Proto-Samic language

The Proto-Samic language is the hypothetical, reconstructed common ancestor of the Samic languages. It is a descendant of the Proto-Uralic language.

Although the current Sami languages are spoken much further to the north and west, Proto-Samic was likely spoken in the area of modern-day Southwestern Finland around the first few centuries CE. The ancestors of the modern Sami people likely still spoke non-Uralic, "Paleoeuropean" languages at this point. This situation can be traced in placenames as well as through the analysis of loanwords from Germanic, Baltic and Finnic. Evidence also can be found for the existence of language varieties closely related to but likely distinct from Samic proper having been spoken further east, with a limit around Lake Beloye.

Separation of the main branches (West Samic and East Samic) is also likely to have occurred in southern Finland, with these later independently spreading north into Sápmi. The exact routes of this are not clear: it is possible Western Sami entered Scandinavia across Kvarken rather than via land. Concurrently, Finnic language varieties that would eventually end up becoming modern-day Finnish and Karelian were being adopted in the southern end of the Proto-Samic area, likely in connection with the introduction of agriculture, a process that continued until the 19th century, leading to the extirpation of original Samic languages in Karelia and all but northernmost Finland.

The Proto-Samic consonant inventory is mostly faithfully retained from Proto-Uralic, and is considerably smaller than what is typically found in modern Sami languages. There were 16 contrastive consonants, most of which could however occur both short and geminate:

Stop and affricate consonants were split in three main allophones with respect to phonation:

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