Wiktionary:About Proto-Nakh

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Proto-Nakh is the ancestor of all Nakh languages. It is a descendant of Proto-Northeast Caucasian.

The epicenter of the Nakh linguistic homeland lay in the southern highlands of the central Caucasus, in today's Khevsureti and Tusheti. This region is south of the highest crests of the range (which is marked today by the Georgian border) and hence on the southern slope, but north of the divide, as the Terek, the Assa, and the Andi Koysu all have their headwaters to the south of the highest peaks. In the warm period of the early Middle Ages, Proto-Nakh and then Proto-Vainakh expanded from the highland centers to lowland outposts on both sides of the slope. Ancestral Para-Nakh had expanded from the same centers before that, so that the early Nakh expansion proceeded by language shift from Para-Nakh to Nakh at least on the north slope, and probably on the south slope as well. The same process is likely to have recurred for millennia. While isoglosses spread downhill, people moved uphill, forming new highland towns whose origin legends are now heavily mythologized. With the onset of the Little Ice Age, the highest towns were abandoned, lowland outposts became permanent settlements, and lowland towns became dialect-geographical centers. On the north slope this brought about the spread of lowland Chechen dialect features into the mid highlands and the gradual ethnic unification of the Chechen tribal groupings as Noxčii. On the south slope it meant the spread of Georgian and the reduction of southern Ingush, Chechen, and Bats to enclaves (and the extinction of any southern Para-Nakh languages). Meanwhile, as isoglosses and languages moved uphill, people moved downhill, increasing the Ingush, Chechen, Kisti, and Bats population in the lowlands.

• Short vowels: i u e o a
• Long vowels: aa
• Nasal vowels: iᶰ uᶰ eᶰ oᶰ aᶰ
• Strong-grade consonants: p t k c č tt
• Weak-grade consonants: b ṗ d ṭ g ḳ ʒ c̣ ǯ č̣ ṭṭ
• Other weak-grade consonants: n w j
• Other consonants: q q̇ x ʁ s š ł ħ H
• Sonorants: l m r

Long vowels appear in the Proto-Vainakh period, but it is not currently represented as a language in Wiktionary. They evolved from short vowels in the open syllable: *e > *ee, *o > *oo. At the same time *i, *u were never lengthened. The short vowel *a could be lengthened after laryngeal consonants in descendants, for example, in dialects of Chechen, while this did not happen in Ingush.

In later times, there was a diphthongization of short and long vowels: *e > *ie, *o > *uo, *ee > *iie, *oo > *uuo.

Descendants are listed in alphabetical order by language.

====Descendants====
* {{desc|bbl|}}
* Vainakh:
** {{desc|ce|}}
** {{desc|inh|}}