Ur·spra·che ( r shprä   )n. See protolanguage. [German : ur-, original (from Middle High German, out of, from Old High German; see ud- in Indo-European roots) + Sprache, language, speech (from Middle High German spr  che, from Old High German sprhha).] |
Ursprache German [ˈuːrʃpraːxə]
n
(Linguistics) any hypothetical extinct and unrecorded language reconstructed from groups of related recorded languages. For example, Germanic is an Ursprache reconstructed by comparison of English, Dutch, German, the Scandinavian languages, and Gothic; Indo-European is an Ursprache reconstructed by comparison of the Germanic group, Latin, Sanskrit, etc.
[from ur- primeval, original + Sprache language]
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