Editing Mongolic languages (section)

===Proto-Mongolic===
{{main|Proto-Mongolic language}}

Proto-Mongolic, the ancestor language of the modern Mongolic languages, is very close to Middle Mongol, the language spoken at the time of [[Genghis Khan]] and the [[Mongol Empire]]. Most features of modern Mongolic languages can thus be reconstructed from Middle Mongol. An exception would be the voice suffix like -caga- 'do together', which can be reconstructed from the modern languages but is not attested in Middle Mongol.

The languages of the historical [[Donghu people|Donghu]], [[Wuhuan]], and [[Xianbei]] peoples might have been related to Proto-Mongolic.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Andrews|1999|p=72}}, "[...] believed that at least some of their constituent tribes spoke a Mongolian language, though there is still some argument that a particular variety of Turkic may have been spoken among them."</ref> For [[Tuoba language|Tabghach]], the language of the founders of the [[Northern Wei]] dynasty, for which the surviving evidence is very sparse, and Khitan, for which evidence exists that is written in the two Khitan scripts ([[Khitan large script|large]] and [[Khitan small script|small]]) which have as yet not been fully deciphered, a direct affiliation to Mongolic can now be taken to be most likely or even demonstrated.<ref>see Vovin 2007 for Tabghach and Janhunen 2012 for Khitan</ref>