Proto-Algic


Proto-Algic is the proto-language from which the Algic languages are descended. It is estimated to have been spoken about 7,000 years ago somewhere in the American Northwest, possibly around the Columbia Plateau. It is an example of a second-level proto-language which is widely agreed to have existed. Its chief researcher was Paul Proulx.

Vowels

Proto-Algic had four basic vowels, which could be either long or short:

Consonants

Proto-Algic had the following consonants:
It is unclear if č /tʃ/ was an independent phoneme or only an allophone of c and/or t in Proto-Algic. In 1992, Paul Proulx theorized that Proto-Algic also possessed a phoneme gʷ, which became *w in Proto-Algonquian and g 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.