Laryngeals

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Proto-Indo-European appears to have had three guttural fricatives that we call laryngeals. We represent them with H₁, H₂, and H₃. In short, these prehistoric consonants essentially developed into the vowels ε, α, and ο, respectively. Not every ε, α, and ο was the result of a laryngeal, but those that were sometimes behave in ways uncharacteristic of the vowels as we know them. Put another way, laryngeals explain why certain vowels sometimes act like consonants. They once were.

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