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How long ago was Proto-Uralic spoken?
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Uralic languages
Distribution of the Uralic languages.
Proto-Uralic, the common ancestor of the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic language groups, is estimated to have been spoken 7,000 to 10,000 years ago.1
The language is believed to have originated in the vicinity of the north-central Ural Mountains, possibly centered to the west of the range. While scholars have partially reconstructed the linguistic structure of Proto-Uralic by comparing the similarities and differences among existing Uralic tongues, determining precise details about this period remains difficult due to the lack of historical records.123