Finno-Volgaic or Fenno-Volgaic is a hypothetical branch of the
Uralic languages that tries to group the
Finnic languages
The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 million speakers, who live mainly in Finland and Estonia.
Traditionally, ...
,
Sami languages,
Mordvinic languages, and the
Mari language. The hypothesis would have this language group branching from the
Finno-Permic languages
The Finno-Permic or Finno-Permian languages, sometimes just Finnic languages, are a proposed subdivision of the Uralic languages which comprise the Finnic languages, Balto-Finnic languages, Sámi languages, Mordvinic languages, Mari language, Per ...
about 2000 BC.
The Finnic and Sami languages are sometimes grouped together as
Finno-Samic languages
The Finno-Samic languages are a hypothetical subgroup of the Uralic languages, Uralic family, and are made up of 22 languages classified into either the Sami languages, which are spoken by the Sami people who inhabit the Sápmi (area), Sápmi reg ...
, while Mordvinic and Mari were formerly grouped together as the obsolete group of the
Volga-Finnic languages.
The current stage of research rejects Volga-Finnic, while the validity of Finno-Samic and Finno-Permic remains disputed.
[Salminen, Tapani 2002: Problems in the taxonomy of the Uralic languages in the light of modern comparative studies. http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/kuzn.html] In particular, the position of Mari within the alleged grouping appears to be marginal, while more evidence can be found uniting specifically Finnic, Samic, and Mordvinic.
Only a single uniting phonological feature of the Finno-Volgaic languages has been proposed: the loss of the consonant *w before
rounded vowels.
Lexical evidence for a Finno-Volgaic group is weak as well. Less than ten word roots are known that would be shared by all four member groups, while being absent from the other Uralic languages.
See also
*
Volga Finns
References
{{Uralic languages
Uralic languages