frummál

Frummál is a term sometimes used in discussions of language and linguistic history, particularly in relation to historical linguistics and reconstruction. It generally refers to the hypothetical or reconstructed ancestral language from which a group of related languages is believed to have descended. The term itself is derived from Old Norse, where "frum" means "first" or "original," and "mál" means "speech" or "language."

The concept of a frummál is central to the comparative method of historical linguistics. Linguists use this method to identify commonalities between modern and historical languages, and by analyzing these similarities and differences, they can hypothesize about the structure, vocabulary, and phonology of the parent language. For example, Proto-Germanic is considered the frummál of the Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages. Similarly, Proto-Indo-European is the reconstructed frummál of the Indo-European language family, which encompasses a vast number of languages spoken across Europe, Asia, and parts of the Middle East.

It is important to note that a frummál is not a language that was ever directly recorded or spoken in its entirety by a known historical community in the way that Latin or Ancient Greek were. Instead, it is a theoretical construct, a scientific model built through meticulous analysis of its descendants. The reconstruction of a frummál involves identifying sound changes, grammatical shifts, and lexical innovations that occurred as the ancestral language diverged into distinct daughter languages. The accuracy of the reconstruction depends on the quantity and quality of the evidence from the descendant languages.