Frederik Kortlandt, Leiden University, www.kortlandt.nl SCHLEICHER’S FABLE

The first to compose a text in Proto-Indo-European was August Schleicher (1868). Emendations of his text were published by Hirt and Arntz (1939), Lehmann and Zgusta (1979), and others. Though these efforts must not be taken too seriously, they can serve as an illustration of the linguistic systems reconstructed by their authors. As my chief concern has always been the relative chronology of linguistic developments, it may be appropriate to present my version of Schleicher’s fable for a number of successive reconstructed systems, viz. Proto-Indo-European, non-Anatolian Indo-European, Classic Indo-European (excluding Tocharian), Central Indo-European (excluding Italo-Celtic), satəm Indo-European (excluding Greek and Germanic), Balto-Slavic, East Baltic, and modern Lithuanian. As I have stuck as much as possible to Schleicher’s and Hirt’s versions, many of the choices made in the following are far from compelling. It must be emphasized that the purpose of this exercise is purely to illustrate the consequences of a systematic approach and to exemplify the cohesive nature of the reconstructions. For the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European I refer to my outline (K272