Proto-Algic (sometimes abbreviatedPAc) is theproto-language from which theAlgic languages (Wiyot language,Yurok language, andProto-Algonquian) are descended. It is estimated to have been spoken about 7,000 years ago somewhere in the American Northwest, possibly around theColumbia Plateau.[1][2][3][4][5] It is an example of a second-level proto-language (a proto-language whose reconstruction depends on data from another proto-language, namely its descendant languageProto-Algonquian) which is widely agreed to have existed.[2] Its main researcher wasPaul Proulx.[6]
1 The identity of this consonant is not entirely certain; in Proto-Algonquian, it is sometimes alternatively reconstructed as*θ /θ/.
It is unknown if*č /tʃ/ was an independent phoneme or only an allophone of*c and/or*t in Proto-Algic (as in Proto-Algonquian). In 1992,Paul Proulx theorized that Proto-Algic also possessed a phoneme*gʷ, which became*w in Proto-Algonquian andg in Wiyot and Yurok.
All stops and affricates in the above chart have aspirated counterparts, and all consonants, except fricatives, have glottalized ones.Proto-Algonquian significantly reduced this system by eliminating all glottalized and aspirated phonemes.[2]
^Bakker, Peter (2013). "Diachrony and typology in the history of Cree". In Folke Josephson; Ingmar Söhrman (eds.).Diachronic and typological perspectives on verbs. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 223–260.
Goddard, Ives (1990). "Algonquian Linguistic Change and Reconstruction". In Baldi, Philip (ed.).Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 99–114.ISBN978-0-89925-546-0.
