Finno-Volgaic languages

Finno-Volgaic
Geographic
distribution:
Northern Fennoscandia, Baltic states, Southwestern and Southeastern Russia
Linguistic classification: Uralic
Subdivisions:
ISO 639-2 and 639-5: fiu

Finno-Volgaic or Fenno-Volgaic is a defunct hypothesis of a subgrouping of the Uralic languages that tried to group the Finnic languages, Sami languages, Mordvinic languages and the Mari language. It was hypothetized to have branched from Finno-Permic languages about 2000 BC.[1][2][3]

Finnic and Sami languages are sometimes grouped together under Finno-Lappic languages, while Mordvinic and Mari were formerly grouped together as the defunct group of Volga-Finnic languages.

The current stage of research rejects Volga-Finnic, while the validity of Finno-Lappic and Finno-Permic remains disputed.[4]

Only a single uniting phonological feature of the Finno-Volgaic languages has been proposed: the loss of the consonant *w before rounded vowels.

See also

References