Germanic and the ruki dialects

A new relationship is proposed between Germanic, which shows lowering and retraction of vowels before /r/, /w/, /x/, and the ruki dialects of Indo-European, Baltic, Slavic and Indo-Iranian, which have retraction of /s/ following /r/, /u/, /k/, /i/. There are two aspects to the relationship: the Germanic segments correspond directly to three of the four ruki segments and the effects on vowels in Germanic and on /s/ in the ruki dialects may be attributed to the spread of a common phonological feature, Retracted Tongue-root, [RTR].