Proto-Finnic
Conjugate VerbsFacts
- Language: Proto-Finnic
- Alternate names: kantasuomi
- Language code: xfin
- Language family: Uralic, Finnic (SIL classification)
- Number of speakers: Extinct
- Script:
More information:
Introduction
Proto-Finnic is the common ancestor of the Finnic languages, which include the national languages Finnish and Estonian. Proto-Finnic is not attested in any texts, but has been reconstructed by linguists. Proto-Finnic is itself descended ultimately from Proto-Uralic.
Three stages of Proto-Finnic are distinguished in literature.
- Early Proto-Finnic, the last common ancestor of the Finnic languages and its closest external relatives — usually understood to be the Sami languages, though also the Mordvinic languages may derive from this stage. This reconstruction state appears to be almost identical to Proto-Uralic.
- Middle Proto-Finnic, an earlier stage in the development on Finnic, for the point at which the language had developed its most characteristic differences from Proto-Uralic.
- Late Proto-Finnic, the last common ancestor of Finnish and Estonian, and hence of the Gulf of Finland Finnic subgroup. South Estonian and the Livonian language had already diverged at this point.
Proto-Finnic is thought to have been spoken around the Gulf of Finland