Finno-Volgaic or Fenno-Volgaic is a defunct hypothesis of a subgrouping of the Uralic languages that tried to group the Finnic languages, Sami languages, Mordvinic languages and the Mari language. It was hypothetized to have branched from Finno-Permic languages about 2000 BC.
Finnic and Sami languages are sometimes grouped together under Finno-Lappic languages, while Mordvinic and Mari were formerly grouped together as the defunct group of Volga-Finnic languages.
The current stage of research rejects Volga-Finnic, while the validity of Finno-Lappic and Finno-Permic remains disputed.
Only a single uniting phonological feature of the Finno-Volgaic languages has been proposed: the loss of the consonant *w before rounded vowels.
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“No doubt, to a man of sense, travel offers advantages. As many languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades, so many times is he a man. A foreign country is a point of comparison, wherefrom to judge his own.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)