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Why is Hittite important evidence for reconstructed Proto-Indo-European laryngeal consonants?

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Map of ancient Anatolia and northern Syria showing the geographic distribution of Anatolian languages, including Hittite, Hattian, Lydian, Phrygian, Palaic, Carian, Lycian, Pisidian, Hurrian, and Urartean. Major historical sites such as Hattusa, Kanesh, and Ugarit are marked, with the Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea bordering the region. — Anatolian languages Distribution of the Anatolian languages.

Hittite is crucial to the study of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) because it provides direct, empirical evidence for the existence of "laryngeal" consonants, which were previously only theoretical constructs.12

In 1879, linguist Ferdinand de Saussure hypothesized the existence of these sounds based on internal patterns in PIE vowel systems, though they had largely disappeared or merged with other sounds in most recorded Indo-European languages. The theory remained controversial until 1927, when the Polish linguist Jerzy Kuryłowicz demonstrated that Hittite preserved these hypothesized consonants as the sound ḫ (a guttural or pharyngeal fricative) in the exact positions where they had been predicted.31

By confirming that these sounds were not merely abstract mathematical placeholders but actual phonemes, Hittite validated the laryngeal theory and solidified the modern understanding of the PIE sound system and its structural evolution.32