Thank you, thatʼs it: one of the biggest validations of the methodology for reconstructing languages. – Little nitpicks, if you allow:
- Saussure reconstructed only two of the three consonants now called “laryngeals” and called them “coefficients sonantiques”. Saussureʼs two sounds would be h₂ and h₃ in modern notation. The Danish linguist Möller added the third (h₁) and suggested that they were laryngeals.
- In Hittite, not all of the laryngeals are preserved: the Hittite sound transcribed as “ḫ” is certainly not a reflex of h₁, which had no reflexes in Hittite, and it certainly is a reflex of h₂. Whether it can also be a reflex of h₃ is contested.
(Edit: Your explanation below about the coloring by laryngeals is also correct in principle; just the specific example is problematic: because of Latin “ovis”, Greek “ὄις” we know that the late PIE form was “Howis” with “o” not “a”, either from “h₃éwis” with “h₃e” → “o” or from “h₂ówis”. The Hittite word you quoted may be evidence for the latter: “h₂ówis” → Hittite “ḫawis” with uncontested “h₂” → “ḫ”.)
- Saussure reconstructed only two of the three consonants now called “laryngeals” and called them “coefficients sonantiques”. Saussureʼs two sounds would be h₂ and h₃ in modern notation. The Danish linguist Möller added the third (h₁) and suggested that they were laryngeals.
- In Hittite, not all of the laryngeals are preserved: the Hittite sound transcribed as “ḫ” is certainly not a reflex of h₁, which had no reflexes in Hittite, and it certainly is a reflex of h₂. Whether it can also be a reflex of h₃ is contested.
(Edit: Your explanation below about the coloring by laryngeals is also correct in principle; just the specific example is problematic: because of Latin “ovis”, Greek “ὄις” we know that the late PIE form was “Howis” with “o” not “a”, either from “h₃éwis” with “h₃e” → “o” or from “h₂ówis”. The Hittite word you quoted may be evidence for the latter: “h₂ówis” → Hittite “ḫawis” with uncontested “h₂” → “ḫ”.)