Finnic Languages - Subclassification

Subclassification

The Finnic languages form a complex dialect continuum with few clear-cut boundaries. A division into two areal groups of four languages is usually used:

All of these except Votic are centred on a literary standard language.

In the Proto-Finnic period, three original dialects can be reconstructed: an inland dialect (South Estonian); a southwestern dialect (Livonian); and a northern dialect (the rest of the family). The last two can be grouped as a common Coastal group.

Viitso (2000) surveys 59 isoglosses separating the family into 58 dialect areas (finer division is possible), finding that an unambiguous perimeter can be set up only for South Estonian, Livonian, Votic, and Veps. In particular, no isogloss exactly coincides with the geographical division into 'Estonian' south of the Bay of Finland and 'Finnish' north of it. Despite this, standard Finnish and Estonian are not mutually intelligible.

The Southern group, excluding a few archaic coastal Estonian dialects and the highly Ingrian-influenced Kukkuzi Votic, is united by the presence of a ninth vowel phoneme õ, usually a close-mid back unrounded /ɤ/ (but a close central unrounded /ɨ/ in Livonian), as well as loss of *n before *s with compensatory lengthening. This may be contrasted with a Northern group comprising the remainder. However, more secure is the Eastern group, comprising East Finnish dialects as well as Ingrian, Karelian and Veps. This leaves the West Finnish dialects, within which the oldest division is that into Southwestern and Tavastian dialects.

Numerous new dialects have arisen through contacts of the old dialects: these include e.g. the more northern Finnish dialects (a mixture of West and East Finnish), and the Ludic varieties (probably originally Veps dialects but heavily influenced by Karelian).