> *No texts can be confidently attributed to Proto-Canidic, and the language itself remains unattested in the historical record. Consequently, much of what is proposed regarding its structure derives from comparative analysis of later forms and should be regarded as tentative.* > > *References to Proto-Canidic within this volume should not be interpreted as evidence for a fully reconstructed linguistic system. Rather, the term is employed as a convenient label for the hypothetical ancestral language presumed to have preceded the earliest attested forms of Old Canidic.*