Proto-Centropic

Proto-Tommian is the (intrafictionally) reconstruced common ancestor of the Tommian language family constructed by Jörg Rhiemeier.

In a family like Tommian, reconstruction is more difficult than in such families as Indo-European due to the great time depth (about 7,000 to 8,000 years, if one assumes that Proto-Tommian was the language of the Linearbandkeramik culture) and the lack of ancient written records. Also, the family consists only of seven very small and poorly studied languages. There are not many good cognate sets and often, only the roots match while the stem-forming suffixes differ (and Tommian-Kartvelian cognates are rarer still).

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Sibilants			Palatal	Velar	Glottal
				Front	Mid	Back
Stops and affricates	Voiceless	*p	*t	*c	*ć	*č		*k
	"Emphatic"	*p'	*t'	*c'	*ć'	*č'		*k'
	Voiced	*b	*d	*dz	*dź	*dž		*g
Fricatives	Voiceless			*s	*ś	*š			*h
	Voiced			*z	*ź	*ž
Nasals		*m	*n
Laterals			*l
Rhotics			*r
Semivowels		*w					*j

The exact quality of the "emphatic" stops is hard to ascertain. Ejective is a good guess, as the corresponding Kartvelian phonemes are ejective, too; yet, no extant Tommian language has ejectives. In both Midori and Kreluri, they have merged with the voiceless stops; in the Nonian languages, their reflexes vary, while in Trypillian they are pharyngealized.

Consonant clusters

In a syllable onset, a stop or affricate may be followed by a liquid (*l, *r). Any consonant except a labial may be followed by *w (possibly, these were labialized consonants rather than clusters). A stop/affricate+liquid cluster may also be followed by *w.

In a syllable coda, no clusters may appear.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	*i		*u
Mid	*e		*o
Low		*a

The position of the vowel *o is marginal. It occurs only in very few words, though some of these are quite common. None of these words appears to have a Kartvelian cognate; most of them are similar to some Eteonoric words. Hence, it is believed that these words were borrowed from a (Mesolithic?) language related to Eteonoric, or both families borrowed them from an unknown third source.