Proto-Altaic'
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Approx -5ka.
| Labial | Dental / alveolar |
Post- alveolar |
Velar | Uvular | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Labialized | Plain | Labialized | ||||
| Voiceless stops | p | t | ʈ | k | kʷ | q | qʷ |
| Voiced stop | b | ||||||
| Fricativs | f | s | ʂ ~ ʃ | ||||
| Nasals | m | n | |||||
| Approximants | l | ɽ | j | w | |||
[ʃ] occurs before front vowels, [ʂ] elsewhere.
CV(N), maybe other codas too?
/NN Nf Nl/ do not occur. /ʈ/ does not occur initially and has been argued to have rather been /d ~ ɖ/.
Vowels come in a set of nine: /i ɪ e ɛ a ɔ o ʊ u/ plus the semi-difthongs /ej aj aw ow/ (/ɛj ɔj/ have also been proposed by these are much less secure). Some reconstructible alternations between the "lax" /ɪ ɛ ɔ ʊ/ and "tense" /i e o u/ occur, for the mid vowels in several cases conditioned by the presence of a following /a/.
Splits to Proto-West Altaic' and Proto-East Altaic' around -4.5ka.
