The following is an overview of the more important changes that happened after the Proto-Finnic period.
Development of consonant clusters These changes happened very late in the Proto-Finnic period, but as South Estonian developed somewhat differently, it shows that dialectal diversification was beginning to occur around this time. In South Estonian,
*p and
*k assimilate to a following dental obstruent, while
*t assimilates to
*k, and
*čk remains distinct from
*tk. In all Finnic dialects, original
*pt and
*kt have the same reflex. It is therefore impossible to distinguish them in reconstruction, unless there is additional internal evidence (in the form of grammatical alternations) or external evidence (from non-Finnic languages).
Developments to the affricates *c and *cc The non-geminated
*c becomes
*s generally: Proto-Finnic
*veci "water",
*cika "pig",
*-inen:
*-ice- (adjective suffix) > Finnish
vesi,
sika,
-(i)nen:
-(i)se-. However, occasionally
ts or
ds remains in South Estonian: Võro
tsiga,
-ne:
-dse- or
-se- (but
vesi). The merging of
*c and
*s often makes it impossible to distinguish the two sounds using Finnic evidence alone, if
internal reconstruction is not viable (e. g., from
t ~
s alternations from assibilation). The geminate affricate
*cc generally remains, often spelled . In Karelian, Votic and some Finnish dialects, the two grades remain distinguished (in Karelian as : , in Ludic as : , in Votic as : ). In all other Finnic languages the two grades fall together (written in Veps as , as in the others). In early Finnish, both grades were fronted to interdental
θθ:
θ, which in most dialects later changed into a variety of other dialect-specific sounds. Examples found are gradation patterns
tt:
t,
ht:
h,
ht:
t,
ss:
s or non-gradating
tt or
ht. In early written Finnish, the interdental fricatives are written as (for both grades) in the earliest records, which in Standard Finnish has led to the
spelling pronunciation // (treated as a consonant cluster and hence no longer subject to consonant gradation).
The vowel õ In the southern Finnic languages, a new back unrounded mid vowel [] develops from
*e in words with back vowel harmony. For example Proto-Finnic
*velka "debt" > Estonian
võlg, Võro
võlg, but > Finnish
velka. South Estonian and Votic show this development in all syllables, so that
e and
õ become a front and back vowel harmony pair. This may have also occurred in the earlier history of north (Standard) Estonian, but vowel harmony was later abandoned, undoing the change if it did occur. In South Estonian,
õ in front of a nasal is raised to a central unrounded vowel [] (represented orthographically as ), parallel to the development of the other mid vowels. E.g. Võro
ynn', Estonian
õnn "luck"; Võro
ryngas, Estonian
rõngas "ring". In Estonian and Votic, more rarely Livonian, instances of
õ also develop by unrounding of earlier short
*o. The detailed history of this change is unclear and shows much variation even between individual dialects of (North) Estonian. The development of
*o to
õ is the most general in Votic (if recent loanwords from Ingrian, Finnish and Russian are discounted) and in the Kodavere dialect of Estonian. Three main groups can thus be distinguished: A particularly interesting example is "to take", which suggests that at least some instances of this change preceded the general Finnic loss of word-initial
*v- before rounded vowels, which affected Finnish and the rest of Northern Finnic (which kept a rounded vowel) but not Estonian and the rest of Southern Finnic (which unrounded the vowel). It therefore must have occurred very early, in dialectal Proto-Finnic times. In a small number of words, Estonian and Votic
õ can be additionally found in correspondence to North Finnic
a or
u. Livonian and South Estonian might align with either side, depending on the word. E.g. • "all": Estonian
kõik, Votic
kõittši, Võro
kyik — Finnish and Karelian
kaikki, Veps
kaik • "thread": Estonian
lõng, Votic
lõnka — Finnish and Karelian
lanka, Veps and South Estonian
lang, Livonian
lānga • "or": Estonian and Livonian
või — Finnish, Karelian, Veps and Võro
vai (Votic
vai, possibly from Ingrian) • "word": Estonian and Votic
sõna, Livonian
sõnā, Võro
syna — Finnish, Karelian and Veps
sana • Estonian and Võro
mõistma, Votic
mõissaa "to understand" — Finnish and Karelian
muistaa, Veps
muštta "to remember" • "heath": Estonian
nõmm, Votic
nõmmi — Finnish
nummi Vowel reduction and loss Short final vowels are lost after long syllables (two consonants or a syllable with a long vowel or diphthong) in Veps, partly Ludian, both North and South Estonian, and most Southwestern dialects of Finnish. For example, Proto-Finnic
*kakci "two",
*neljä "four",
*viici "five" > Estonian
kaks,
neli,
viis, Veps
kaks', ''nel'l'
, viž
, Võro katś
, nelli
, viiś
, but > standard Finnish kaksi
, neljä
, viisi
. This change occurred before the loss of final consonants (if any), as vowels that were originally followed by a consonant were not lost. The loss of final *-i'' leaves phonemic palatalization of the preceding consonant in many languages, on which see below.
Colloquial Finnish loses word-final
i under more limited conditions, in particular after
s (e.g.
kaks "two",
viis "5"; inflectional endings such as
aamuks "for/to the morning" (translative),
talos "your house" (2nd person singular possessive),
tulis "would come" (3rd person singular conditional)) as well as word-final
a/ä from several inflectional endings (e.g. inessive
-s(s), elative
-st, adessive
-l(l), ablative
-lt). Ingrian also has word-final
i-reduction, sometimes obligatory, but more often optional. Thus,
*kakci >
kaks,
*viici >
viis, but
*suuri >
suur,
suuri,
*peeni >
peeni,
peen,
*keeli >
keeli,
keel. In the Soikkola, Hevaha and Ylä-Laukaa dialects of Ingrian, the word-final
a/ä in inflectional endings often reduce as well (e.g. inessive
-s, elative
-st, adessive
-l, ablative
-lt), and a short vowel preceding these endings, unless directly following a short stressed syllable, is elongated. Moreover, the Ala-Laukaa dialect of Ingrian developed a more complex system of vowel reduction in any unstressed syllable unless immediately following a short stressed syllable. In Livonian, all short final vowels except
*a and
*ä are lost, thus giving
*kakci >
kakš as in Estonian, but also
*veci "water" > ''ve'ž
, while no vowel was lost in *neljä
> nēļa
, *kala
"fish" > kalā''. Unstressed
*o merges into
*u in Northern Estonian. Vowel harmony is lost in Estonian, Livonian and partly Veps, but not South Estonian or Votic. For example, Proto-Finnic
*külä "village" > Estonian
küla and Livonian
kilā, but > Finnish
kylä, Veps
külä, Votic
tšülä, Võro
külä. In Finnish and Karelian, vowel harmony was retained and extended to
*o as well, creating a new vowel
*ö in words with front vowel harmony. Many languages in the Southern Finnic group, as well as again Veps and Southwestern Finnish, show loss of unstressed vowels in medial syllables. In these languages, vowel length is lost before
h early on, while diphthongs are simplified into short vowels.
Palatalization Palatalized consonants are reintroduced into most varieties other than Western Finnish. The most widespread source is regressive palatalization due to a lost word-final or word-medial
*-i (a form of
cheshirization), and consonant clusters with
*j as a second member. In several varieties, there is also progressive palatalization, where a diphthong ending in
*-i and the long vowel
*ii causes palatalization of a following consonant. • In Livonian, the palatalized
*ś and
*ź that arose from loss of
*-i generally shift to postalveolar
š and
ž. • In Votic,
*k and
*g are palatalized to
tš and
j before all front vowels. • Veps undergoes both regressive and progressive palatalization, but with different outcomes: • Progressive palatalization of post-Proto-Finnic
*s yields postalveolar
š or
ž. For example, Proto-Finnic
*viici "five" >
*viisi > Veps
viž. • Regressive palatalization of post-Proto-Finnic
*s yields alveolo-palatal
ś or
ź. For example, Proto-Finnic
*kuuci "six" >
*kuusi > Veps
kuź. • In Northern Karelian, a general shift
*s >
š occurs, except blocked in progressive palatalization contexts. Estonian, Votic and Finnish do not have general palatalization, and
š occurs almost solely in loanwords, most commonly of Russian or German origin. Estonian has positional and phonemic palatalization of medial and final alveolars (except /r/), realized usually as pre-palatalized.
Loss of final consonants Final
*-k was generally lost. It is preserved in some dialects: • In Eastern Votic as
-g • In Võro as
-q (a glottal stop ) • In the now extinct Hevaha dialect of Ingrian as
-k when following
-tV- or
-tsV-. Final
*-h is widely lost as well. It is preserved: • In Karelian and Veps as
-h. • In Southern Estonian as either
-h or as a glottal stop
-q. • In the now extinct Hevaha and Ylä-Laukaa dialects of Ingrian as
-h Traces of both
*-k and
*-h remain in Finnish, where the consonants became a
sandhi effect, assimilating to the initial consonant of the following word and lengthening it. This effect does not occur in all dialects and is not represented orthographically, but is often noted with a superscript "ˣ" in reference works. In Western dialects there was also metathesis of
*h, which preserved the original
*h along with sandhi lengthening, e.g. Proto-Finnic
*mureh "sorrow" > Western Finnish
murheˣ (Karelian
mureh, Võro
murõh/
murõq) and Proto-Finnic
*veneh "boat" > Western Finnish
venheˣ (Karelian/Veps
veneh, Võro
vineh/
vineq). Standard Finnish inconsistently adopts some words in their Western Finnish shape (e.g.
murhe;
perhe "family",
valhe "lie"), some in their Eastern Finnish shape (e.g.
vene;
huone "room"). Final
*-n is lost in most of the South Finnic area (as well as widely in modern-day colloquial Finnish). In Votic this triggers
compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel. The 1st person verbal ending resists the change, and generally remains as
-n. Loss of final consonants followed the loss of final vowels. Thus, vowels followed by a lost consonant were preserved.
Loss of voiced obstruents The voiced obstruents
*b/β,
*d/δ and
*g/γ that occurred as the weak grades of single plosives were often lost or modified in various ways. The simplest outcomes are in the marginal languages Livonian, Ludic and Veps, where all three are reflected as plain voiced stops
b,
d and
g respectively regardless of environment. The remaining languages show more complex developments.
*b/β develops relatively uniformly: • The fricative
*β merges with
*v. • The nasal-plosive cluster
*mb assimilates to
mm, except in Olonets Karelian (Livvi). The development of
*d/δ is more diverse: • The clusters
*lδ and
*rδ are widely assimilated to geminated
*ll and
*rr, creating the characteristic gradation patterns
lt ~
ll and
rt ~
rr. • In other positions,
*δ is lost early on in the other languages of the Eastern Finnic group (Eastern Finnish, Karelian and Ingrian) as well as in Estonian. After long vowels, this frequently resulted in
hiatus resolution, often by inserting a glide
-(i)j- or
-(v)v-. • In Western Finnish,
*δ is lost after an unstressed syllable, but remains after a stressed syllable. It remained initially as , but shifted to or in Ostrobothnian and to in Tavastian. In Standard Finnish, the sound was written or early on, and pronunciation has now become through spelling pronunciation. Individual words may follow particular dialects instead, e.g. zero in
*naudetta >
navetta "cowshed",
l in
*tadikkoi >
talikko "manure fork". • The nasal-plosive cluster
*nd assimilates to
nn, except in Olonets Karelian.
*g/γ develops somewhat similar to
*d/δ, but with several conditional outcomes: • In Votic,
*γ is fortified to when not palatalized (see above). • In Karelian, the clusters
*lγ and
*rγ become geminated
*ll and
*rr, like the clusters
*lδ and
*rδ. • In Western Finnish,
*lγ and
*rγ become
*lj and
*rj when followed by an unrounded front vowel (
*i,
*e, and often
*ä), although there is wide variation and there are exceptions for each vowel. There are also many words in which the cluster
*hk develops into
*hγ analogically, which then likewise develops into
*hj, although again with numerous exceptions. • Between two labial vowels,
*γ becomes
*v in Western Finnish. • In all remaining languages and positions,
*γ is lost. • The nasal-plosive cluster
*ŋg is assimilated to the corresponding geminate
ng in several of the Finnish dialects. However, given the lack of a pre-existing
*ŋ, the cluster widely "un-gradates" back to
*ŋk. In Lower Luga Ingrian, this cluster remained a voiced (as opposed to the voiceless
nk ). The loss of consonants often created new long vowels and diphthongs, particularly in non-initial syllables. Compare for example: • Finnish
auttaa "to help"
ii. •
*iu,
*iü,
*eu,
*öü >
üü ~
üu. •
*au,
*ou >
uu. North Estonian instead unrounds all diphthongs ending in
-ü to
-i: •
*eü >
ei •
*äü >
äi In Savonian Finnish, the second element of all diphthongs is lowered: •
*au,
*äü >
ao,
äö or further >
aa,
ää •
*ai,
*äi >
ae,
äe •
*oi,
*öi >
oe,
öe In Livonian,
*au is labialized to
ou, and
*äi is palatalized to
ei. Following this, the mid diphthongs are smoothed to long vowels under certain conditions: •
ou >
oo •
õi,
õu >
õõ •
ei >
ee Coda vocalization A variety of languages shows a change of a syllable-final consonant into a vowel. This is not one single change, but several independent developments. In the Southern Finnic group,
*n is lost before
*s ( Estonian
kaas,
põõsas, but > Finnish
kansi,
pensas. In Western Finnish, stop consonants before a sonorant are vocalized to
u. E.g.
*kapris "goat",
*atra "plough",
*kakra "oats" > Finnish
kauris,
aura,
kaura, but > Estonian
kaber,
ader,
kaer, Karelian
kapris,
atra,
kakra. Standard Finnish mostly follows the Western Finnish model. Some notable exceptions include
kekri "All Saints' Eve feast",
kupla "bubble". Syllable-final
*l is vocalized in Veps at a late date, creating
u-final diphthongs in the northern and central dialects, long vowels in the southern. ==See also==