§ 304. There are several thousand languages in the modern world. It is not possible to determine their exact number, which is explained by various reasons, and above all by the fact that it is far from always possible to strictly distinguish between a language and a territorial dialect: "The difference between different languages and dialects of one language is arbitrary." So, for example, in modern Polish it is customary to distinguish between the following dialects: Greater Poland, Lesser Poland, Mazovian, Silesian and Kashubian. At the same time, some linguists (Kashubian St. Ramuld, German Fr. Lorenz, Russian scientists A.F. Hilferding, I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, V. Yagich, Ya. Rozvadovsky, A.M. Selishchev, etc.) consider the Kashubian dialect as an independent West Slavic language. For a long time in romance, there were disputes over the number of Romance languages, the status of such languages or dialects, such as Galician (a separate, independent language or dialect of the Portuguese language), Gascon (a separate language or a dialect of Provençal), Franco-Provençal (an independent language or dialect of French or Occitan), etc. There were different opinions on the status of the Moldovan language (a separate language or a variant of Romanian), Catalan and Occitan (different languages or variants of one language), etc.
Different sources indicate a different number of world languages. Let's compare some statements on this subject: "There are more than two thousand different languages in the world"; "Modern science has over 2500 languages"; "... There are about 2800 separate languages on the globe"; "There are currently between 2,500 and 5,000 languages on the globe." In the speech of one of the participants of the international scientific conference "Normative and Descriptive Terminology", held in Moscow on May 25–26, 2006, information was provided that there are 6417 languages in the world.
Scientific research and description of languages involves their classification, which refers to the distribution of languages into certain groupings (classes, groups, subgroups, etc.) based on various differential features. According to the definition of V. A. Vinogradov, the classification of languages is "the distribution of the languages of the world according to certain taxonomic (i.e., classification. - V.N.) headings in accordance with the principles arising from the general purpose of the study, and on the basis of certain signs.
The classification of languages can be based on various features, namely: the origin of languages, their genetic relationship (genealogical classification); typology of languages, types of language units (typological classification); belonging to one or another language area, one or another areal community (areal classification).
In linguistic literature, the first two classifications of languages are usually considered - genealogical and typological, less often attention is paid to the latter.
Genealogical classification of languages
§ 305. Genealogical classification of languages, which is sometimes also called genetic (cf. Greek. genos-"kind, birth, descent" and logos-"concept, doctrine"), is the distribution of the languages of the world into different groups based on family ties between them, taking into account the degree of their relationship. In this case, linguistic kinship relations are understood as the presence of similarities between homogeneous linguistic elements, due to the common origin of these languages from the same base language, or proto-language.
"Language kinship- a common property of two or more. languages, which consists in the fact that their original minimal significant elements (root morphemes and affixes) are in strictly defined correspondences, reflecting the regular nature of sound transformations ... of the material fund, ascending to a common source - proto-language".
Unlike other possible classifications of languages, the genealogical classification is absolute. This means that in this classification "each language belongs to one specific genealogy, grouping and cannot change this affiliation."
In the genealogical classification, the languages of the world are usually divided into such groupings as language families, branches, groups, subgroups. At the same time, the terms denoting the corresponding groupings of languages are used in linguistics extremely inconsistently (see below).
§ 306. The largest association of languages in the genealogical classification is language family, or language family. A language family is a set of languages, one way or another (to a greater or lesser extent) related by kinship relations and retaining certain similarities of certain elements.
language family- this is "a set of related languages \u200b\u200bthat descended from one ancestor language, or parent language (for example, Indo-European S. Ya.)", "inherited from a common parent language a noticeable commonality of the material fund (words, morphemes, roots, affixes), reflecting strict sound correspondences".
Other terms are also used to designate a family of languages: "big family" (as opposed to "small family"), or "macrofamily" (as opposed to "microfamily"), "philia". In this sense, the term "group of languages" or "language group" is also often used.
Among the languages of the world, several dozen language families differ. These are associations of such languages as, for example: Indo-European (distributed on all continents of the globe), Turkic (distribution area - many countries of Europe and Asia), Finno-Ugric, or Finno-Ugric (Hungary, Norway, Western Siberia), Tungus- Manchu, or Manchu-Tungus (Siberia, Far East), Chukchi-Kamchatka (Chukotka, Kamchatka, etc.), Eskimo-Aleutian (Chukotka, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Aleutian Islands, etc.), Nakh-Dagestan, or East Caucasian (Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey), Mongolian (Mongolia), Sino-Tibetan, or Sino-Tibetan (China), Thai (Indochina and South China), Austroasian, or Austroasian (Southeast and South Asia ), Austronesian, or Malayo-Polynesian (Indonesia, Philippines, etc.), Dravidian (South Asian subcontinent), Papuan (New Guinea and some other Pacific Islands), Congo-Kordofanian, or Niger-Kordofanian (Africa), Nilo-Saharan (Africa), kois Anish (Africa, South Africa), Afroasian, Afroasiatic, or (obsolete) Semitic-Hamitic, Hamito-Semitic (Africa, Asia), Australian (Australia), Indian, American, or Amerindian (Central and South America), Caribbean, or Caribbean (South America), Gulf languages (North America).
To date, the languages of the Indo-European family have been studied in the most detail. In total there are over 100 Indo-European languages. According to some sources, their number reaches 127. According to scientists, the territory of the initial (or relatively early) distribution of the Indo-European languages \u200b\u200bis located "in the strip from Central Europe and the North Balkans to the Black Sea region (Southern Russian steppes)". During the last five centuries, the languages of the Indo-European family have also spread to North and South America, Australia, and partly Africa.
The languages of different families differ from each other in their specific features in different areas of the linguistic structure - in the field of phonetics, vocabulary, morphology, syntax, etc. transitivity - intransitivity of verbs, the presence of forms of different moods, etc. Many words of common Sindo-European origin are preserved in the vocabulary of modern Indo-European languages. These include some names of degrees of kinship (mother, daughter, son, brother, sister, etc.), names of animals (wolf, beaver, cow, goat, fly, etc.), trees (oak, willow, birch, etc.) and many other words (coast, sea, water, moon, fire, smoke, salt, sharp, two, three, four, etc.).
§ 307. Many families of languages are divided into branches, which are often called small families, or groups. Language branches are smaller divisions of languages than families. The languages of the same branch retain closer family ties, have more similarities.
Among the languages of the Indo-European family, there are branches of such languages as, for example: Slavic, Baltic, Germanic, Romance, Greek (Greek group), Celtic, Illyrian, Indian (otherwise - Indo-Aryan), Indo-Iranian (Aryan), Tocharian and some others. In addition, some single languages \u200b\u200bthat do not form special branches belong to the Indo-European language family, for example: Albanian, Armenian, Penetian, Thracian, Phrygian.
The Finno-Ugric language family includes four branches: Baltic-Finnish, Volga, Perm and Ugric; in addition, the Sami language belongs to this family, which is a single language, not included in any of the listed branches.
The languages of the Chukchi-Kamchatka family are divided into two branches: Chukchi-Karyak and Itelmen.
In Russian linguistics, the most thoroughly studied and described are the Indo-European languages of the Slavic branch, which were originally represented in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, and later became widespread in different regions of Europe and Asia.
A striking distinctive feature of the Slavic languages in the field of phonetics is the loss of Proto-Indo-European diphthongs and diphthong combinations, their transformation into monophthongs, or monophthongization. The consonant system of modern Slavic languages reflects the first mitigation (first palatalization) of back-lingual g, k, x, expressed in their transition to the corresponding hissing z, c, s, which was reflected in the alternation of posterior lingual with hissing. In the field of morphology, almost all Slavic languages have lost their dual number. All Slavic languages have lost the ending s in the nominative case of the singular number of masculine nouns in connection with the action in the Common Slavic language of the law of the open syllable (cf. such Russian forms as wolf, son, smoke and their equivalents in different Slavic languages, on the one hand, and in non-Slavic Indo-European languages, on the other hand, for example, Lithuanian vilkas, siinus, dumos). In the vocabulary of various modern Slavic languages, a large number of words of common Slavic origin have been preserved: person, place, memory, weather, fun, simple, clean, greedy, write, read, forget and etc.
The most significant distinguishing features of the Baltic languages in the field of phonetics can be considered the opposition of vowel phonemes in longitude - brevity, the presence of tonic stress, intonational opposition of phonemes, the presence of diphthongs (pure and mixed). In the morphology of names, five types of declension of nouns are preserved, in the sphere of the verb - a variety of types of compound tenses and moods formed by combining personal forms of the auxiliary verb with participles. The original vocabulary of common Indo-European origin prevails in the vocabulary, especially in such semantic areas as kinship names, parts of the human body, names of animals, plants, landscape elements, celestial bodies, elementary actions, names of numbers, pronouns, functional words, etc.
The Indo-European languages of the Germanic branch are characterized by such distinctive features as, for example: the widespread use of ablaut, i.e. alternation of vowels in the root of a word that performs an inflectional or derivational function; spirantization of voiceless stop consonants p, t, k common Indo-European origin under certain conditions, i.e. turning them into slotted, or fricative; dynamic stress on the first (root) syllable; the presence of two varieties of adjective declension - strong, or pronominal, declension and weak, or nominal.
The characteristic features of the Romance languages are: in the field of phonetics - the general Romance system of vowels of seven phonemes (preserved in most Romance languages), the presence of diphthongs, the simplification and transformation of some groups of consonants, the tendency to open the syllable; in morphology - a wide distribution of analytical grammatical forms, a two-gender system of nouns (male and female), lack of declension of names, a variety of forms of the article, an abundance of tense forms of the verb (differs up to 16 tenses); in word formation - the widespread use of conversion (transition of adjectives into nouns), denominative formation of verbs; in vocabulary - the predominance of words inherited from Latin, a large number of borrowings from Germanic, Celtic, ancient Greek and other languages.
Linguistic literature draws attention to the fact that the genetic relationship between the languages of different branches is manifested to varying degrees. In particular, the presence of close relationships between such Indo-European languages as Indian and Iranian, Slavic and Baltic is noted, which allows us to speak about the existence of intermediate language branches - Indo-Iranian, some Balto-Slav, etc. Particularly close ties remain between the Slavic and Baltic languages, which combine such common features as, for example, the presence of pronominal forms of adjectives, the similarity of the grammatical category of the verb aspect, the presence of a significant number of related words. It should be noted that the similarity of the vocabulary of the Slavic and Baltic languages is explained not only by the common origin of these languages, but also by the borrowing of a large number of words by the Baltic languages from Slavic as a result of long-term contacts between the Balts and Slavs in the past.
§ 308. Within the framework of some linguistic branches, different groups of closely related languages are distinguished, which are related to each other by closer genetic relationships than the languages of individual branches of certain language families. So, for example, the Slavic branch of the Indo-European family of languages is divided into three groups: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages), West Slavic (Polish, Czech, Slovak, Lusatian, and also extinct Polabian) and South Slavic (Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Slovenian, as well as Old Church Slavonic, preserved in the texts of religious literature). Germanic languages are also traditionally divided into three groups: northern, north Germanic, or Scandinavian, a group (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic and Faroese), western, or West Germanic (English, German, Dutch, Luxembourgish, Frisian, Afrikaans , Yiddish) and Eastern, or East Germanic (extinct Gothic, Burgundian, Vandal, Gepid, Herul). Among the Romance languages, five groups are usually distinguished: Ibero-Romance (Portuguese, Galician, Spanish, Catalan), Gallo-Romance (French, Provençal), Italo-Romance (Italian, Sardinian), Romansh, or Ladin (Swiss Romansh, Tyrolean Romansh , Friulian) and Balkan-Romance (Romanian, Moldavian, Aromunian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian).
The languages of different groups belonging to the same branch are characterized by their similarities and differences. Let us note some phonetic phenomena that distinguish the Slavic languages of different groups - East Slavic, West Slavic and South Slavic.
In accordance with common Slavic diphthong combinations *ol, *or, *el, *er between consonants in modern East Slavic languages, the corresponding full-vowel sound combinations are used: olo, oro, ere, with possible regular deviations in the pronunciation of vowels, for example, Russian head(from *golva, cf. Lithuanian galva), cow (*kowa, cf. Lithuanian karve), milk(from *melkon, cf. german Milch, shore(from *bergos, cf. german Berg- "mountain"), in West Slavic or in some of them - sound combinations lo, go, le, ge, with possible consonant changes, respectively Polish glova, krova, mleko, brzeg, Czech hlava, krava, mleko, breh, in South Slavic - sound combinations la, ha, ha, g "a, cf. Bulgarian head, κράβα, mlyako, bryag.
In accordance with common Slavic consonant combinations *dj, *tj in modern East Slavic languages, hissing sounds are used g, s, e.g. Russians boundary(from *medja, cf. latin medius- "average"), candle(from *svetja, cf. Russian light, shine) in West Slavic - whistling affricates dz, s, e.g. Polish miedza, s "wieca, in South Slavic - other consonants (cf., for example, Bulgarian between, light, Serbo-Croatian fur, ceeha, Slovenian meja, sveca etc.).
Some groups of closely related languages are divided into subgroups. So, for example, South Slavic languages are sometimes divided into two subgroups: eastern (Bulgarian and Macedonian) and western (Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian), West Slavic into three subgroups: Lechitic, Czech-Slavic and Serbo-Lusatian.
GENEALOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES
Genealogical classification of languages - the study and grouping of the languages of the world based on the determination of family ties between them (assigning them to the same family, group), i.e., on the basis of a common origin from the alleged proto-language. Each family comes from divergent dialects of the same language (the parent language of this family), for example, all Romance languages \u200b\u200bcome from the dialects of vernacular (Vulgar) Latin, which were spoken by most of the population of the Roman Empire before its collapse.
The genealogical (genetic) classification of languages is based on the relationship of kinship between the languages of the commonality of some languages by origin. When classifying languages according to common origin, "the establishment of a connection between the studied phenomena in time, the study of transitions from lower forms to higher ones" takes place.
The French scientist A. Meillet wrote: "Two languages are called related when they are both the results of two different evolutions of the same language that was in use before."
To determine the place of a language, according to the genealogical classification of languages, it must be compared with other related languages of the same family and with their common parent language. In languages that use morphonological alternations, which are associated with a change in the place of word stress in a word form, whole groups of word forms related to each other within one can be identified with each other by origin.
In such areas of vocabulary as numerals, it is possible to borrow entire lexical groups from one language to another, which, even if there is a system of dictionary correspondences that obey certain rules, does not make it possible to directly conclude that languages belong to one family. The coincidence of modern Japanese forms of numerals from "one" to "six" with modern Tibetan ones is explained only by the fact that the Japanese language more than 1000 years ago, in the era of strong Chinese influence on Japanese culture, borrowed these from the Chinese language, ultimately related to Tibetan.
This means that the proximity of the two contacting languages made possible the coexistence of two parallel forms of the same word (for example, Old English eu "egg" and Old Scandinavian egg > modern English egg "egg"; Russian " hope" and church Slav. "hope"), after which one of the words won.
Most related languages (dialects), after separation from each other, may find themselves secondarily in linguistic contact, in which a significant number of words (including the most commonly used) are borrowed from one language (dialect) into another. In the traditional genealogical classification of languages, only the initial common origin of languages from dialects of one language is usually recorded.
If related languages or dialects do not completely stop contacts with each other, then secondary emerging interlingual (interdialect) connections can overlap earlier ones, which makes it difficult to consistently carry out a genealogical classification of languages according to the principle of a genealogical tree. Each common language (parent language) breaks down into two or more parent languages, which, in turn, can break up into two or more intermediate parent languages, from which really known languages could develop. For example, all known Slavic languages were derived from Common Slavic through three intermediate proto-languages (West Slavic, South Slavic and East Slavic), and the presence of intermediate proto-languages can also be assumed. Denoting the ancient dialects of the Proto-Slavic language in accordance with the languages into which these dialects later turned, we can distinguish at least 7 such dialects that were in contact with each other in the 1st millennium BC.
Prolekhite
Proto-North East Slavic
Prolusatian
Proto-Czech-Slovak-Slovenian
Proto-South East Slavic
Proto-Central South Slavic
Proto-Peripheral South Slavic
The closer the separation of related languages to historical time and the greater the number of monuments reflecting the ancient dialect fragmentation of these languages, the more realistic the picture of their historical relationships, fixed in the genealogical classification of languages, can be. In the absence of ancient texts and at a great remoteness of the time of separation of related languages, the schemes of their relationships, fixed in the genealogical classification of languages, remain more conditional (for example, in relation to many languages of Southeast Asia or South America).
The genealogical classification of languages fixes only the origin of some main part of grammatical and lexical (root) morphs, without assuming that the source of all other morphs is known. For example, in such well-known Indo-European languages as Germanic and Greek, the origin of a significant number of substrate words, ultimately presumably related to North Caucasian ones, is only now beginning to be clarified. For all these reasons, the genealogical classification of languages can still be considered to be only at a preliminary stage of its development.
Separate observations that precede the genealogical classification of languages are already contained in the works of medieval scholars: Mahmud Kashgari on the Turkic languages, Arabic and Jewish linguists who compared Semitic languages with each other, etc. A successful experience in the synthesis of previous opinions on the genealogical classification of languages can be found in G. Leibniz. The foundations of the genealogical classification of languages were outlined in comparative historical linguistics as early as the 19th century, but its further improvement in the spirit of Schmidt's theory of waves was carried out in the light of the achievements of linguistic geography in the 20th century. The most intensive work on refining the genealogical classification of most languages in Southeast Asia, Africa, North and South America was carried out in the middle and second half of the 20th century. The beginning of systematic work on the unification of languages into "macrofamilies" dates back to the same time.
In order to concretely imagine how the concept of language kinship was formed, let us schematically depict the path along which linguistics moved from collecting various linguistic facts to constructing a theory explaining them. Researchers have long noticed that there are common features in the structures of many Euro-Asian languages, for example, Polish woda, Russian water, English water, German Wasser, but Japanese mizu, Chinese shui, or Old Russian oko, Polish oko, German Auge, Lithuanian akis, but Japanese me, Chinese yangjing. Thousands of such facts form the overall picture. At the same time, it turned out that it is important to compare precisely ancient words and morphemes. A comparison of the original (original) words, roots, service affixes will be reliable.
The question of the ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans
According to scientists, a single Proto-Indo-European linguistic community could exist in the 6th-5th millennium BC. e. Regarding the place of the initial settlement of the Indo-Europeans, there is no consensus. There are three points of view on this issue.
1. The original habitat of the Indo-Europeans is Asia Minor and neighboring territories. From here, as a result of migrations, Indo-European tribes settled in various regions of Asia and Europe. Only the peoples of the Anatolian group (Hittites, Luvians, etc.) remained in their former place. This hypothesis is being developed by Soviet linguists T.V. Gamkrelidze and V.V. Ivanov.
2. Indo-Europeans inhabited a large steppe territory of the Trans-Volga region and Northern Kazakhstan and invaded Europe in the 5th-4th millennium BC. e., where they met with local non-Indo-European peoples. This hypothesis was put forward by the American archaeologist M. Gimbutas and has recently received a certain distribution.
3. However, in our opinion, the most likely assumption is that the early Indo-Europeans settled in areas of central and partly eastern Europe (especially in the Danube basin). This hypothesis, based on a long philological tradition, has solid archaeological and linguistic support and can be considered as the main one.
4.02. Classification of Indo-European languages
The historical development of the Indo-European languages led to the formation of separate language groups. let's look at them in more detail.
1. Indian group. Includes at least 20 languages and consists of three subgroups: a. North Indian, which includes all the modern Indian languages of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal: Hindustani, Bihari, Rajasthani, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Assamese, Nepali, etc., as well as the Parya language, discovered in the 1950s gg. in Tajikistan by the Soviet researcher I.M. Orange; b. Ceylon, represented by the Sinhala language (Sri Lanka), which broke away from the northern Indian languages about 2500 years ago; in. gypsy, which includes numerous dialects of the gypsy language of Europe and Asia (Northern Russian, Kalderar, Ursar, Bosha, Navar, etc.), the exodus of the ancestors of the gypsies from India dates back to the 1st millennium AD. e. Of the dead Indian languages, Sanskrit should be mentioned, the first monuments of which date back to the 4th century BC. BC e.
2. Iranian group. It includes about 40 languages, united in four subgroups: a. northwestern, including Median, Parthian (dead), Kurdish, Talysh, Gilan, Mazandaran and Balochi languages; b. northeastern, consisting of the Scythian, Khorezmian and Sogdian (dead), Ossetian and Yagnob languages; in. southwestern, which includes dead ancient Persian and modern Persian, Tajik, Dari, Tat and other languages; southeastern, including Bactrian (dead), Afghan, Munjan, and also Pamir languages.
3. Dard group. Its existence is not recognized by all scientists, however, recent studies show the need to separate the Dardic languages into a single classification unit. These languages, spoken by the populations of the northern highlands of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, fall into three sub-groups: a. western (or kafir): kati, vaigali, ashkun, prasun, dameli; b. central: pashai, shumashti, glangali, kalasha, khavar, etc.; in. Eastern: Torvali, Sheena, Phalura, Kashmiri, etc.
4. Baltic group. Includes two modern (Lithuanian and Latvian) and one dead (Prussian) language, which shows closeness to the Slavic languages. Writing in Lithuanian since the 16th century.
5. Slavic group. It includes 13 major modern languages and a number of minor languages and dialects. Slavic languages are divided into three subgroups: a. South Slavic, including Old Church Slavonic (dead), Bulgarian, Serbian, Macedonian and Slovenian; b. West Slavic: Polish, Kashubian, Czech, Slovak, Upper Lusatian, Lower Lusatian; in. East Slavic: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian. Writing in the Old Slavonic language from the middle of the 11th century. The Slavic group in our manual is devoted to sections 3.01-3.04.
6. Celtic group. Includes four modern languages: Breton, Welsh, Irish and Manx. In the past, the languages of this group were much more widespread, up to the territory of Belarus and Ukraine, and included, for example, the languages of the original population of France (Gaulish), England and other territories.
7. Romanesque group. It is divided into four subgroups: a. Balkan-Romance, which includes Romanian, Moldavian and the extinct Dalmatian languages; b. Italo-Romance, consisting of Italian, Sardinian and Romansh; in. Gallo-Romance, including French, Provencal and Catalan; Ibero-Romance: Spanish and Portuguese. The oldest written monuments in these languages date back to the 8th-9th centuries. However, even before that time, Latin was widely spoken in Europe, the official language of the Roman Empire, which in its colloquial form was the source of the formation of all modern Romance languages and dialects. Latin is part of the Italic group, which is actually the predecessor of the modern Romance group. In the past, it included, in addition to Latin, also the Oscan, Umbrian and Faliscan languages. All of them are currently dead.
Some scholars also include the Esperanto language, invented in the 1980s by the Warsaw doctor L.L. Zamenhof. Esperanto shows great closeness to the Romance languages in terms of vocabulary and morphology. Ido (a reformed version of Esperanto) is also included in the Romance group.
8. German group. Consists of three subgroups: a. East Germanic: dead Gothic; b. West Germanic: English, German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Frisian and Yiddish (modern Hebrew) languages; in. North Germanic (Scandinavian): Icelandic, Norwegian, Faroese, Swedish, Danish. The oldest written monuments in the Gothic language (4th century AD).
9. Albanian group. It currently includes one language, Albanian, whose position in the circle of Indo-European languages is still unclear.
10. Greek group. Presented in two languages: dead ancient Greek and modern Greek.
11. Armenian group. Consists of two languages: dead ancient Armenian and modern Armenian.
12. Anatolian group. It has now completely disappeared. The Anatolian languages can be divided into two subgroups: a. Hittite-Lydian, including the Hittite, Lydian, Carian languages; b. Luwian-Lycian, formed by the Luwian, Palaian, Lycian, Sidetic, Pisidian, Isaurian, Cilician languages. Probably, in the composition of the Anatolian languages, a third subgroup can also be distinguished, formed by one Etruscan language, however, the final relationship between the Etruscan and Anatolian languages has not yet been proven. The first inscriptions in the Hittite language date back to the 17th century. BC e.
13. Tocharian group. It consists of two extinct languages, the so-called Tocharian A and Tocharian B, which were spoken by the population of northwestern China at the end of the first millennium AD. e.
14. The Indo-European language family also includes some of the now extinct languages of Europe and Asia Minor, which do not show closeness to the named groups of Indo-European languages and are known only from fragmentary inscriptions. These are the following languages: Thracian, Daco-Mysian, Phrygian, Illyrian, Messapian, Venetian, as well as the reconstructed Pelasgian language. The discovery of the language of the Pelasgians should be said in more detail. It was discovered by analyzing the "non-Greek" in appearance and structure of the words in the ancient Greek language, which, as scientists believed, were borrowed from the disappeared already in the 1st millennium BC. e. the language of the indigenous population of Greece, as well as as a result of the study of geographical names (toponyms), which often remain for a long time almost unchanged. The Bulgarian linguist V. Georgiev defined the essence of this method as follows: "A new application of the comparative historical method is as follows: by establishing a consistent system of characteristic features (sound correspondences) of the comparative historical phonetics of the disappeared unknown language, determine its vocabulary and thus reconstruct in general terms itself language" .
This is the range of currently known Indo-European languages. Less traditional is the inclusion in this family of a number of so-called pidgins and creole languages formed on the basis of any language (for example, English or French) and using its vocabulary, but using it in accordance with the grammatical rules of the language of the indigenous population of this territory. An example of such a language is Pidgin English (or Tok Pisin), which is today the official language of Papua New Guinea.
GENEALOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF THE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD
| INTRODUCTION | 3 |
| 1. LANGUAGE | 6 |
| 8 | |
| 3. THE HOMEHOUSE OF THE INDO-EUROPEANS ACCORDING TO THE LANGUAGE | 12 |
| 4. THE HOMEHOUSE OF THE SLAVES ACCORDING TO THE LANGUAGE | 16 |
| 5. PRO-SLAVIC LANGUAGE | 19 |
| 6. BALTOS-SLAVIC COMMUNITY | 22 |
7. AUGUST SCHLEICHER (1821-1868) |
26 |
| CONCLUSION | 28 |
| BIBLIOGRAPHY | 31 |
INTRODUCTION
The genealogical classification of languages is closely related to the concept of linguistic kinship. The kinship of languages is manifested in their systematic material similarity, i.e., in the similarity of the material from which the exponents of morphemes and words that are identical or close in meaning are built in these languages.
It is necessary to distinguish between two types of historical connection of languages: on the one hand - contact , caused by geographical, territorial proximity, contact of civilizations, bilateral or unilateral cultural influences, etc.; on the other hand - ancestral relationship languages that have developed in a process of divergence from one more or less unified language that existed before. Language contacts lead to the borrowing of words, individual expressions, as well as root and some affixal (usually derivational) morphemes. However, some categories of linguistic elements, as a rule, are not borrowed. First of all, these are affixes of form formation - indicators of the corresponding grammatical categories, usually also function words. There are also categories of significant words for which borrowing is less typical, for example: terms of closest relationship, names of body parts, numerals - designations of a relatively small number (especially in the range from 1 to 10), verbs - names of the most elementary actions, substitute words for various kind and some others. If in any languages there is a more or less systematic material similarity in the field of form-building affixes and in the categories of words listed now, such similarity does not indicate influences and borrowings, but the primordial relationship of these languages, that these languages are different historical continuations. the same language that existed before.
The French linguist Antoine Meillet formulated the definition of linguistic kinship as follows: "Two languages are called related when they are both the result of two different evolutions of the same language that was in use before."
This language is the common “ancestor” of related languages, i.e., the language that gradually turned into each of the related languages in the course of “two different evolutions” or disintegrated into related languages is called their parent language , or base language, and the whole set of related languages is called a language family.
Thus, Russian, Lithuanian, Latin, French, Spanish, Greek, Old Indian, English, German, the extinct Hittite and a number of other living and dead languages together make up the Indo-European family of languages. It arose as a result of the collapse of the common Indo-European language-base (Proto-Indo-European) and the long-term independent development of its isolated territorial branches - dialects, which gradually turned into separate, albeit related, languages.
The Indo-European language-base is not recorded by written monuments: it ceased to exist as a relatively unified (although, apparently, having dialects) language long before the first written monuments, in any case, no later than the end of the 3rd millennium BC. e.; the words and forms of this language are only supposedly reconstructed by scientists on the basis of a comparison of the facts of related languages that have arisen from it.
Usually, a language family is a kind of set of languages, within which there are groups united by closer kinship, the so-called branches. So, in the Indo-European family, Slavic, Germanic, Romance, Indian and other branches stand out. The languages of each branch go back to their base language - Proto-Slavic, Proto-Germanic (otherwise - Common Slavic, Common Germanic), etc., which in turn is an offshoot of the parent language of the whole family, in this case Common Indo-European. Proto-Slavic, Proto-Germanic, etc., existed as relatively unified languages in an era later than the common Indo-European, but also preceding written monuments (Proto-Slavic, for example, probably before the 6th-7th centuries AD).
Within the branches, subsets are distinguished, united by an even closer relationship. An example of such a subset is the East Slavic group, covering Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. The basis language of these three languages was the Old Russian (Old East Slavonic) language, which existed as a more or less unified (albeit subdivided into tribal dialects) language in the era of Kievan Rus.
The ratio of branches and groups within one language family is schematically depicted in the form of a "family tree". However, the actual relationship between related languages is much more complicated: the disintegration of the base language does not occur in one step (some branches separate earlier, others later), individual innovations, arising in different places and at different times, unevenly cover branches and groups. As a result, for example, the Slavic branch is more closely connected with the Baltic (i.e., Lithuanian, Latvian and Old Prussian languages) in some features, with the Iranian branch in other features, with the Germanic branch in some features, etc.
The situation is similar in other language families.
1. LANGUAGE
A comparative historical study of the Indo-European languages has revealed regular correspondences between their sounds, words and forms. This can be explained by the fact that they are all descendants of one extinct ancient language from which they originated. Such a source language is usually called a proto-language (compare: great-grandfather, great-parent).
The realism of the theory of the parent language was confirmed in the last century by a comparative historical study of the group of Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian): the original words and forms restored for them (protoforms, or archetypes) coincided with the written evidence of the so-called folk ( or vulgar) Latin - the everyday colloquial language of the ancient Romans, from which these languages \u200b\u200boriginated.
In the middle of the XIX century. on the basis of the theory of the proto-language, a “family tree” scheme took shape, according to which it was believed that all the languages of the Indo-European family occurred as a result of the sequential binomial disintegration of the Indo-European proto-language; the creator of this scheme, the German scientist A. Schleicher, even wrote a fable in the Indo-European proto-language, which he considered an undoubted historical reality. However, many linguists had doubts: the restored facts of the parent language could actually refer to its different historical states, and not coexist. The changes reflected by the modern languages of the same family could refer to different ancient eras.
By the beginning of the XX century. the theory of the proto-language was called into question, and the "kinship" of languages was reduced to a system of linguistic correspondences. The consequence of this skepticism was the subsequent rethinking of the concept of the parent language: a number of relations established with the help of the comparative historical method have scientific reality, and in all its specificity, the parent language cannot be restored.
For example, using the comparative historical method, the following series of correspondences is established between the descendants of the Proto-Indo-European language: Sanskrit and , Avestan and , Old Slavonic b , Lithuanian and , Armenian and , ancient Greek v , Latin and , Irish and , gothic and . All of them go back to one sound of the Proto-Indo-European language. Is "and" only a conditional indication of the given series of correspondences? Or do the correspondences give us the right to conclude what this sound was in the Proto-Indo-European language? For example, that it was a sound like [and]? There is a dispute about this, on both sides justified by a number of arguments and evidence.
The conclusion should not be the same for the reconstruction of the proto-languages of different "levels": it is quite real to reconstruct the proto-language of some separate branch of languages - the Proto-Romansh mentioned above, that is, Vulgar Latin, or Proto-Slavic - the ancestor of modern Slavic languages, which existed at the beginning of a new era. Less reliable is the restoration of earlier proto-linguistic states, in particular Proto-Indo-European, to which Proto-Slavic, Proto-Germanic and other proto-languages of certain groups of modern Indo-European languages historically date back.
The theory of the proto-language developed in Indo-European linguistics in the 19th century. In the XX century. it began to be used in the comparative historical study of other language families (Turkic, Finno-Ugric, etc.).
2. GENEALOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES
Here is a list of the main languages, grouped according to the headings of the genealogical classification. The geographical distribution of each family and branch is indicated on special language maps.
I. Indo-European languages.
1. Slavic: Eastern-Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian; Western - Polish, Czech, Slovak, Upper and Lower Lusatian; southern - Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian. The dead Old Slavonic (Old Bulgarian) language also belongs to the southern group.
2. Baltic: Lithuanian, Latvian; dead - Old Prussian.
The Indo-European branch of languages is one of the largest in Eurasia. It has spread over the past 5 centuries also in South and North America, Australia and partly in Africa. The Indo-European languages before occupied the territory from East Turkestan, located in the east, to Ireland in the west, from India in the south to Scandinavia in the north. This family includes about 140 languages. In total, they are spoken by approximately 2 billion people (2007 estimate). occupies a leading place among them in terms of the number of carriers.
Significance of Indo-European languages in comparative historical linguistics
In the development of comparative historical linguistics, the role that belongs to the study of the Indo-European languages is important. The fact is that their family was one of the first to be identified by scientists with great temporal depth. As a rule, in science, other families were determined, focusing directly or indirectly on the experience gained in the study of the Indo-European languages.
Ways to compare languages
Languages can be compared in various ways. Typology is one of the most common of them. This is the study of types of linguistic phenomena, as well as the discovery on the basis of this of universal patterns that exist at different levels. However, this method is not applicable genetically. In other words, it cannot be used to explore languages in terms of their origin. The main role for comparative studies should be played by the concept of kinship, as well as the method of establishing it.
Genetic classification of Indo-European languages
It is an analogue of biological, on the basis of which different groups of species are distinguished. Thanks to it, we can systematize many languages, of which there are about six thousand. Having identified patterns, we can reduce all this set to a relatively small number of language families. The results obtained as a result of genetic classification are invaluable not only for linguistics, but also for a number of other related disciplines. They are especially important for ethnography, since the emergence and development of various languages is closely related to ethnogenesis (the appearance and development of ethnic groups).
Indo-European languages suggests that the differences between them intensify over time. This can be expressed in such a way that the distance between them increases, which is measured as the length of the branches or arrows of the tree.
Branches of the Indo-European family
The genealogical tree of the Indo-European languages has many branches. It distinguishes both large groups and those consisting of only one language. Let's list them. These are Modern Greek, Indo-Iranian, Italic (including Latin), Romance, Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, Albanian, Armenian, Anatolian (Hitto-Luvian), and Tocharian. It also includes a number of extinct ones that are known to us from scarce sources, mainly from a few glosses, inscriptions, toponyms and anthroponyms from Byzantine and Greek authors. These are Thracian, Phrygian, Messapian, Illyrian, Ancient Macedonian, Venetian languages. They cannot be attributed with full certainty to one or another group (branches). Perhaps they should be separated into independent groups (branches), making up the genealogical tree of the Indo-European languages. Scientists do not have a consensus on this issue.
Of course, there were, in addition to those listed above, other Indo-European languages. Their fate was different. Some of them died out without a trace, others left behind a few traces in the substrate vocabulary and toponomastics. Attempts have been made to reconstruct some of the Indo-European languages from these meager traces. The most famous reconstructions of this kind include the Cimmerian language. He supposedly left traces in the Baltic and Slavic. Also of note is Pelagian, which was spoken by the pre-Greek population of Ancient Greece.
Pidgins
During the expansion of various languages of the Indo-European group, which occurred over the past centuries, dozens of new ones - pidgins - were formed on the Romance and Germanic basis. They are characterized by a radically reduced vocabulary (1,500 words or less) and simplified grammar. Subsequently, some of them were creolized, while others became complete both functionally and grammatically. Such are Bislama, Tok Pisin, Krio in Sierra Leone, and the Gambia; Sechelva in the Seychelles; Mauritian, Haitian and Reunion, etc.
As an example, we give a brief description of the two languages of the Indo-European family. The first one is Tajik.
Tajik
It belongs to the Indo-European family, to the Indo-Iranian branch and the Iranian group. It is state in Tajikistan, distributed in Central Asia. Together with the Dari language, the literary idiom of the Afghan Tajiks, it belongs to the eastern zone of the New Persian dialect continuum. This language can be seen as a variant of Persian (Northeast). Mutual understanding is still possible between those who use the Tajik language and the Persian-speaking inhabitants of Iran.
Ossetian
It belongs to the Indo-European languages, to the Indo-Iranian branch, the Iranian group and the Eastern subgroup. The Ossetian language is spoken in South and North Ossetia. The total number of speakers is about 450-500 thousand people. It left traces of ancient contacts with Slavic, Turkic and Finno-Ugric peoples. The Ossetian language has 2 dialects: Iron and Digor.
The collapse of the base language
Not later than the fourth millennium BC. e. there was a collapse of a single Indo-European language-base. This event led to the emergence of many new ones. Figuratively speaking, the genealogical tree of the Indo-European languages began to grow from the seed. There is no doubt that the Hitto-Luvian languages were the first to separate. The timing of the allocation of the Tocharian branch is the most controversial due to the paucity of data.
Attempts to merge different branches
Numerous branches belong to the Indo-European language family. More than once attempts were made to combine them with each other. For example, hypotheses have been put forward that the Slavic and Baltic languages are especially close. The same was assumed in relation to the Celtic and Italic. To date, the most generally recognized is the union of Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages, as well as Nuristani and Dardic, into the Indo-Iranian branch. In some cases, it was even possible to restore the verbal formulas characteristic of the Indo-Iranian proto-language.
As you know, the Slavs belong to the Indo-European language family. However, it is still not exactly established whether their languages should be separated into a separate branch. The same applies to the Baltic peoples. The Balto-Slavic unity causes a lot of controversy in such an association as the Indo-European language family. Its peoples cannot be unequivocally attributed to one or another branch.
As for other hypotheses, they are completely rejected in modern science. Various features can form the basis for the division of such a large association as the Indo-European language family. The peoples who are the bearer of one or another of its languages are numerous. Therefore, it is not so easy to classify them. Various attempts have been made to create a coherent system. For example, according to the results of the development of back-lingual Indo-European consonants, all languages of this group were divided into centum and satem. These associations are named after the reflection of the word "hundred". In satem languages, the initial sound of this Proto-Indo-European word is reflected in the form "sh", "s", etc. As for the centum languages, "x", "k", etc. are characteristic of it.
The first comparativists
The emergence of comparative historical linguistics proper dates back to the beginning of the 19th century and is associated with the name of Franz Bopp. In his work, he for the first time proved scientifically the relationship of the Indo-European languages.
The first comparativists were Germans by nationality. These are F. Bopp, J. Zeiss, and others. They first drew attention to the fact that Sanskrit (an ancient Indian language) is very similar to German. They proved that some Iranian, Indian and European languages have a common origin. These scholars then grouped them into an "Indo-Germanic" family. After some time, it was established that for the reconstruction of the proto-language, Slavic and Baltic are also of exceptional importance. So a new term appeared - "Indo-European languages".
The merit of August Schleicher
August Schleicher (his photo is presented above) in the middle of the 19th century summarized the achievements of his comparative predecessors. He described in detail each subgroup of the Indo-European family, in particular, its most ancient state. The scientist proposed to use the principles of reconstruction of a common proto-language. He had no doubts about the correctness of his own reconstruction. Schleicher even wrote the text in Proto-Indo-European, which he recreated. This is the fable "Sheep and Horses".
Comparative-historical linguistics was formed as a result of the study of various related languages, as well as the processing of methods for proving their relationship and reconstructing some initial proto-linguistic state. August Schleicher has the merit of depicting schematically the process of their development in the form of a family tree. The Indo-European group of languages appears in this case in the following form: the trunk - and the groups of related languages are branches. The family tree has become a clear image of distant and close kinship. In addition, it indicated the presence of a closely related common proto-language (Balto-Slavic - among the ancestors of the Balts and Slavs, Germanic-Slavic - among the ancestors of the Balts, Slavs and Germans, etc.).
Contemporary research by Quentin Atkinson
More recently, an international group of biologists and linguists established that the Indo-European group of languages originated from Anatolia (Turkey).
It is she, from their point of view, that is the birthplace of this group. The research was led by Quentin Atkinson, a biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Scientists have applied to the analysis of various Indo-European languages the methods that have been used to study the evolution of species. They analyzed the vocabulary of 103 languages. In addition, they studied data on their historical development and geographical distribution. Based on this, the researchers came to the following conclusion.
Consideration of cognates
How did these scientists study the language groups of the Indo-European family? They looked at the cognates. These are words with the same root that have a similar sound and a common origin in two or more languages. They are usually words that are less subject to changes in the process of evolution (denoting family relationships, names of body parts, as well as pronouns). Scientists compared the number of cognates in different languages. Based on this, they determined the degree of their relationship. Thus, cognates were likened to genes, and mutations were likened to differences in cognates.
Use of historical information and geographic data
Scholars then resorted to historical data on the time when the divergence of languages supposedly took place. For example, it is believed that in 270, the languages of the Romance group began to separate from Latin. It was at this time that the emperor Aurelian decided to withdraw the Roman colonists from the province of Dacia. In addition, the researchers used data on the modern geographical distribution of various languages.
Research results
After combining the obtained information, an evolutionary tree was created based on the following two hypotheses: Kurgan and Anatolian. The researchers compared the resulting two trees and found that "Anatolian" is statistically the most likely.
The reaction of colleagues to the results obtained by the Atkinson group was very ambiguous. Many scientists noted that comparison with biological evolution of linguistic is unacceptable, since they have different mechanisms. However, other scientists found it justified to use such methods. However, the group was criticized for not testing the third hypothesis, the Balkan one.
Note that today the main hypotheses of the origin of the Indo-European languages are Anatolian and Kurgan. According to the first, the most popular among historians and linguists, their ancestral home is the Black Sea steppes. Other hypotheses, Anatolian and Balkan, suggest that the Indo-European languages spread from Anatolia (in the first case) or from the Balkan Peninsula (in the second).
