If we were faced with some examples from three languages, as shown below, we could make a start on comparative reconstruction by deciding what was the most likely form of the initial sound in the original source of all three.

Since the written forms can often be misleading, we check that the initial sounds of the words in languages A and B are all [k] sounds, while in language C the initial sounds are all [ʃ] sounds.

On the evidence presented, the majority principle would suggest that the initial sound [k] in languages A and B is older than the [ʃ] sound in language C. Moreover, the [k] sound is a stop consonant and the [ʃ] sound is a fricative. According to one part of the “most natural development principle,” change tends to occur in the direction of stops Language history and change 227 becoming fricatives, so the [k] sound is more likely to have been the original. Through this type of procedure we have started on the comparative reconstruction of the common origins of some words in Italian (A), Spanish (B) and French (C). In this case, we have a way of checking our reconstruction because the common origin for these three languages is known to be Latin. When we check the Latin cognates of the words listed, we find cantare, catena, carus and caballus, confirming that [k] was the initial sound.