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Proto-Finnic or Proto-Baltic-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.

Background

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 (see Finno-Samic languages). This reconstruction state appears to be almost identical to Proto-Uralic.
• Middle Proto-Finnic, an earlier stage in the development on Finnic, used in Kallio (2007) for the point at which the language had developed its most characteristic differences from Proto-Uralic (mainly: the loss of several consonant phonemes from the segment inventory, including all palatalized consonants).
• 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.

Era and region

Views on when and where Proto-Finnic was spoken have varied over the years. Many of the older sources do not recognize Middle Proto-Finnic, recognizing only Early and Late Proto-Finnic:

^{a. Sammallahti places the divergence of South Estonian from Late Proto-Finnic (myöhäiskantasuomi, which he uses to refer to the stage before that point) at around 600–500 BC.}

^{b. Korhonen recognizes a distinction between Middle and Late Proto-Finnic but does not specify the date of transition.}

^{c. Lang places the transition from Early to Middle Proto-Finnic somewhere between 800–500 BC.}

Proto-Finnic is thought to have been spoken around the Gulf of Finland, but theories on its earlier location have varied; traditionally it has been considered that Proto-Finnic arrived first on the eastern coast of the Gulf of Finland, but it has also been suggested that Middle Proto-Finnic was spoken in an area in modern-day Estonia and northeastern parts of Latvia.^[7]

Changes up to Late Proto-Finnic

• *ï > *a. This change is shared by several other western Uralic languages, including the Sami and Mordvinic languages.
• *ä...ä > *a...e.
• Word-initial deaffrication:^[8][9]
  • *č > *š.
  • *ć > *ś.
• *ŋ and *x are lost as phonemes. Between vowels they are usually lost entirely, triggering lengthening of a preceding vowel.^[10][11]
  • In certain cases, this may have proceeded through vocalization to *w. Compare e.g. PU *mexi- > PF *möö- "to sell"; PU *sewi- > PF *söö- "to eat".
  • Before dental/alveolar consonants, both consonants usually vocalize to *w.^[12]
  • The cluster *ŋk remains, but *ŋ in this case is now simply an allophone of *n rather than an independent phoneme.
• Depalatalisation:^[13][14]
  • *ć > *c.
  • *ś > *s.
  • *δ́ > *δ.
  • *ń > *n.
• Lengthening of open vowels:^[15]
  • *a > *oo (including former *ï) and *ä > *ee, when the vowels appear
    1. in an open syllable, and
    2. followed by a non-semivowel sonorant consonant (*m, *n, *l, *r, *δ), and
    3. followed by an original non-open vowel *i (also denoted *ə, *e).
  • E.g.: PU *ńäli- > PF *ńeele- "to swallow"; PU *ńëli > PF *nooli "arrow"
• *δ > *t.^[13][16]
• Sequences of a vowel and syllable-final semivowel *j or *w are reinterpreted as diphthongs: *aj > *ai, *aw > *au etc. Consequently, these consonants can no longer close a syllable (relevant for consonant gradation). Any diphthongs ending in *u become subject to vowel harmony and split into *u and *ü accordingly.
  • In some cases, there remained alternations between the consonantal and vocalic form, e.g. in *käüdäk "to walk" ~ *kävi "walked" (Finnish käydä ~ kävi).
• Monophthongisation of some diphthongs in non-initial syllables:
  • *au > *o
  • *ei > *i
  • *eu > *u, *eü > *ü
• Word-final *-e becomes *-i.
• *ti is assibilated to *ci.
  • The change was blocked if another coronal obstruent preceded, i.e. *tti, *cti, *sti, *šti (thus Finnish kaksi "two" ~ kahden < Pre-Proto-Finnic *kakti, but lehti "leaf" ~ lehden < *lešti).
  • The change was fed by *ei > *i, which also caused assibilation.
• Apocope of final *-i when at least two syllables preceded. This occurred after assibilation, which created alternations between final *-c and medial *-t- in some nouns (e.g. Finnish nouns in -us, genitive -uden, essive -utena).
• Syncope/contraction of medial *-e- between *c, *l, *n, *r, *s, *š, *t and a following *k, *n or *t. Syncope was prevented if more than one consonant followed the *-e-. If more than one consonant preceded, consonant clusters were often simplified by dropping the first member of the cluster.
  • Examples of syncope before *t are widespread, owing to the many endings beginning with this consonant, including the partitive singular, genitive plural, infinitive and various passive forms. Finnish examples are vesi "water", partitive vettä (< *vetetä), lohi "salmon", partitive lohta (< *lošeta), purra "to bite" (< *purdak < *puretak).
  • Syncope before *n was also regular, but there were fewer environments in which it could occur. It occurred most notably in the potential mood and the past active participle of verbs. Many of the clusters ending in *n were later simplified by assimilation, either by assimilating the *n to the preceding consonant, or in some cases the reverse. Finnish examples are purren, purrut (forms of purra "bite"; < *purnen, *purnut < *purenen, *purenut), pessen, pessyt (forms of pestä "to wash", < *pesnen, *pesnüt < *pesenen, *pesenüt). Contraction also occurred in the essive singular of nominals, but these forms were often restored analogically. Finnish still possesses a few obsolete or fossilised cases of contracted essives, e.g. toissa "on the second-last (time)" (< *toicna < *toicena), a fossilised essive form of toinen "second".
  • Syncope before *k was regular but there were few environments in which it could occur. It is seen primarily in imperative forms of verbs, which are formed with a -k- suffix. Finnish examples are olkaa (imperative of olla "be"; < *olkade < *volekate), maatkaa (forms of maata "lie down"; < *magatkate < *makatekate).
  • Syncope also occurred between *m and *t in several cases, giving *-nt-. This occurred perhaps in all cases, but it was reverted later in many cases. An example in Finnish is lumi "snow", partitive lunta (< Pre-Proto-Finnic *lumeta). Older Finnish had more examples of this, which were later restored by analogy.
  • Two words show the contraction *-ket- > *-kt-: *näktäk "to see" < *näketäk (Finnish nähdä) and *tektäk "to do" < *teketäk (Finnish tehdä).
• Application of radical gradation in closed syllables, causing voicing of short obstruents and shortening of geminate stops. This occurred after apocope, or was still productive at the time, as the newly consonant-final syllables resulting from apocope triggered gradation as well.
• *š > *h
  • The clusters *tš and *kš lose their first component to also become simple *h.
• *č > *t, but *čk develops differently in South Estonian, see below.
• In non-initial syllables, low-vowel i-diphthongs are raised:
  • *äi > *ei
  • *ai > *oi when the preceding syllable contains a non-rounded vowel.
  • *ai > *ei elsewhere.
  • Some time after this change, *ei > *i again in non-initial syllables. This latter change occurred late in Proto-Finnic and did not trigger assibilation as the earlier *ei > *i change did. It also followed the southern Finnic backing of *e to *ë (Estonian õ etc.) in back-harmony words, as only *ei was affected, while *ëi remained unchanged. Thus, different Finnic varieties show different outcomes, such as: *muna "egg", plural stem *munai- > *munei- > Finnish muna, muni- but southern Finnic munëi- > Votic muna, munõi-, Võro muna, munnõ-, Estonian muna, mune- (with õ > e through loss of vowel harmony).
• Loss of glides before vowels:
  • *ji > *i. This change followed the preceding one, as former *eji becomes *ei but does not end up as *i: *peni "dog", plural stem *peneji- > Finnish peni, penei-, Võro pini, pin(n)e-.
  • *je > *e word-initially.
  • *vu > *u.
  • *vü > *ü.
  • *vo > *o. This change must have happened after Proto-Finnic broke up, as Estonian and Võro võtma "to take" preserved the consonant until after the dialectal unrounding of *o to *õ (which prevented the change from affecting it). Compare Finnish ottaa, Veps otta, where it did apply as there was no unrounding in those dialects.

Phonology

The sounds of Proto-Finnic can be reconstructed through the comparative method.

Transcription

Reconstructed Proto-Finnic is traditionally transcribed using the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet. The following UPA and related conventions are adopted in this article for transcribing Proto-Finnic forms:

• Front vowels /æ ø y/ are denoted with a diaeresis, as in the Estonian orthography: ⟨ä ö ü⟩.
• The affricate /t͡s/ is written as ⟨c⟩.
• The voiceless velar fricative /x/ is written as ⟨h⟩.
• Long consonants and vowels are written doubled: ⟨aa ee ii pp tt kk cc⟩ etc.
• Half-long consonants are written with a following apostrophe: ⟨p' t' k' c'⟩.
• The labial semivowel /ʋ ~ w/ is written as ⟨v⟩.
• Diphthongs are written with two vowel letters when a consonant follows: ⟨au ai⟩ (not ⟨av aj⟩).

Consonants

The Proto-Finnic consonant inventory had relatively few phonemic fricatives, much like that of the modern Finnic languages. Voicing was not phonemically contrastive, but the language did possess voiced allophones of certain voiceless consonants.

The table below lists the consonantal phonemes of Late Proto-Finnic.^[17][18] Phones written in parentheses represent allophones and are not independent phonemes. When a consonant is notated in this article with a symbol distinct from the corresponding IPA symbol, the former is given first, followed by the latter.

• *h had evolved fairly late from the Middle Proto-Finnic postalveolar sibilant *š (). It may have been realised as before another consonant.
• *v was perhaps realised as labiodental when a vowel followed, rather than a true bilabial
• was an allophone of *n before *k. The original Proto-Uralic phoneme *ŋ had been lost and changed into other sounds, except in this position.
• , and were allophones of *p, *t and *k respectively, and developed as a result of consonant gradation.
• Final *-k was probably unreleased , due its loss in many daughter languages.^{[citation needed]}

Proto-Finnic possessed two phonemic levels of consonant duration, short and long (geminate). The contrast itself had been inherited from Proto-Uralic, but was considerably expanded: all consonants except *r, *h, *j and *w could be short or long. The three plosives and the affricate *c /ts/ also possessed a half-long duration (, , and ), but these appear to have been in complementary (allophonic) distribution with fully long consonants, and therefore are not thought to have been phonemic. They appeared in predictable positions as a result of consonant gradation, like the voiced fricatives.

Consonant gradation

Consonant gradation was a process of lenition that affected the obstruents. Short plosives became voiced fricatives, while long plosives became half-long:

Voiced plosives occurred after nasals (mb nd ŋg), voiced fricatives in all other weak grade environments.

It is unclear if single *c gradated, and if so, into what. No Finnic language has consonant gradation for former *c, both grades result in the same outcome (mostly s).

Gradation occurred in two different environments, and can therefore be split into two types:

• Radical gradation affected consonants that appeared at the beginning of a closed syllable (a syllable that ended in a consonant). It affected consonants preceded by a vowel or sonorant, but not those preceded by another obstruent.
• Suffixal gradation affected consonants that appeared at the beginning of a non-initial odd-numbered syllable. It only affected consonants preceded by a vowel and did not affect the geminates^{[clarification needed]}.

It is unclear whether consonant gradation was a Finnic innovation, or a retention of an old Uralic feature that was lost in most other Uralic branches. It is likely that it was inherited from an earlier stage that was also the ancestor of the Sami languages, which have gradation that is very similar to that found in the Finnic languages. However, it was still productive after certain sound changes specific to Finnic, such as the apocope of final *-i, so it was probably present as a phonetic "post-processing" rule (a surface filter) over a long period of time. It is no longer fully productive in any Finnic language, but most languages still retain large amounts of words preserving the earlier alternations.

Vowelsedit

The Proto-Finnic vowel inventory is reconstructed to a great similarity to that of modern Finnish, although the distribution of the sounds was different. The following table lists the monophthong vowels reconstructable for Proto-Finnic.^[17][19]

All vowels could occur both short and long. In Proto-Uralic, rounded vowels /u y o/ (*u, *ü, *o) did not occur in non-initial syllables, but because of sound changes, they emerged in Proto-Finnic.

The short unrounded mid back vowel *ë was not an independent vowel, but appeared as the counterpart of the front vowel *e in the system of harmony. It merged with *e in most Finnic languages, but not in South Estonian or Votic. See below under vowel harmony for more details.

The status of short *ö is unclear. It was not present in ancestral Proto-Uralic, and many instances of ö found in modern Finnic languages have only developed after Proto-Finnic, due to various sound changes. For example, Finnish has öy from *eü: löytä- 'to find', köysi 'rope' < Proto-Finnic *leütä-, *keüci, while Estonian has unrounded the diphthong instead, giving leida- and köis. Short ö was also generally added to the system by researchers for reasons of symmetry, to complete the system of vowel harmony (see below). This happened in Finnish näkö 'sight' < Proto-Finnic *näko, but not in Votic näko.

The existence of öö is clear, as this sound had regularly evolved from other combinations of sounds, in words of Uralic origin (e.g. *söö- 'to eat' ← Proto-Uralic *sewi-).

Diphthongsedit

Proto-Finnic also possessed diphthongs, which were formed by combinations of a short vowel with the vowels /i/, /y/ and /u/, or equivalently with the semivowels /j/ and ?pojem=.