The king and the god


The king and the god is the title of a short dialogue composed in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language. It is loosely based on the "king Harishcandra" episode of Aitareya Brahmana. S. K. Sen asked a number of Indo-Europeanists to reconstruct the PIE "parent" of the text.

The king and the god

Hamp's/Sen's version from the EIEC, which differs from Hamp's original version in replacing Hamp's Lughus with Sen's Werunos:
Lehmann's version:
A sound recording has been made by linguist Andrew Byrd, reading his own translation to reconstructed PIE.

2013 version

English translation:
The EIEC spelling largely corresponds to that used in the Proto-Indo-European language article, with ha for h2 and hx for unspecified laryngeals h. Lehmann attempts to give a more phonetical rendering, with for h2 and for h1. Further differences include Lehmann's avoidance of the augment, and of the palato-alveolars as distinctive phonemes. Altogether, Lehmann's version can be taken as the reconstruction of a slightly later period, after contraction for example of earlier ' to ', say of a Centum dialect, that has also lost the augment. However, the differences in reconstructions are more probably due to differences in theoretical viewpoint. The EIEC spelling is a more direct result of the reconstruction process, while having typologically too many marked features to be a language really spoken some time in that form, whereas Lehmann represents the position to attain the most probable natural language to show up in reconstruction the way PIE is.

The king and the god in Sanskrit original

Sanskrit:
English translation: