Proto-Eteonoric

Proto-Noric is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Noric languages. It was probably spoken about 3000 years ago in central Austria, somewhere between Vienna and Salzburg.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops, voiceless	*p	*t			*k	*q [ʔ]
Stops, voiced	*b	*d			*g
Stops, aspirated	*ph [pʰ]	*th [tʰ]			*kh [kʰ]
Affricates, voiceless		*ts	*tc [tʃ]
Affricates, voiced		*dz	*dx [dʒ]
Affricates, aspirated		*tsh [tsʰ]	*tch [tʃʰ]
Fricatives, voiceless		*s	*c [ʃ]			*h
Fricatives, voiced		*z	*x [ʒ]
Nasals	*m	*n
Liquids		*l,*r
Glides	*w			*j

Vowels

• Short: *a, *e, *i, *o, *u, *y [ɨ]
• Long: *â, *ê, *î, *ô, *û

Root structure

C(R)VC or CV(R)C

Morphology

(to be filled in)

Syntax

(to be filled in)

==Semantic Spaces== (Paul Bennett)

Do we need to discuss the partitioning of semantic space? It is obvious that the Noric people were subjected to and survived several waves of outside dominant cultures (by my eye Italo-Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Ugric and/or Turkic and Germanic again, more or less). That cultural overlay is going to lead to loan-words and the loaning of which things are culturally significant enough to have special terms for them. For instance, Noric people are likely to have grown wheat and barley, driven goats or sheep, drunk wine and mead (knowledge of both probably came with IE speakers), known about horses but probably not donkeys (knowledge of the horse (PIE ek^uo) probably came with IE speakers), and had a concept of a home consisting of an entrance area and an inner area with a hearth. They would probably have had separate words for a village and a town. Plausibly, they traded in slaves (with a word for "slave" distinct to "man", and a word for "buy/sell slave(s)" distinct from the general "buy/sell"). Plausibly they would draw a line between a libation and a "regular" drink, and maybe between sacrificial killing, killing in battle/"slaying", and "regular" killing.