The diversity of the linguistic world. Language classification problem

Lecture on the topic

"DIVERSITY OF WORLD LANGUAGES"

Population of the Earth - 7 billion people

Number of languages - 2.5-5 thousand (up to 6-7 thousand)

Once the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published the data at its disposal: there are 2,796 languages in the world. Linguists usually prefer to give approximate numbers. The reasons for the discrepancy are as follows.

1) Difficulty distinguishing between language and dialect.

2) Insufficient knowledge of languages. We live in a world where, it would seem, everything is already open and mapped. However, from time to time from newspapers or television broadcasts it becomes known that somewhere in the jungles of the Amazon lowland or New Guinea, modern travelers managed to find a tiny lost tribe that shuns contact with other people and speaks a language unknown to any of the experts.

3) H Finally, languages can die. In Russia, for example, the Kerek language literally died out in Kamchatka, the languages of such peoples as the Itelmens, Yukaghirs, and Tofalars are disappearing. These are tiny peoples, only a few hundred people each, many of whom, especially young people, no longer know their language ... Only in the XX century, dozens of languages disappeared from the face of the earth.With the development of communications, the number living languages shrinks from average speed 1 language every two weeks.

So it is very difficult to establish the exact number of languages in the world, if not impossible to say.

The most common languages (by the number of speakers):

Chinese

As of January 2012 - 1,349,718,000 people, more than 885 million people speak the Mandarin dialect.

English, Spanish, Hindi (vying for second place)

English - National language not only British and Americans, but also Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders .. This is one of state languages India and 15 African states (former British colonies), other countries also communicate on it.

English is international language... One and a half billion people all over the world speak this language. It is native to 400-500 million in 12 countries, and a billion and a half use English as a second language.

English is the language of business and politics. It is one of the working languages of the United Nations. Peace information technologies also based on English language... More than 90% of all information in the world is also stored in English. This language is defined by the primary language of the Internet. TV and radio broadcasting largest companies World (CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC, CBC), reaching an audience of 500 million, is also performed in English. More than 70% of scientific publications are published in English. In this language they sing songs and films.

Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, German, French, etc.

Language map of the world (kart of the languages of the world)

Is a map of families and language groups, as well as their individual representatives... The area of distribution of languages is indicated by a certain color.

Less common languages

Currentlythere are just over 400 languages considered endangered.They speak very little a large number of mostly elderly people and, apparently, these languages will disappear forever from the face of the Earth with the death of these "last of the Mohicans." Here are some examples:

Russia: Kerek (2 people) and Udege (100 people) languages;

Africa: languages Bikia (1 person), Elmolo (8 people), Goundo (30 people), Cambap (30 people);

Australia: Alaua language (about 20 people);

North America: Chinook languages (12 people), Kansa (19 people), Kaguila (35 people);

South America: languages tehulche (about 30 people), itonama (about 100 people).

In 1996, a man named Red Thundercloud died in the United States ... He was the last one who knew the language of the Catouba of the Sioux tribe. True, before he died, he managed to write speech samples and ritual songs of their language for the Smithsonian Institution, which rendered a great service to science. Unfortunately, this rarely happens, most often the language dies quietly and imperceptibly along with its last speakers ...

Every two weeks somewhere in the world, along with its last speaker, a language dies, and with it a picture of the hopes, beliefs and views of an entire ethnic group. The loss of each language, therefore, always means the loss of the culture of its native people. These languages cannot leave behind even exhibits for the museum, since most of them have no written traditions. So with the death of their last speaker, the language disappears without a trace and forever.Languages die together with the last carrier, and therefore the danger threatens, first of all, the peoples who do not use the written language.

According to scientists, half of the currently existing languages will disappear in 50-100 years. For a language to be preserved, about 100,000 native speakers are required.

In 2009 UNESCO has recognized 136 languages in Russia as endangered.

Languages have always died. As a result of the wars natural Disasters, epidemics, the enslavement of one people by another, but never before has the disappearance gone at such a rapid pace. It is estimated that over the past 500 years, humanity has lost about half of all languages that it owned, half of all remaining languages will disappear by the end of this century. There are many reasons leading to the death of the language, but the main ones that play currently the decisive role, perhaps, can be called economic and political factors: globalization, modernization, industrialization and urbanization, entailing the transformation of the world, which once consisted of a motley gathering of relatively self-sufficient individual peoples, into one “global village”.

As a rule, "strong" languages, like, say, English, Russian, French, Arabic or Chinese, all without exception with a large number of speakers and a developed written tradition, have been studied quite well by linguists. This is opposed by thousands of practically unexplored and rapidly disappearing languages, which raises the question of their study and description among the most urgent and topical problems of modern linguistics.

Many languages disappear due to the fact that their speakers come into contact with a stronger linguistic environment, therefore, languages of small nationalities and languages of peoples without statehood are under the threat of extinction in the first place. If less than 70% of children learn a language, it is considered endangered. According to the Atlas of Endangered World Languages UNESCO , currently in Europe approximately 50 languages are threatened with extinction.

Scientists and politicians have long sounded the alarm. The UN proclaimed 1994-2004 the decade of the world's indigenous peoples, and UNESCO and the Council of Europe have set before scientists the task of creating the Red Book, a worldwide database and atlases of endangered languages.

So languages are divided into

1) alive;

2) dead, for example:

Latin (language of the Roman Empire - the political basis of Western European civilization, language catholic church, main language scientific terminology of humanity);

c Taroslavian ( the literary, religious and political language of the Slavs and their neighbors (Lithuanians, Moldavians, Finno-Ugric peoples) from the Adriatic and Baltic to the Urals);

Sanskrit ( divine living and developing language of Indian culture and one of the languages of Buddhist culture).

Another interesting example is Ubykh language. The original zone of distribution of the Ubykh language - the Black Sea coast Caucasus , currently the region Lazarevsky, Central and Khosta districts the city of Sochi ... In the 1860s after graduationCaucasian Warthe Ubykhs were evicted by the Russian government to Turkey , the rest mixed with the local population, as a result of which the language lost its natural distribution area. The last known native speaker of the Ubykh language Tevfik Esench died in 1992 in Turkey ... The Ubykh language is known for its unique phonetics - it has 84 consonant sounds (of which four were used only in borrowed words) and only two vowels ("a" is long and "a" is short).

Languages are also divided into

1) natural - in linguistics and philosophy of language language and used for communication of people (as opposed to formal languages and other types of sign systems , also called languages in semiotics ) and not artificially created (as opposed toartificial languages).

2) artificial -special languages that, unlike natural are purposefully designed.Multilingualism has always prevented peoples from communicating with each other, so people dreamed of a language that was understandable for everyone.

There are the following types of artificial languages:

Programming languages and computer languages- languages for automatic processing of information using Computer.
Information languages - languages used in various information processing systems.
Formalized languages science - languages intended for symbolic writing scientific facts and theories of mathematics, logic, chemistry and other sciences.
Languages of non-existent peoples created infictionalor for entertainment purposes, for example: the elvish language invented by J. Tolkien, Klingon language invented by Mark Okrand for a fantasy series Star Trek Fictional languages), language On "vi created for the film " Avatar ".
International auxiliary languages - languages created from elements of natural languages and offered as an aid for interethnic communication.

Esperanto - the most famous and widespread of the artificially created languages. This language was created by the Warsaw physician and linguist Ludwig Zamenhof in 1887. The word "esperanto" ("esperanto" - hopeful) was originally the pseudonym under which Zamenhof published his work.

Esperanto is based on international words borrowed from Latin and Greek, and 16 grammar rules with no exceptions. In this language, there is no grammatical gender, there are only two cases in it - the nominative and the accusative, and the meanings of the rest are conveyed using prepositions. The alphabet is based on Latin, and all parts of speech have fixed endings: -o for nouns, -a for adjectives, etc. All this makes Esperanto so simple language that an unprepared person can learn to speak it fluently enough in a few months of regular classes. In order to learn at the same level any of the naturallanguages, it takes at least a few years.

Currently, Esperanto is actively used, according to various estimates, from several tens of thousands to several million people. It is assumed that for ~ 500-1000 people given language- native, that is, studied from the moment of birth. Usually these are children from marriages where parents belong to different nations and use Esperanto for family communication.

World congresses are held in Esperanto, newspapers and magazines are published, and radio stations broadcast their own programs. Esperanto is one of the most widely spoken languages on the Internet.

Of artificial languages, the most famous are also basic english, volapuk, interlingua etc. There are also languages that have been specifically designed to communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence, for example, linkos.

Languages:

Monofunctional

2) Multifunctional

Today there are seven languages which are "world languages". These are English, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, French, German, Portuguese. Each of these languages is spread over the territories of several states, which has its own historical reasons. For these reasons, a large number of people speak these languages. Such languages as Chinese , Hindi and Urdu are also included major languages of the world, but less popular in the international arena.

6 official languagesUnited Nations Organizations:

English, French, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic ("memory" - AFRICA).

On official languages all major UN documents are issued, including resolutions.

Polyglot (from the Greek. πολυ-, "many" and γλώττα, "language") - a person who speaks many languages.

The greatest polyglot in history is the Italian cardinalGiuseppe Mezzofanti(1774-1849), who spoke 27 (according to other sources 38) languages, as well as a Danish professor Rusk (1787-1832), Englishman John Bowring (1792-1872) and Dr. Harold Williams from New Zealand (1876-1928), each speaking 28 languages.

In our time, the most outstanding polyglot is recognized George Schmidt who worked at the UN. In the bibliographic directory of this organization, it was noted that Schmidt knew "only" 19 languages and, due to lack of time, could not activate 12 more languages.

POSSIBLE WORLD LANGUAGE CLASSIFICATIONS

Linguistic diversity the world

Principles of language classification

On the status of the various classifications

Linguistic diversity of the world

The language appeared before such major events in the history of mankind, as art (decorated wooden and bone objects - more than 25 thousand years, rock painting - about 14 thousand), as the domestication of animals and the domestication of plants (this happened 10 - 6 thousand years ago). About 6 thousand years ago, pictography and hieroglyphics appeared, 5 thousand - sound writing. Apparently, the original human language existed as one (single) language. About 30 thousand years ago, people settled in Western Eurasia... In the period between the 20th and 10th millennia before our time, the human language was divided into several linguistic macrofamilies (such as the Nostratic family of languages), from which the language families that exist in our time later evolved. Total number of languages in modern world determined in the range from 2.5 to 5-6 thousand. Such huge discrepancies in assessments (more than 100%) are caused by the difficulties in distinguishing between language and dialect, especially for the non-literate state. Researchers of languages in certain regions of the Earth name figures that, in total, significantly exceed 5-6 thousand languages. For example, in sub-Saharan Africa there are approximately 2,000 languages. There are at least 3,000 indigenous languages in South America; in the three states of Oceania - Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the Republic of Vanuatu - more than 900 languages: in Indonesia - 660. The number of Australian languages is sometimes estimated at 500 - 600; Austronesian languages - about 800. India, the most multi-ethnic and multilingual country in the world, has 1652 languages 4; in Nigeria, the most multi-ethnic country in Africa, - about 300. In modern Russia- about 150 languages.

The structural diversity of the world's languages is striking. There are languages in which neither names nor verbs change, but there are languages where, on the contrary, there are about 40 cases. There are languages, (for example, Slavic), where nouns are divided into three grammatical classes (gender), in the language nasioi(New Guinea) there are over 40 noun classes, and in many languages there are no noun classes at all. Some Turkic languages have 12 moods, but there are languages not only without moods, but also without grammatical number, without verb tense. There are languages in which there are only 10 phonemes, and in others there are more than 80 phonemes. A language with only one vowel is possible (and there are three such languages), and in some Caucasian languages there are 24 vowels. There are languages with very rare and therefore strange sounds, - similar to clicks, like the sound of "extinguishing a candle", like "clearing the throat". But the sounds [t], [p], [j] or [s] will not seem strange to anyone - they are in any language. There are almost no languages without nasal consonants ([n] or [m]), while nasal vowels are rare. The apparent diversity of languages has long also led to questions about the cause and effect of differences between languages. What is the perfection of the language? To what extent can different languages be a catalyst or, on the contrary, a brake in the history of knowledge and culture? What do languages define in the differences between peoples? Do they influence the fate of peoples? What determines the fate of the languages themselves? They seek to answer questions of this kind social typology of languages, philosophy of language, philosophy of history.

The diversity of the destinies of languages, the differences in their communicative roles, functions, social statuses, legal ranks - all this is an important part of the reality in which the linguistic existence of mankind takes place. Without a sociolinguistic panorama, our knowledge of man and society would be incomplete. Relationships between individual languages, on the one hand, and some other social parameters of man and humanity, on the other, are extremely diverse. Among such basic parameters ("measurements"), following the language, they usually name ethnicity (nationality), citizenship (citizenship), and religion. It is easy to see the cardinal disproportions between the main dimensions of humanity: if there are 5-6 thousand languages on Earth, then there are about 1300 ethnic groups; states - about 220, including UN member states - about 200; the number of individual confessions, if we include in it the innumerable cults and beliefs in the countries of the Third World, is indefinitely large. These digital "breaks" indicate that on the world map the geographical boundaries of languages, ethnic groups, states and religions do not coincide at all. Nevertheless, the configurations of the four geographic maps of the world - linguistic, ethnic, political and confessional - are interdependent and correlated, especially in historical explanations. The closest to each other is the map of languages and the map of the peoples of the world, since both of them are based on the genealogical classification of languages.

The communicative and functional diversity of languages is striking no less than their structural diversity. There are no two identical linguistic situations on Earth, no two languages with an equal volume of communication, with the same history and with the same future. There are languages spoken and written by millions of people in different countries on all continents, and there are languages native to only a few hundred people in one single village. There are languages written history which are thousands of years old - these are Vedic language and Sanskrit(varieties of the ancient Indian language, the beginning of the literary tradition - the 15th century BC), Hebrew(the time of the addition of the "Torah", the first five books of the Old Testament, - XIII century BC), wenyan(literary ancient Chinese language, the beginning of hieroglyphic writing - IX century BC). And there are languages that emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries. in a matter of years, and arose in the usual way for languages - by themselves, spontaneously (not "in the office"), as a result of long-term contacts of multilingual people and the mixing of their languages. it pidgins and creole languages, and about 100 of them are known. Of the 5-6 thousand languages of the Earth, only about 600 languages have writing systems, but only about 300 of them are actually used in written communication. There are languages that, although they had a written language and a literary tradition, have lost the collective of native speakers, and therefore have become dead languages. Such are ancient egyptian language (the earliest hieroglyphic records in the history of mankind have been preserved, dating back to the 4th millennium BC), Avestan(texts from the 10th century BC), Latin(actually Latin writing - from the IV century BC), Old Church Slavonic language (first monuments - 863). And there is a language revived, after two and a half thousand years again became a means of living communication of the people - this happened with the Hebrew language ( Hebrew). There are languages in which literary ("correct") speech is still almost indistinguishable from dialectal. And in Icelandic this opposition is absent for another reason: it simply does not have dialects. Known literary languages that are not used in informal, private, friendly-familiar communication - for example, literary Arabic... Each language has a unique social and cultural history, its place in its society, its own prospects for the future. However, the uniqueness of the fate of a particular language does not mean that there are no general patterns, typical lines of development, typologically similar destinies. That is why for social linguistics there is not enough a list of individual striking cases: typological coverage of the entire variety of languages is required. This is the content of the social (functional, or sociolinguistic) typology of languages.

Population of the Earth - 7 billion people

Number of languages - 2.5-5 thousand (up to 6-7 thousand)

1) Difficulty distinguishing between language and dialect.

3) Finally, languages can die. In Russia, for example, the Kerek language literally died out in Kamchatka, the languages of such peoples as the Itelmens, Yukaghirs, and Tofalars are disappearing. These are tiny peoples, only a few hundred people each, many of whom, especially young people, no longer know their language ... Only in the XX century, dozens of languages disappeared from the face of the earth. With the development of communications, the number of living languages is decreasing at an average rate of 1 language every two weeks.

So it is very difficult to establish the exact number of languages in the world, if not impossible to say.

The most common languages (by the number of speakers):

Chinese

As of January 2012 - 1,349,718,000 people, more than 885 million people speak the Mandarin dialect.

English, Spanish, Hindi (vying for second place)

English is the national language not only of the British and Americans, but also of Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders .. It is one of the official languages of India and 15 African states (former British colonies), it is also spoken in other countries.

English is the international language. One and a half billion people all over the world speak this language. It is native to 400-500 million in 12 countries, and a billion and a half use English as a second language.

English is the language of business and politics. It is one of the working languages of the United Nations. The world of information technology is also based on English. More than 90% of all information in the world is also stored in English. This language is defined by the primary language of the Internet. Television and radio broadcasts of the largest companies in the world (CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC, CBC), reaching an audience of 500 million people, are also performed in English. More than 70% of scientific publications are published in English. They sing songs and make films in this language.

Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, German, French, etc.

Language map of the world (kart of the languages of the world)

Is a map of families and groups of languages, as well as their individual representatives. The area of distribution of languages is indicated by a certain color.

Less common languages

Currently, there are just over 400 languages that are considered endangered. They are spoken by a very small number of mainly elderly people and, apparently, these languages will disappear forever from the face of the Earth with the death of these "last of the Mohicans." Here are some examples:

Russia: Kerek (2 people) and Udege (100 people) languages;

Africa: languages Bikia (1 person), Elmolo (8 people), Goundo (30 people), Cambap (30 people);

Australia: Alaua language (about 20 people);

North America: Chinook languages (12 people), Kansa (19 people), Kaguila (35 people);

South America: languages tehulche (about 30 people), itonama (about 100 people).

In 1996, a man named Red Thundercloud died in the United States ... He was the last one who knew the language of the Catouba of the Sioux tribe. True, before his death, he managed to record speech samples and ritual songs of his language for the Smithsonian Institution, which rendered a huge service to science. Unfortunately, this rarely happens, most often the language dies quietly and imperceptibly along with its last speakers ...

Every two weeks somewhere in the world, along with its last speaker, a language dies, and with it a picture of the hopes, beliefs and views of an entire ethnic group. The loss of each language, therefore, always means the loss of the culture of its native people. These languages cannot leave behind even exhibits for the museum, since most of them have no written traditions. So with the death of their last speaker, the language disappears without a trace and forever. Languages die together with the last carrier, and therefore the danger threatens, first of all, the peoples who do not use the written language.

According to scientists, half of the currently existing languages will disappear in 50-100 years. For a language to be preserved, about 100,000 native speakers are required.

In 2009, UNESCO recognized 136 languages in Russia as endangered.

Languages have always died. As a result of wars, natural disasters, epidemics, the enslavement of one people by another, but never before has the disappearance gone at such a rapid pace. It is estimated that over the past 500 years, humanity has lost about half of all languages that it owned, half of all remaining languages will disappear by the end of this century. There are many reasons leading to the death of the language, but the main ones that play a decisive role at the moment can probably be called economic and political factors: globalization, modernization, industrialization and urbanization, entailing the transformation of the world, which once consisted of a motley collection of relatively self-sufficient individuals peoples, into one "global village".

Many languages disappear due to the fact that their speakers come into contact with a stronger linguistic environment, therefore, languages of small nationalities and languages of peoples without statehood are under the threat of extinction in the first place. If less than 70% of children learn a language, it is considered endangered. According to UNESCO's Atlas of Endangered World Languages, approximately 50 languages are currently threatened with extinction in Europe.

So languages are divided into

The linguistic world is very diverse. Almost every nation owns own language and a certain set of dialects. It is impossible to calculate the exact number of languages existing in the world. He believes that there are approximately 2.5 thousand to 5 thousand of them, but this number is not accurate, since no one excludes the existence of languages unknown to us.

Language classification problem- very important. The first classification that linguists took up was the so-called genealogical classification, that is, a classification that distributes languages into families depending on the assumed commonality of their origin. The earliest attempts at such a classification date back to the Renaissance, when the advent of printing made it possible to get acquainted with the languages of peoples. The very fact of the similarity between languages very soon led to their unification into families. In the beginning, there were much fewer such families than at present.

Genealogical the classification of languages is established on the basis of the comparative historical method. Most of the languages are divided into so-called language families, each of which, in turn, consists of different subgroups, or branches, and these latter - from separate languages.

The following large language families are known: Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Tungus-Manchu, Iberian-Caucasian, Semitic, Hamitic, Paleo-Asian, and so on. A special position among the languages of the world is occupied by the Tibetan-Chinese languages, as well as single languages: Japanese, Basque, etc.

Indo-European languages fall into 12 subgroups. Some of which consist of separate languages (Greek, Armenian, Albanian), and the other part - of relatively large, interconnected by direct kinship of linguistic associations (families). These are: the Slavic family of languages, Indian, Romance, Germanic, Celtic, Iranian, Baltic, etc. Within the Slavic family of languages, subgroups are distinguished: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian); West Slavic (Polish, Czech, Slovak); South Slavic (Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian). Germanic languages: German, English, Swedish, Danish, ... Romance: French, Spanish, Italian, ...

The concept of language kinship is a purely linguistic concept. In no case should it be confused with the ethnic relations of peoples, or with their racial characteristics. Linguistic affinity is not always determined by geographic proximity. Hungarian is surrounded by Indo-European languages but himself belongs to another language family- Finno-Ugric.

What is the relationship between languages? First of all, in its grammatical structure, in the generality of the lexical fund, in the natural sound connections between them.

Morphological (typological) classification: it is based primarily on the structure of the word. Languages in which the relationship between words in a sentence is expressed primarily by inflections are usually called inflectional (synthetic), and languages in which the same relations are transmitted primarily by prepositions and word order - analytical... Thus, the Russian language turns out to be inflectional (synthetic), while French and English are analytical.

There are practically no "purely" inflectional languages, nor "purely" analytical languages. In inflectional languages, there are many analytical tendencies, just as in analytical languages, inflections are not the last meaning. Despite constant complications, the division of languages into inflectional and analytical languages still retains scientific significance. This division is based on one or another prevailing linguistic trend.

The morphological classification of languages becomes much more complicated when it is based not only on one language family(at least as big as Indo-European), but in all languages of the world. In this case, the following types of languages are usually installed: root(or insulating), agglutinative and inflectional... Sometimes languages are added to this classification. incorporating(or polysynthetic). In root languages, a word is usually equal to a root, and the relationship between words is conveyed primarily by word order, official words, rhythm, intonation. Root languages include, for example, Chinese.

Articles on specific issues

V. G. Adm they. Development of the structure of a simple sentence in Indo-European languages. - "Questions of Linguistics", 1960, M "1.

Y.D. Apresyan. On strong and weak management - "Questions of Linguistics", 1964, no. 3.

N. D. Arutyunova. On the concept of a word formation system. - "Philological Sciences", 1960, Wi 2.

V.V. Vinogradov. Word formation and its relation to grammar and vocabulary. - In collection: Questions of theory and history of language. M., 1952.

B.N.G about l about in and and. On the question of the essence of the grammatical category. - "Questions of Linguistics", 1955, No. 1.

B. N. Golovin. Notes on grammatical meaning... - "Questions of Linguistics", 1962, No. 2.

E.V. Gulyg and. The problem of the grammatical category. - Uch. app. MGPII, t. 5, 1953.-

E. A. Zemskaya. On one feature of the combination of word-formation morphemes in the Russian language. - "Questions of Linguistics", 1964, No. 2.

N. N, Korotkov, V. 3. Pandfnlov. On the typology of grammatical categories. - "Questions of Linguistics", 1965, No. 1.

M.G. On the question of the word and phrase. - "Questions of Linguistics", 1962, No. 2.

T.P. Lomtesh. On controversial issues of the theory of syntax.-NDVSH, Philological sciences, 1958, No. 4.

I. A. Melchuk. On internal inflection in Indo-European and Semitic languages. - "Questions of Linguistics", 1963, No. 4.

V. N. Mngnrin. The relationship between parts of speech and members of a sentence. - NDVSH, Philological Sciences, 1959, No. 1.

N. S. Pospelov. On the grammatical nature of a complex sentence. - In Sat: Questions of the syntax of the modern Russian language. M., Uchpedgiz, 1950.

N. S. P about sie l about v. Teaching about parts of speech in the Russian grammatical tradition. Publishing house of Moscow State University, 1954.

N. S. Pospelov. Complex sentence and its structural types. - "Questions of Linguistics", 1959, No. 2.

I, P. R and with about p about in. On the issue of predicativity. - "Questions of Linguistics", 195B, No. 5.

A. A. Kholodovich. About the minor members of the proposal. From the history of the theory of the question. - NDVSH, philological sciences, 1959, М 4.

E. I. Shendels. About grammatical polysemy. - "Questions of Linguistics", 1962, No. 3.

E. I. Shendels. Concept of grammatical homonymy... - NDVSH,

philological sciences, 1959, no. 1.

L. V. Shcherba On parts of speech in Russian. - In collection: Selected works on the Russian language. M., 1957.

WORLD LANGUAGES AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION

§ 64. The variety of languages of the world. Languages and dialects. Living and dead languages.

Currently, there are about two and a half thousand languages in the world. The number of languages is uncertain and difficult to establish. Up to these holes there are territories that are poorly studied in terms of language. These include some areas of Australia, Oceania, South America... The population of such areas is usually small, lives in small isolated groups from each other, their languages are poorly studied and it is not always possible to solve, such groups speak different languages or in different dialects of the same language. In countries with a multilingual population, it is also not (always easy to distinguish between languages and dialects. In India, for example, according to the data of 1951, there are 720 languages and dialects, in Nepal with a population of 9.5 million people - about 60 languages and large dialects ...

A dialect-variant of the language system, which is used by some troupe of a tribe (people, nations living in the same territory. Such shnalects are called ter-rottori al other dialects. They differ from languages by the limitedness of their (functions: they are used as a means of everyday life communication, they do not represent the functions of the state language (see § 79), the language of science, etc. Writing in the dialect is usually absent or very weakly developed.Differences between dialectal systems are more specific than differences between language systems.Systems of different dialects have There are many common links.Trends in the development of dialect systems largely depend on the trends in the development of the system of the language they are part of.

However, it is not always easy to distinguish a dialect from a language, since, firstly, the structures of some related languages are very close to each other, the differences between languages are sometimes less than the differences between dialects (some dialects of the German language are more different from each other than Ukrainian and Russian; the population of Northern China almost does not understand speakers of southern Chinese dialects, while speakers of various Turkic languages - Tatar, Bashkir, Kazakh, etc. - usually understand each other). Secondly, in certain historical periods (see § 79), dialects can perform functions close to the function of language: they can be used in business correspondence in public affairs, writing can appear in dialects. This situation is observed, for example, in India and Pakistan at the present time, which is explained by the fragmentation of the country in the past and obstacles to the development of the common Indian language on the part of the British colonialists. Thirdly, some languages, especially at the early stages of their development, do not differ from dialects in their functions. Thus, tribal languages are usually used only for everyday communication, do not have a written language, that is, they differ little from dialects. Therefore, for many little-studied languages, it is difficult to establish boundaries between languages and dialects. For example, in New Guinea, almost every village has its own language and it is very difficult to say with confidence whether it is really a language or just a dialect.

It should also be taken into account that the number of languages is not constant, since in the process of historical development, languages disappear and new ones appear. Languages disappear if collectives - carriers of these languages - disappear. So, as a result of forced German assimilation, the Polabian language, one of the Slavic languages, disappeared, in which almost until the 18th century. said the population living on the Elbe River (its old name was Laba). Sometimes languages cease to be used in live communication (since the collectives of people who used them disappear), but are preserved in written monuments. Such languages are usually called dead. In territories where violent historical events where some peoples replaced others, several layers of such dead languages often remained. For example, in the territory of Western Asia, the Sumerian language is known, the monuments of which date back to the end of the 4th millennium BC. e., and the Sumerian language became "dead", apparently, by the middle of the II millennium BC. NS. At the turn of the IV and III millennium BC. NS. the oldest Elamite monuments are dated, but the Elamite language existed for a long time, perhaps traces of it were noted up to the 10th century. n. NS. By the middle of the III millennium BC. NS. the Hurrian language also became dead, although individual groups of Hurrians survived in the valley of the upper Euphrates and in the mountains of the Armenian Taurus until the 7th century. BC e-Close to Hurrian, the Hutt language disappears by the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. NS. These languages were replaced by the II millennium BC. NS. Akkadian, which dominated the country for about one and a half thousand years, but from about the middle of the 1st century BC. NS. and the Akkadian language becomes dead, replaced by the dialects of the Aramaic language. The Aramaic language survived until the Middle Ages, when it was replaced by the Arabic language, but its traces have survived to this day. A language close to Aramaic is spoken by the population of several villages in Syria and more than 20 thousand Aysors living in the territory of the Armenian SSR. History has preserved information about other dead languages that were once widespread in Western Asia: Hittite (II millennium BC), Phrygian, Lycian.

Some dead languages are used by other peoples as languages of culture and science. In this capacity, for example, for a long time acted Latin language, which was the official language of many Western European countries (see § 79). The dead ancient Tibetan and ancient Mongolian languages played a similar role in the East.

Modern living languages are far from the same in distribution: some are spoken by tens and even hundreds of millions of people, while others are spoken by several thousand or even several hundred people. According to recent data, about 60% of all humanity speaks the 10 largest languages of our time. The most common languages are: Chinese, which is spoken by over 690 million people (Chinese and some minority groups in China), English - 270 million people (England, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other former colonies of England), Russian - about 150 million people (- for about 430 million people it turns out to be native, the rest widely use it as the language of interethnic communication in the USSR), Spanish - 150 million (Spain, countries of Central and South America, North Africa), languages Hindi and Urdu, which are different literary varieties common language- Hindustani, serve, according to some data, about 150 million people, according to others - even 180 million people.

The distribution patterns of these languages are far from the same. If Russian, Chinese, Hindustani are common in the territories of indigenous settlement, are the native languages of most of those who speak them, then English and non-Panian languages spread mainly due to colonial conquests. In Europe, in the old territory of the spread of English and Spanish languages, only about 20% of the total number of speakers of these languages live. Basically, these languages are widespread in the former colonies of England and Spain, where they supplanted the local languages, at times by very cruel measures.

The spread of the Portuguese language, which is spoken by about 85 million people in Portugal, Brazil and some other countries, and French, which serves over 60 million in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and North Africa, has the same character. Japanese - 95 million, German (spoken in the GDR, FRG, Austria, Switzerland, speaks about 90 million people), Arabic (in North Africa and Western Asia, about 85 million).

Along with large languages, there are also small languages, which are spoken by only a few thousand people. Such languages are especially characteristic of countries where tribal languages are still preserved. For example, some of the Bantoid languages (see § 68) in Africa are spoken by only a few thousand people. The brutal colonial policy of the imperialist states led many African peoples to extinction, together with the tribes, languages also died out. So, in 1870 the number of the Bongo tribe living in the Nile Valley was 100 thousand, and according to 1931, only 5 thousand people spoke the Bongo language. The situation is the same in America. One of the largest language groups- Iroquois - included 5-6 tribal languages, which were spoken by about 110 thousand people. Currently, there are less than 20 thousand Iroquois people left. The tribes that lived within the Mississippi Right Bank were part of the caddo group; the languages of this group were spoken by about 25 thousand people, now there are no more than 2 thousand.

Scarce languages are also found in the Soviet Union, especially in the Caucasus and Siberia. So the Abaza, living in 16 villages of the Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Region (within the Stavropol Territory), number only 20 thousand people (according to the 1959 census). The Agul language, which is widespread mainly in Dagestan, is spoken by 8 thousand people, Rutul - 7, Tsakhur - 6 thousand people. Many small languages are found in the north of the European part of the USSR and in Siberia: Sami serves 1.8 thousand inhabitants of the Kola Peninsula, Selkup - 3.8 (population on the banks of the Taz River between the Ob and Yenisei), Itelmen - 1.1 (in Kamchatka ), Yukaghir (north of the Yakut ASSR) - 0.4 thousand, etc.

Lenin's national policy provided an opportunity for the development of the languages of all peoples Soviet Union... In the Soviet Union, there is no significant reduction in the number of speakers of a particular language, since there is not a decrease, but even an increase in small peoples. So, agulov in 1895 were registered 7185 people, in 1926 - 7653, and in 1959 - 8000 people.

The languages of the peoples of the world are very different both in structure and in material composition (sound composition, word roots). Some of them are very similar to each other, form groups of closely related languages, while others differ significantly. All this raises the question of the classification of the languages of the world.

Section 65. Classification of languages. Types of classifications

By the XVI-XVII centuries. as a result of important geographical discoveries, Europeans became acquainted with many new languages. Among these languages there were those that showed similarities with European languages (Sanskrit and other languages of India), and those that did not have similarities with the previously known languages (languages of the central and southern parts of Africa, the languages of America, Oceania). This aroused interest not only in the study of languages, but also in their systematization. Attempts to classify languages begin in the 16th century. In 1538, the work of Guillelm Postellus "On the Kinship of Languages" was published. In 1610 I. Yu. Scaliger's work "Discourse on European languages" was published, in which the author tries to outline the main groups of European languages. E. Guichard, G.V. Leibniz and other linguists

MV Lomonosov achieved great success in attempts to group European languages. In the XIX century. the basic principles of the classification of languages have already emerged, in accordance with which the main groups and types of languages were outlined.

The classification of languages can be approached from different points of view. You can, for example, come up with geographic point view, that is, to group languages according to their territorial distribution: the languages of America, the languages of Oceania, the languages of Australia, etc. This is done in cases where languages are poorly studied, information about them is insufficient for another, deeper approach. For example, D. Brinton in 1891 proposed to divide all the languages of America into 5 main groups: North Atlantic, North Pacific, Central, South Pacific and South Atlantic. Brinton took into account the differences in the grammatical structure of languages, but the basis of his classification was still an external, purely geographical principle. The geographic approach is also used in other types of classification to distinguish smaller groups (again, when information about languages is still insufficient). For example, within the family (see below) of Bantu languages (Central and South Africa) usually distinguish seven groups, often on a territorial basis: the northwestern group, the northern group, the southeastern group, etc. Each of the groups includes a significant number of languages that have common characteristics; for example, northwestern languages are characterized by a monosyllabic form of prefixes, the absence of incorporated pronouns in verbs (see § 74), the presence of original nasal sounds at the end of a syllable, etc. But the degree of internal proximity of the languages of these groups, the relationship between groups are not fully disclosed.

Currently, there are 2 main types of classification:

1) by material proximity, material similarity, that is, by the similarity of the material elements of the language themselves - roots, endings;

2) by structural and typological similarity, that is, by the similarity of the linguistic structure itself.

The first type of classification is called genealogical (from the Greek genealogia - genealogy) classification, since it relies on the kinship of languages, their origin from one common source (see § 66), the second type is called typological classification, and more recently in connection with significant changes made to this classification began to talk about the structural-typological classification of languages.

§ 66. Genealogical classification of languages

The genealogical classification of languages was formed in the 19th century as a result of the work of many scientists: Franz Bopp, Rasmus Rusk, Jacob Grimm, Vostokov and others. The genealogical classification received an especially complete presentation in the published in 1861-68. the work of August Schleicher, which was called "Compendium (that is, an abbreviated presentation - L. B.) comparative grammar of Indo-Germanic languages ”. Clarifications and amendments to the language classification system were introduced later and continue to be made to this day.

Genealogical classification divides all languages into families, and within families into groups. In families and groups, languages are united by their material similarity.

First of all, this is the similarity of the roots of words, moreover, not an accidental similarity of the roots of individual words, but the presence of whole groups of words with the same roots. For example, in all Slavic languages there is a great similarity of roots in terms of kinship:

Russian mother brother sister children grandson

Ukrainian mother brother sister children grandson

Belarusian matsi brother syastra dzetsi unuk

Bulgarian t shirt brother sister detsa grandson

Serbian mati, majka brother sister dete unuk

Czech mater, matka bratrsestra dite, deti vnuk

Polish mas, matka brat siostra dzieci wnuk

Ukrainian

Belorussian

Bulgarian

There is a similar similarity in the names of the seasons: Russians summer,winter; Ukrainian lithen, winter; Belarusian summer, sima; Bulgarian lyato, winter; Serbian pouring, winter; polish tato, zima; Czech leto, zima. Similar relationships in the names of the parts of the day: Russians night Day; Ukrainian nih, day; Belarusian night, zen; Bulgarian night, day; Serbian buth, given: polish pos,dzien; Czech pos,den.

There are common roots in the names of many natural phenomena, for example: Russians wind, snow; Ukrainian viTep, chiG Belarusian witzer, snow; Bulgarian vyatar, snig; Serbian wind, snow; polish wiatr, snieg; Czech vitr, snih.

The commonality of roots is also observed in adjectives, for example, in adjectives denoting size: Russian great(big), small; Ukrainian great, malium; Belarusian lethargiciToiare small; Bulgarian holam, mal'k; Serbian great, small; polish wielki, maly; Czech velky, maly. Adjectives denoting color are also indicative: Russian yellow green; Ukrainian zhovtiy, decrees; Belarusian

zhouts, zeleny; Bulgarian zhlt, green; Serbian horrible, green

polish zdlty, zielony; Czech zluty, zeleny.

The relationship of languages is always very clearly manifested in the numerals:

Russian Ukrainian Belarusian Bulgarian Serbian Polish Czech

one one ajin one jedan jeden jeden

two two two two two dwa dva

three three three three three three trzy tri

four chotiri chatyri chetiri chetiri cztery ctyri

five p "yat pyats pet petpiec pet

six six shest six six

seven seven seven sedam sied (e) m sedm

eight axes eight axes osiem osm

nine virgins "yat dlevyats devet devet dziewiec devet

ten ten ten deset dzleslec deset

The same similarity is found in other groups of related languages when comparing the words of the same semantic groups: the terms of kinship, natural phenomena, the names of domestic animals; adjectives denoting color, size, quality; basic numbers; names of the most important actions, etc.

The correspondences that we find in the languages of the Germanic group are indicative (see § 67):

Father Daughter Water Summer Good

German Vater Tochter Wasser Sommer gut

English father daughter water summer good

Dutch vader dochter water zomer good

Swedish fader dotter vatten sommar got

Similar correspondences are found in the Romance languages (see § 67);

Horse Cow Cat Land Big Wear

Latin caballus vacca cattus terra grandis portare

French cheval vache chat terre grand porter

Italian cavallo vacca gatto terra grande portare

Spanish caballo vaca gato tierra grande portar

Even among the few examples given, there are some that suggest the existence of similarities between the three groups of languages considered. Indeed, Slavic, Germanic and Romance languages, together with some others (see § 67), are united into one large family of languages, which is called Indo-European, since it includes many languages located in Europe and India. Indo-European languages have many common roots in the same word groups.

Quite different roots are found in similar words in another, for example, the Turkic family of languages:

Mother Father Daughter Horse Earth No

Tatar ana ata kyz at fat yuk

Azerbaijan jansky ana ata gyz at (er) jok

Kazakh ana ata kyz at zher zhok

Turkmen ana ata kyz at yeryok

Uzbek she ota kiz ot er yuk

B ash ki rs k and y ana ata kyz at er yuk

In related languages, similarities are found not only in the roots of words, but also in affixes. The similarity in affixes with a relational meaning (see § 48) is especially important, since such affixes cannot be borrowed from one language to another (see § 82), therefore their similarity, and sometimes complete coincidence, can be a convincing indicator of the primordial connection of languages ... Let's give, for example, the case forms of the word

Introduction to linguistics: Textbook. manual for philol ... fac. un-tov / L.I. Barannikova... - Saratov: Publishing house ...

bone in Slavic languages:
	Belarusian Serbian		Polish




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