The Proto-Uto-Aztecan language (abbreviated PUA; also sometimes Uto-Aztekan, Utoaztekan) is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Uto-Aztecan languages.

History

Phonology

Vowels

Proto-Uto-Aztecan is reconstructed as having an unusual five-vowel system: . Langacker (1970) demonstrated that the fifth vowel should be reconstructed as *ɨ as opposed to *e—there had been a long-running dispute over the proper reconstruction (Campbell 1997:136).

Consonants

	Bilabial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar	Labialized velar	Glottal
Stop	*p	*t		*k	*kʷ	*ʔ
Affricate		*c
Fricative		*s				*h
Nasal	*m	*n		*ŋ
Rhotic		*r
Semivowel			*y		*w

Note that in Americanist phonetic notation, and are equivalent to IPA /ts͡/ and /j/, respectively. *n and *ŋ may have actually been *l and *n, respectively.

Grammar

References

• Campbell, Lyle (1997). American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Langacker, Ronald W. (1970). "The Vowels of Proto Uto-Aztecan". International Journal of American Linguistics 36 (3): 169–180.

External links

• Long vowels and morpheme boundaries in Nahuatl and Uto-Aztecan