The Russian language has come a long way of historical development.

There are three periods of development of the Russian language:

Early period (VI-VII - XIV centuries).

Middle period (XIV-XV - XVII centuries).

Late period (XVII-XVIII - the end of the XX - the beginning of the XXI century).

I period (early) starts after selection Eastern Slavs from the common Slavic unity and the formation of the language of the Eastern Slavs (Old Russian language) - the predecessor of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages. This period is characterized by the presence in the language of Old Slavonicisms, Church Slavonic vocabulary, and Turkic borrowings.

II period (middle) begins with the collapse of the language of the Eastern Slavs and the separation of the Russian language proper (the language of the Great Russian people). By the second half of the 17th century the Russian nation is taking shape and the Russian national language is being formalized, based on the traditions of Moscow dialect.

III period- this is the period of development of the Russian national language, design and improvement Russian literary language .

In the 18th century there is an update, enrichment of the Russian language at the expense of Western European languages; society begins to realize that the Russian national language is capable of becoming the language of science, art, and education. special role played in the creation of the literary language M.V. Lomonosov who wrote "Russian grammar" and developed the theory of three styles (high, medium, low).

In the 19th century Throughout the century, there have been disputes about what should be considered the basis of the grammar of the Russian literary language, what role should be played by the church Slavic in the development of his styles, how to relate to the common language and vernacular? In this dispute, they are primarily involved N.M. Karamzin and his Westernizers and Slavophiles, led by A.S. Shishkov.

A decisive influence on the development of Russian norms literary language rendered creativity A.S. Pushkin, who in relation to language was guided by the principle proportionality and conformity: any word is acceptable in poetry, if it accurately, figuratively expresses the concept, conveys the meaning.

In general, during the synthesis various elements(folk colloquial, Church Slavonic, foreign borrowings, elements business language) the norms of the Russian literary language are developed. It is believed that in in general terms Russian national language system developed around the first half of the 19th century.

In the XX century, there are two periods in the history of the Russian language:

Period 1 (October 1917 - April 1985) is characterized by the presence of the following processes in the language:

1) care in passive margin a huge layer of secular and church vocabulary ( lord, king, monarch, governor, gymnasium; Savior, Mother of God, bishop, Eucharist and etc.);

2) the emergence of new words reflecting changes in politics and economics. Most of them were official abbreviations of words and phrases: NKVD, RSDLP, collective farm, district committee, tax in kind, educational program and etc.;

3) interference of the opposite.

The essence of this phenomenon is that two words are formed that positively and negatively characterize the same phenomena of reality that exist in different political systems. After the October events of 1917, the Russian language gradually formed two lexical systems: one for naming the phenomena of capitalism, the other for socialism. So, if it was about enemy countries, then their scouts were called spies, warriors - occupiers, partisans - terrorists etc.;

4) renaming the denotation. Denotation- an object of extralinguistic reality to which it refers language sign within the utterance. So, not only the names of cities and streets are renamed (Tsaritsyn - in Stalingrad, Nizhny Novgorod- in Bitter; Large noble - in Revolution Avenue), but also social concepts(competition - in social competition, harvesting bread - in battle for the harvest, peasants - in collective farmers etc.). As a result of renaming, the authorities, firstly, managed to break the connection with the pre-revolutionary past, and secondly, to create the illusion of a general renewal. Thus, through the word, the party and government oligarchy influenced the public consciousness.

During 2 periods(April 1985 - present) there have been serious political, economic, ideological changes that have led to significant changes in Russian literary language:

1) significant expansion vocabulary due to:

a) foreign vocabulary (barter, business, legitimate);

b) the formation in the Russian language itself of a mass of new words (post-Soviet, denationalization, desovietization);

2) return to active vocabulary words that left the language during the Soviet period ( Duma, governor, corporation; communion, liturgy, vigil);

3) withdrawal into the passive stock of words-sovietisms (collective farm, Komsomolets, district committee);

4) change in the meanings of many words, occurring according to ideological and political reasons. For example, in a dictionary Soviet period about the word God the following is written: “God - according to religious and mystical ideas: a mythical supreme being, supposedly ruling the world» (Ozhegov S.I. Dictionary of the Russian language. - M., 1953). The definition includes indicators of unreliability (particle supposedly and adjective mythical). The purpose of such an interpretation is to impose on the user of the dictionary an atheistic worldview, corresponding to a totalitarian ideology.

AT modern vocabulary - « God is in religion: the supreme omnipotent being…”(Ozhegov S.I. Dictionary Russian: 80,000 words and phraseological expressions. - M., 2006);

5) vulgarization - the use in speech, it would seem, educated people slang, colloquial and other non-literary elements ( bucks, rollback, disassembly, chaos);

6) "foreignization" of the Russian language - that is, the unjustified use of borrowings in speech ( reception desk- reception, reception point; Ganges- criminal association, gang; show- spectacle, etc.).

Russian is the largest language in the world. In terms of the number of people speaking it, it ranks 5th after Chinese, English, Hindi and Spanish.

Origin

Slavic languages, to which Russian belongs, belong to the Indo-European language branch.

At the end of III - beginning of II millennium BC. from Indo-European family the Proto-Slavic language separated, which is the basis for the Slavic languages. In the X - XI centuries. the Proto-Slavic language was divided into 3 groups of languages: West Slavic (from which Czech, Slovak arose), South Slavic (developed into Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian) and East Slavic.

During the period of feudal fragmentation, which contributed to the formation of regional dialects, and Tatar-Mongol yoke three emerged from East Slavic independent language: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian. Thus, the Russian language belongs to the East Slavic (Old Russian) subgroup of the Slavic group of the Indo-European language branch.

History of development

In the era of Muscovite Russia, a Middle Great Russian dialect arose, the main role in the formation of which belonged to Moscow, which introduced a characteristic "acane", and the reduction of unstressed vowels, and a number of other metamorphoses. The Moscow dialect becomes the basis of the Russian national language. However, a unified literary language had not yet developed at that time.

In the XVIII-XIX centuries. the rapid development of special scientific, military, marine vocabulary, which was the reason for the appearance of borrowed words, which often clogged and weighed down native language. There was a need to develop a single Russian language, which took place in the struggle between literary and political currents. The great genius of M.V. Lomonosov in his theory of "three" established a connection between the subject of presentation and the genre. So, odes should be written in a "high" style, plays, prose works- "medium", and comedy - "low". A.S. Pushkin in his reform expanded the possibilities of using the “middle” style, which now became suitable for ode, tragedy, and elegy. It is from the language reform of the great poet that the modern Russian literary language traces its history.

The appearance of sovietisms and various abbreviations (prodrazverstka, people's commissar) is connected with the structure of socialism.

The modern Russian language is characterized by an increase in the number of special vocabulary, which was the result of scientific and technological progress. At the end of the twentieth early XXI centuries the lion's share foreign words enters our language from English.

Complicated Relationships different layers Russian language, as well as the influence of borrowings and new words on it, led to the development of synonymy, which makes our language truly rich.

The history of the emergence and development of the Russian language

Short story Russian language

Russian language refers to largest languages of the world: in terms of the number of speakers, it ranks fifth after Chinese, English, Hindi and Spanish. Russian is one of the official and working languages ​​of the UN. The number of Russian speakers is about 180 million people. Refers to eastern group Slavic languages. Among the Slavic languages, Russian is the most widespread. All Slavic languages ​​show great similarities among themselves, but Belarusian and Ukrainian are closest to the Russian language. Together, these languages ​​form East Slavic subgroup, which is included in Slavic group Indo-European family.

The history of the origin and formation of the Russian language

The history of the origin of the Russian language go to deep antiquity. Approximately in the 2nd-1st millennium BC. e. from the group of related dialects of the Indo-European family of languages, the Proto-Slavic language stands out (in late stage- about 1-7 centuries. - called Proto-Slavic).

Already in Kievan Rus(9th - early 12th centuries) Old Russian language became a means of communication for some Baltic, Finno-Ugric, Turkic, and partly Iranian tribes and nationalities. In the 14-16 centuries. the southwestern variety of the literary language of the Eastern Slavs was the language of statehood and Orthodox Church in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in the Principality of Moldavia.

Feudal fragmentation, which contributed to dialect fragmentation, the Mongol-Tatar yoke (13-15 centuries), the Polish-Lithuanian conquests led to the 13-14 centuries. to decay ancient Russian people. The unity of the Old Russian language also gradually disintegrated. 3 centers of new ethno-linguistic associations were formed that fought for their Slavic identity: northeastern (Great Russians), southern (Ukrainians) and western (Belarusians). In the 14-15 centuries. on the basis of these associations, closely related, but independent East Slavic languages ​​are formed: Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian.

The history of the development of the Russian language - the era of Moscow Russia

The Russian language of the era of Moscow Russia (14-17 centuries) had complex history. Dialect features continued to develop. Two main dialect zones took shape - Northern Great Russian approximately to the north from the line Pskov - Tver - Moscow, south of Nizhny Novgorod, and South Great Russian in the south from this line to the Belarusian and Ukrainian regions - dialects that overlapped with other dialect divisions. Intermediate Middle Russian dialects arose, among which the dialect of Moscow began to play a leading role. Initially, it was mixed, then it developed into a harmonious system. For him became characteristic: akanye; pronounced reduction of vowels of unstressed syllables; explosive consonant "g"; ending "-ovo", "-evo" in genitive case singular masculine and neuter in the pronominal declension; hard ending "-t" in the verbs of the 3rd person of the present and future tense; forms of pronouns "me", "you", "myself" and a number of other phenomena. The Moscow dialect is gradually becoming exemplary and forms the basis of the Russian national literary language. At this time, in live speech, the final restructuring of the categories of time takes place (the ancient past tenses - aorist, imperfect, perfect and pluperfect are completely replaced unified form to "-l"), the loss of the dual number, the former declension of nouns according to six bases is replaced modern types declensions, etc. The written language remains colorful.

In the 17th century arise national connections, the foundations of the Russian nation are being laid. In 1708, the civil and Church Slavonic alphabets were separated. In the 18th and early 19th centuries secular writing became widespread, church literature was gradually relegated to the background and, finally, became the lot of religious rituals, and its language turned into a kind of church jargon. Scientific and technical, military, nautical, administrative and other terminology developed rapidly, which caused a large influx into the Russian language of words and expressions from Western European languages. Especially great impact from the 2nd half of the 18th century. French began to render Russian vocabulary and phraseology.

The clash of heterogeneous linguistic elements and the need for a common literary language posed the problem of creating unified national language norms. The formation of these norms took place in a sharp struggle of different currents. Democratic-minded sections of society sought to bring the literary language closer to popular speech, the reactionary clergy tried to preserve the purity of the archaic "Slovenian" language, little understood by the general population. At the same time, an excessive passion for foreign words began among the upper strata of society, which threatened to clog the Russian language.

In modern Russian, there is an active (intensive) growth special terminology, which is caused, first of all, by the needs of the scientific and technological revolution. If at the beginning of the 18th century. terminology was borrowed by Russian from German language, in the 19th century. - from French, then in the middle of the 20th century. it is borrowed mainly from in English(in its American version). Special vocabulary has become the most important source of replenishment of the vocabulary of the Russian general literary language, however, the penetration of foreign words should be reasonably limited.

Russian is one of the largest languages ​​in the world: in terms of the number of speakers, it ranks fifth after Chinese, English, Hindi and Spanish.

Among the Slavic languages, Russian is the most common.

All Slavic languages ​​show great similarities among themselves, but Belarusian and Ukrainian are closest to the Russian language. Together, these languages ​​form East Slavic subgroup, which is part of the Slavic group of the Indo-European family.

Look at the language tree: Slavic branches grow out of a powerful trunk - the Indo-European language family. This family also includes the Indian (or Indo-Aryan), Iranian, Greek, Italic, Romance, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic language groups, Armenian, Albanian and other languages. Of all Indo-European languages Baltic languages ​​are closest to Slavic: Lithuanian, Latvian and dead Prussian, finally disappeared by the first decades of the 18th century. The collapse of the Indo-European linguistic unity is usually attributed to end III- the beginning of the II millennium BC. Apparently, at the same time, the processes that led to the emergence of Proto-Slavic, to its separation from the Indo-European.

Proto-Slavic is the ancestral language of all Slavic languages. It had no written language and was not fixed in writing. However, it can be restored by comparing the Slavic languages ​​with each other, as well as by comparing them with other related Indo-European languages. Sometimes a less successful term is used to refer to Proto-Slavic Common Slavonic: seems to be better called common Slavic language features or processes characteristic of all Slavic languages ​​even after the collapse of Proto-Slavic.

A common source - the Proto-Slavic language - makes all Slavic languages ​​related, endowing them with many similar features, meanings, sounds ... The consciousness of Slavic linguistic and ethnic unity was already reflected in the ancient self-name of all Slavs - Slovenia(*s1ověne). According to academician O. N. Trubachev, this is etymologically something like "clearly speaking, understandable to each other." This consciousness was preserved even in the era of the formation of the ancient Slavic states and peoples. In The Tale of Bygone Years, Old Russian chronicle early XII c., it says: “And the Slovenian language and Russian are the same…”. Word language used here not only in ancient meaning"people", but also in the meaning of "speech".

Where, in what territory did our common ancestors?

The ancestral home of the Slavs, that is, the territory where they developed as a special people with their own language and where they lived until their separation and resettlement to new lands, has not yet been precisely determined due to the lack of reliable data. And yet, with relative certainty, it can be argued that it was located in the east Central Europe, north of the foothills of the Carpathians. Many scientists believe that northern border the ancestral home of the Slavs passed along the Pripyat River (the right tributary of the Dnieper), western border- along the middle course of the Vistula River, and in the east, the Slavs settled Ukrainian Polissya up to the Dnieper.

The Slavs constantly expanded the lands they occupied. They also participated in the great migration of peoples in the 4th-7th centuries. The Gothic historian Jordanes wrote in his essay “On the Origin and Deeds of the Getae” (chronologically brought to 551) that “a crowded tribe of Venets” settled “in the boundless spaces” from the Middle Danube to the lower Dnieper (the Germans called all the Slavs Wenden, Winden; in Finnish Venaja means "Russia"). During the VI and VII centuries. waves Slavic settlement poured on most The Balkan Peninsula, including modern Greece, and including its southern part - the Peloponnese.

By the end Proto-Slavic period Slavs occupied vast lands in Central and Eastern Europe extending from the coast Baltic Sea in the north to the Mediterranean in the south, from the Elbe River in the west to the headwaters of the Dnieper, Volga and Oka in the east.

Years passed, centuries slowly changed centuries ... And following the changes in the interests, habits, manners of a person, following the evolution of his spiritual world his speech, his language. For my long history The Proto-Slavic language has gone through many changes. AT early period of its existence, it developed relatively slowly, was in high degree uniform, although there were dialectal differences in it even then ( dialect, otherwise dialect- the smallest territorial variety of the language). AT late period(approximately from the 4th to the 6th century AD) the Proto-Slavic language underwent diverse and intense changes that led to its disintegration around the 6th century. AD and the emergence of separate Slavic languages.

According to the degree of their proximity to each other, Slavic languages ​​are usually divided into three groups:

The ancestor of modern Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian languages ​​was Old Russian(or East Slavic) language. Two main eras can be distinguished in its history: pre-literate (from the collapse of the Proto-Slavic language to the end of the 10th century) and written. What this language was like before the emergence of writing can only be known through a comparative historical study of the Slavic and Indo-European languages, since no Old Russian writing did not exist at the time.

The collapse of the Old Russian language led to the emergence Russian(or Great Russian) language other than Ukrainian and Belarusian. This happened in the XIV century, although already in the XII-XIII centuries. in the Old Russian language, phenomena were outlined that distinguished the dialects of the ancestors of the Great Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians from each other. The modern Russian language is based on northern and northeastern dialects Ancient Russia(by the way, the Russian literary language also has a dialectal basis: it was made up of the central Middle Great Russian akaya dialects of Moscow and the villages surrounding the capital).

But this is the era of writing.

* South Slavic in origin is and Old Slavonic language - the first common Slavic literary language.

His sound means of expression and artistic possibilities were sung by many famous people. It was spoken by Pushkin, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dobrolyubov, Chernyshevsky... and more than 260 million people continue to speak it. It arose not so long ago as the rest of its "brothers", however, it already has rich history. It's about, of course, about the Russian language, the history of the emergence and development of which we will tell today.

Origin: Versions by several scholars

According to a legend that exists in India, seven white teachers can be considered the "fathers" of the Russian language. In ancient times, they came from the cold North (the Himalayas region) and gave people Sanskrit, an ancient literary language that became widespread in India from the 1st century BC. BC, - thereby laying the foundation of Brahmanism, from which Buddhism was later born. Many believe that this North at that time was one of the regions of Russia, so modern Indians often go there as pilgrims .

However, what does Sanskrit have to do with the Russian language?

According to the theory of the ethnographer Natalya Guseva, who wrote more than 150 scientific papers According to the history and religion of India, many Sanskrit words completely coincide with Russian ones. But why did she even come to that conclusion? One day on a tourist trip northern rivers Russian Guseva was accompanied by a respected scientist from India. Communicating with the inhabitants of local villages, the Hindu suddenly burst into tears and refused the services of an interpreter. Seeing puzzled looks, he replied that he was very happy to hear his native Sanskrit. Natalya Guseva was very interested in this case, so she decided to devote her whole life to the study of the Russian language and Sanskrit.

By the way, the famous philologist Alexander Dragunkin fully supports his colleague and claims that great language The Russian people really comes from a simpler one - Sanskrit, in which there are fewer word-formation forms, and its writing is nothing more than Slavic runes slightly modified by the Hindus.

Text in Sanskrit.
Source: wikimedia.org

According to another version, which is approved and accepted by most philologists, people about 2.6 million years ago (the time of the appearance of the first person) were simply forced to learn how to communicate with each other in the course of collective work. However, in those days the population was extremely small, so individuals spoke the same language. Thousands of years later, there was a migration of peoples: the DNA got mixed up and changed, and the tribes isolated themselves from each other, and so many different languages, which differed from each other in form and word formation. Later, there was a need for a science describing new achievements and things invented by man.

As a result of such evolution, so-called matrices arose in people's heads - language pictures peace. These matrices were studied by the linguist Georgy Gachev, at one time he studied more than 30 of them. According to his theory, the Germans were very attached to their home, and so the image of a typical German-speaking person was formed - organized and thrifty. And the mentality of the Russian speaker came from the image of the road and the way, because. in old times Russian-speaking people traveled a lot.

The birth and formation of the Russian language

Let's bring some specifics to our article and talk in more detail about the birth and development of our native and great Russian language. To do this, let's go back to India in the III millennium BC. Then, among the Indo-European languages, the Proto-Slavic dialect stood out, which a thousand years later became the Proto-Slavic language. In the VI-VII centuries. already n. e. it was divided into several groups: eastern, western and southern (the Russian language is usually referred to as eastern). In the ninth century (the moment of the formation of Kievan Rus) the Old Russian language reached its maximum development. At the same time, two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, invented the first Slavic alphabet and alphabet.

However, the creators Slavic writing they did not limit themselves only to the alphabet: they translated and wrote down gospel sermons, parables, liturgical texts and apostolic letters; and also for about three and a half years they were engaged in the education of the Slavs in Moravia (the historical region of the Czech Republic).

Thanks to the work and knowledge of the enlightenment brothers, the Slavic language began to develop rapidly. By that time, in terms of popularity, it could already be compared with Greek and Latin, which, by the way, also belong to the Indo-European language family.

Separation of language and normalization of writing

Then came the era of feudalism, and the Polish-Lithuanian conquests in the XIII-XIV centuries. divided the language into three groups: Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, as well as some intermediate dialects. By the way, until the XVI century. Russian was under huge influence two others - Belarusian and Ukrainian and was called "prosta mova".

In the XVI century. Muscovite Rus decided to normalize the writing of the Russian language, and then they introduced the predominance writing connection in sentences and the frequent use of unions "yes", "and", "a". Also, the declension of nouns became similar to the modern one, and the basis of the literary language was the features characteristic of modern Moscow speech: “akanye”, the consonant “g”, the endings “ovo” and “evo”.

Russian language in the 18th century

The Petrine era greatly influenced Russian speech. It was at this time that our language was freed from the guardianship of the church, and in 1708 the alphabet was reformed and made it similar to the European one.

"Geometry of Slavonic Land Surveying" is the first secular publication printed after the reform of the Russian alphabet in 1708.