A proto-language is a language which was the common ancestor of related languages that form a language family. The German term Ursprache (derived from the prefix Ur- "primordial" and Sprache "language") is occasionally used as well. In most cases, the ancestral protolanguage isn't known directly and it has to be reconstructed by comparing different members of the language family via a technique called the comparative method. Through this process only a part of the proto-language's structure and… (More on Proto-language)