Predicting Lost Sounds of Ancient Languages

Linguists once mathematically predicted the existence of mysterious lost sounds in an ancient ancestor language long before any physical evidence was found. They proved these sounds existed decades later by deciphering Hittite tablets.

Ferdinand de Saussure proposed that the mother language of Indo-European contained hidden consonants to solve puzzles in word patterns. For years, this was just a clever theory on paper without any proof. Everything changed when researchers discovered Hittite, which actually preserved these elusive sounds exactly where the theory predicted. It remains one of the most successful examples of scientific prediction in the humanities.