Proto-Finno-Ugric language

Proto-Finno-Ugric is the reconstructed protolanguage for the Finno-Ugric languages, that is the ancestor of the Finnic languages, such as Finnish and Estonian, and the Ugric languages, whose best known example is Hungarian. The parent language is Proto-Uralic, from which Proto-Finno-Ugric and Proto-Samoyedic had split. However, this classification is not without problems; Proto-Finno-Ugric may also be interpreted as a geographical grouping of Proto-Uralic dialects, because the differences are few. It has been suggested that the area where Proto-Finno-Ugric was spoken reached between the Baltic Sea and the Ural mountains.

The Saami languages belong to the Finno-Ugric family of languages. They can be traced back to a Finnic-Saami protolanguage, which is called Early-Proto-Finnic. Ref.: cite book |last= Kulonen |first= Ulla-Maija |authorlink= |coauthors= |editor=Ulla-Maija Kulonen, Irja Seurujärvi-Kari & Risto Pulkkinen |others= |title= The Saami;A Cultural Encyclopaedia|origdate= |origyear= |origmonth= |url= |format= |accessdate= |accessyear= |accessmonth= |edition= |series= Suomalaisen Kirjalisuuden Seuran toimituksia|volume= 925|date= |year= 2005 |month= |publisher= SKS |location= |language= en|isbn= 951-746-506-8 |oclc= |doi= |id= |pages= 287-288,333|chapter= |chapterurl= |quote=

According to Robert Austerlitz, Proto-Finno-Ugric had about seven cases; nominative, accusative, genitive, locative, allative, ablative, and adverbial.

External links

* [http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/finnish2.html Where does Finnish come from?] (Virtual Finland)