Urheimat (; ; a German compound of "primitive, original" and Heimat "home, homeland") is a linguistic term that denotes the homeland of the speakers of a proto-language. A proto-language is a hypothetical parent language in the tree model of language evolution. As the placement of branches is often uncertain, the time, location, and very existence of an urheimat is also often uncertain. However, it is possible to have considerable confidence regarding the location of an urheimat of a language or language family from multiple lines of  linguistic, genetic and archaeological evidence, even when the precise contours of a proto-language are not firmly established.