Bernd Heine’s reconstruction (1976) of the Kuliak language group was an important step forward in the comparative study of the Nilo-Saharan language family. Recent reappraisal of Heine’s Kuliak consonant reconstructions suggests that proto-Kuliak may have been especially conservative in phonology and that therefore extensive work on the Kuliak languages may be particularly important to the furthering of wider comparative reconstruction of Nilo-Saharan. The purpose of this article is to summarize the reappraisal and to revise and add to the base of reconstructible Kuliak roots. Some of the revision stems from re-analysis of gaps and consistencies in Heine’s system; some from the marshalling of additional lexical evidence not available to Heine, gathered by the writer of this article in 1967. Notes, list of Proto-Kuliak and Proto-West Kuliak stem reconstructions, ref.
