most widely accepted? And would
>there be a "w" sound in things like *kwon, or would it be like a
>close-mouthed "kon"? If there IS a "w" sounds, wouldn't Pxwter sound a
>bit too consonant-based? Unless of course, PIE was like Georgian and
>generally dropped vowels.
>
>Amd is it now more generally accepted that Hittite is the first branch
>of PIE?

Well, the Anatolian languages in general (Hittite, Luwian, &c) are certainly
a more ancient branch. 'Gender' is animate/inanimate. There is no feminine,
several older cases seem to have been preserved.

However, it has been argued that PIE and Kartevelian languages are closely
related, and so the "first" branch of PIE may have been Kartevelian, or
perhaps vice verssa.