The largest linguistic families of the world. Basic Language Family Worlds

Languages \u200b\u200bare developing as living organisms, and languages \u200b\u200bthat occur from one ancestor (called the "proto-language") are part of one language family. Language family can be divided into councils, groups and subgroups: for example, Polish and Slovak belong to one subgroup of Western Slavic languages \u200b\u200bincluded in the group of Slavic languages, which is a branch of a larger Indo-European family.

Comparative (comparative) linguistics, as follows from its name, compares languages \u200b\u200bin order to detect them historically connections. This can be done by comparing phonetics of languages, their grammar and vocabulary, even in cases where there are no written sources of their ancestors.

The stronger the languages \u200b\u200bare removed from each other, the harder it is to detect genetic links between them. For example, none of the linguists doubts that Spanish and Italian are connected, meanwhile, the existence of the Altai language family (with the inclusion of Turkish and Mongolian languages) is questioned and is not recognized by all linguists. At the moment, it is simply impossible to know whether all languages \u200b\u200bcome from one ancestor. If a single human language existed, then it should have tent thousand years ago (if not more). This makes a comparison extremely difficult or even impracticable.

List of language families

Linguists revealed more than one hundred major linguistic families (language families that are not considered associated with each other). Some of them consist of only several languages, others consist of more than a thousand. Here are the main linguistic families of the world.

Special cases

Isolated languages \u200b\u200b(isolate languages)

Language-isolate is "orphan": the language whose belonging is not proved to any of the well-known linguistic families. The best example can serve as the Basque language, which is spoken in Spain and France. Despite the fact that it is surrounded by Indo-European languages, it is very different from them. Linguists compared Basque with other languages, which are spoken in Europe, with Caucasian and even with American, but no connections were found.

Korean is another well-known isolate, although some linguists suggest relationships with Altai languages \u200b\u200bor Japanese. The Japanese itself is sometimes considered an isolate, but it is best described as belonging to a small Japanese family, which includes several connected languages \u200b\u200bsuch as Okinawan.

PIDAIN AND CREATIVE LANGUAGES

PIDAIN is a simplified communication system that has developed between two or more groups that do not have a common language. It does not occur directly from one language, he absorbed the characteristics of several languages. When children begin to study the Ponda as a native language, it turns into a full-fledged, stable language called Creole.

Most of the languages \u200b\u200bof the Ponda or Creoles, on which they say today, is the result of colonization. They are based in English, French or Portuguese. One of the most common Creole languages \u200b\u200bis a Tok-Pisin, which is the official language of Papua - New Guinea. It is based on English, but his grammar is different, its dictionary includes many borrowing from German, Malay, Portuguese and several local languages.

The main signs on which the ethnic community distinguish is language and culture. There are 5 thousand different languages \u200b\u200bin the world. They are grouped into numerous linguistic families: Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Semitic-Khamiti, Austronesian, etc.

The largest is Indo-European language family. It unites about 2500,000,000 people, which is almost half of the population of the Earth. It includes such language groups that unite different peoples: Slavic (Russian, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Slovenians, etc.); Germanic (Germans, British, Americans, Norwegians, Dutch, etc.); Romanesque (French, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, etc.). The Chinese-Tibetan language family is the second largest, its languages \u200b\u200b(Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese) talk about 1 billion people. The most common languages \u200b\u200bof the world - Chinese (975 million people), English (478), Hindi (437), Spanish (392), Russian (284), Arabic (225), Bengal (200), Portuguese (184), Indonesian (159 ), Japanese (128), French (125) and German (123 million people) - talk two thirds of the world's population.

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The UN helps refugees and starving. UN Emergency Aid Institutions provide assistance more than 23 million refugees and displaced persons providing them. The World Food Program is the leading UN organization, is responsible for food assistance, sends more than 5 million tons of food per year, providing food products by approximately 113 million people in 80 countries of the world.

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The main goal of the CE is the development of a single Europe based on the priests of freedom of freedom, democracy, for the human rights of human rights and the rule of law. Its activities are aimed primarily on ensuring and protecting human rights, the civil, political, economic, social or cultural rights. Consequently, the activities of CE covers all the spheres of human life. About the news of the economy We and the military-political states of Ros grew up this organization is not engaged. Since 1995, Ukraine is also a member of the Council of Europe, currently unites 46 states.

One of the most significant achievements of the Council of Europe is the development and adoption of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The Convention establishes inalienable rights and their bodies for also and obliges der M. You are guaranteeing these rules to each person. The main difference between the Convention from other international human rights treaties. The existence of a mechanism for the protection of these rights.

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Language family

Language systematics - auxiliary discipline that helps organize objects studied by linguistics - languages, dialects and groups of languages. The result of this ordering is also called systematics of languages.

The systematics of languages \u200b\u200bis based on the genetic classification of languages: the evolutionary-genetic group is natural, not artificial, it is quite objective and stable (in contrast to often a rapidly changing area affiliation). The purpose of language systematics is the creation of a single slender system of world languages \u200b\u200bbased on the allocation of a linguistic taxa system and relevant names built according to certain rules (linguistic nomenclature). Terms "Systematics" and "taxonomy" are often used as synonyms.

Principles of device

For language systematics are characterized by the following principles:

• Unified hierarchically organized system.
• Single taxa system.
• Unified nomination system.

Unity The entire system and comparability of the units of one level should be provided by the general criteria to assign objects to one or another level. This applies to both the upper levels (families and groups) and lower (languages \u200b\u200band dialects). In a single systematics, the criteria for attributing objects to one level must meet the following requirements: applicability to any object and consistency (or unambiguous) objective object to a specific class.

Single system of taxa. Slender taxa system in biology linguists can only envy. Although there are a lot of terms in linguistics (family, group, branch, sometimes phila, philaum, stock), but their use varies very much from the author, language description language and a specific situation. Within the framework of the systematics, these taxa are organized and used in accordance with certain rules.

Unified system of nomination. In contrast to biology, where there is a slender system of nomination in Latin using a binary name for a base unit, there is nothing like that in linguistics and can hardly occur. Therefore, the main thing is that the systematics can be made - it is, first of all, to streamline the names of the languages \u200b\u200bin the description language by choosing the main name for each idiom and group; Secondly, as an additional means for the unequivocal designation of languages, regardless of the description language - to indicate for each self-setting.

Use of data of lexicostatistics. To determine the level of taxa in the existing classification (or to build a classification, where it is not yet) and the objective of the object to a certain taxon is used to preserve the base vocabulary; Moreover, not only for building upper classification levels (which is trivial), but also for the distinction of individual idioms. The percentage of coincidence is considered from the standard 100-like list of deposits. The emphasis is deliberately done on the percentage of coincidences (although the breakdown time can be given for reference), since there is no unanimity among comparativists in this issue, and to build language systematics, there is a sufficiently relative percentage of coincidences, and not the absolute breakdown time.

Upper levels of systematics

The main upper levels (taxa) of the systematics are: family, branch, group. If necessary, the number of taxa may increase by adding consoles over- and under-; eg: countertress, promagroup. The term can also be used in occasionally zone, Often, to designate non-genetic, but rather anal or paraffilitic groups, see for example, classification of languages \u200b\u200bof a bow or Austronesian languages.

A family - upper base level on which all systematics are based. Family is a group definitely, but far enough related languages \u200b\u200bthat have at least 15 percent of coincidences in the basic list. For example, see the Family List of Eurasia or Overview of Africa Family.

For each family, a list of branches, groups, etc. is determined taking into account traditionally allocated groupings, the degree of proximity to each other and the decay time to the components. At the same time, branches and groups of different families are not required to be one level of depth, only their relative order within one family is important.

The table shows examples of building systematics with strict use of taxa. If, for Indo-European languages, some levels can be skipped, then for their branchedness of Austronesian, they are not even enough.

An example of using taxa

Language / dialect

Therefore, in the language systematics, a scale with four intimacy levels is used: language - adverb - dialect - talkdeveloped on an empirical basis.

According to this scale, if two idioms percentage of coincidences in a 100-like basic list< 89 (что соответствует времени распада, по формуле Сводеша-Старостина , > 1100 years ago), then idioms are different languages. If the percentage of coincidences\u003e 97 (decay time< 560 лет), то идиомы являются dialects one language. For the remaining interval (89-97), an intermediate level of very close languages \u200b\u200b/ distant dialects is proposed, as a name for which the term " adverb"In cases where the corresponding idiom is traditionally considered as a component of another language. When it is considered as a separate language, it is saved by a taxon "Language", and the union, where it includes and corresponding to the degree of proximity to a single language is called " cluster».

Vividly use of the low level taxa is illustrated in the table. It often happens that one or more idioms in one cluster is considered languages, while others are not, although they are at the same level of mutual understanding / structural proximity. As an example, the Wainka cluster can be brought, including Chechen and Ingush languages \u200b\u200band Akkin-Orshhukhi union.

Approx.: The underlined names are disclosed in the following table rows..

These levels at the same time correlate with the degree of mutual understanding, which is especially useful when the percentage of coincidences between languages \u200b\u200bis unknown.

• Between two languages Mutualness is strong difficult and normal communication is impossible without special training.
• Inside the tongue between two naschayia There is mutuality, but not complete; Communication is possible, but it may be misunderstanding or errors.
• Between dialects Inside, there is almost complete mutual understanding, although the carriers mark the features of each dialect, usually in pronunciation (accent) and the use of certain words.

Allocation of languages \u200b\u200band dialects may not coincide with the traditional approach. For example:

• The Chinese branch includes up to 18 languages \u200b\u200btraditionally considered Chinese dialects.
• French language (or Oil language) includes Frances (based on a dialect of which french literary language), Pichard, Norman and other adverbs.
• Serbohorvatsky cluster includes chakava, Kaikatvskoye and Shockava, and the last also Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian literary languages \u200b\u200b(\u003d dialects).
• The West-Oguz cluster consists of Turkish, Gagauz, South Crimean Tatar languages.
• The Nogai cluster consists of Nogai, Kazakh and Karakalpak languages.
• The Ibero-Romanesque Cluster includes Portuguese, Galician, Asturo-Leon, Spanish, (Verkhne-) Aragon.

Macro level

Despite the fact that the top base taxon in the systematics is the family, it also takes into account information and about the delicate relationship. But taxas for more upper levels are not amenable to such strict formalization as lower.

• Oversight - Combining close families (percentage of coincidences \u003d 11-14), which are traditionally considered one family, but in line with the definition of a family in the language systematics, should be made to a higher level. Superior, apparently, is Altai in a broad sense (including Korean and Japanese-Ryukyan languages), Kushitsky and Austronesian.
• Macros (\u003d Phil) - Combining families, with at least somehow established correspondences and approximately counted percentages of coincidences. Such, apparently, Nostratic, Afrazian, Sino-Caucasian, Koisan Macros.
• Hypersdia - Combining macros, extremely hypothetical; For example, Borean hypersdia.
• Hypothesis - Presumageous combination of families, without establishing correspondences and counting the percentage of coincidences between individual components. As a rule, it is turned on. For example, Nilo-Sugar, wide-koisan hypothesis.

In the works of predominantly foreign linguists (see for example) other terms are used:

• Stock (stock.) - This is a combination of families ( families.), In this case are understood more narrowly than defined above. Examples of stocks are Indo-European (with German, Romanesque and other families), Ural, Sino-Tibetan, Avtrezia; in this way, stock, as a rule, corresponds to the above definition family.
• Philum / Phila (phylum.pl. phyla) - this is an aggregation of the effluent (called also the suprel - superstock) or families (if the term the stock is not used), and, as a rule, rather supposed than proved. In general, corresponds macros.

Notes

see also

Literature

• Koryakov Yu. B., Maisak T. A. Systematics of the languages \u200b\u200bof the world and databases on the Internet // Proceedings of the International Seminar "Dialogue" 2001 "on computer linguistics and its applications. Volume 2. M., Aksakovo, 2001.

Examples of reference books built on the basis of systematics or in the same way:

• Koryakov Yu. B. Atlas of Caucasian languages. M., 2006.
• Register of the Languages \u200b\u200bof the World (in Development)
• Dalby D.. Vol. 1-2. Hebron, 2000.
• Gordon R. G., Jr. (ED). Ethnologue.com ETHNOLOGUE: Languages \u200b\u200bof the World. 15th Edition. SIL, 2005.
• Kaufmann T. The Native Languages \u200b\u200bof Latin America: General Remarks // Atlas of the World's Languages \u200b\u200b(Edited by C. Moseley and R.E.asher). 1994.
• Meso-American Indian Languages \u200b\u200bin Languages \u200b\u200bof the World // Britannica CD. Version 97. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1997.
• Voegelin C.f. & F.M. Classification and Index of the World's Languages. NY., 1977
• WURM S. AUSTRALASIA AND THE PACIFIC // Atlas of the World's Languages \u200b\u200b(Edited by C. Moseley and R.E.asher). 1994.

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language families of the world

The following classifications (+ cards) are based on the book Merrit Rulen " Long Travel Guide"(A Guide to the World's Languages), released by the Publishing House of Standford University in 1987), which, in turn, relies more to the work of the Great Linguist Joseph Greenberg, who deceased on May 7, 2001. Maps and statistical data is only an approximate correspondence of reality. Mistakes are valid.

Koisan family

In this family, about 30 languages, which speak about 100,000 people. The Koisan family includes the peoples that we call Bushmen and the Gottente.

Niger-Cordofan family

The largest sub-sugar African family of languages, it includes 1,000 languages \u200b\u200bwith the number of carriers up to 200 million people. The most famous languages: Mandinka, Swahili, Yoruba and Zulu.

Nilo-Sugar family

In this family approx. 140 languages \u200b\u200band 10 million media. The most famous language: Maasai, on which the militant nomads of East Africa say.

Afro-Asian Family

This is a large language group that includes 240 languages, which speak 250 million media. It includes: Ancient Egyptian, Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as the well-known Nigerian House of Haus. Some says OK. 200 million people!

Indo-European Family (including isolates: Basque language, Burusski and Nahali)

The only large language family, Indo-European, in which is OK. 150 languages \u200b\u200bfrom 1 billion media. Among languages \u200b\u200bof this family: Hindi and Urdu (400 million), Bengali (200 million), Spanish (300 million), Portuguese (200 million), French (100 million), German (100 million), Russian (300 million), and English (400 million) in Europe and America. The number of speakers in English worldwide may reach 1 billion people.

In the region of distribution of this family of languages, 3 isolates are presented, which cannot be attributed to any family: basque languageliving in the territory between France and Spain, burusski and NakhaliWhat are located on the Indian Peninsula.

Caucasian family

Total exists 38. caucasian languagesThey say about 5 million people. The most famous: Abkhaz and Chechensky.

CARTNELY LANGUAGES Considered by many linguists as a separate family, possibly related to the Indo-European family. This includes the Georgian language.

Dravidian family

These are ancient languages India, total ok. 25, the number of carriers of 150 million people. The most famous of the languages \u200b\u200bof this family: Tamil and Telugu.

Ural-Yukagir family

This family refers 20 languages \u200b\u200bwith the number of carriers of 20 million. The most famous of the languages: Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Sámi - Lapland Language.

Altai family (including the isolates of Ketsky and Gilyatsky languages)

The Altai family includes about 60 languages, which speak about 250 million people. This family includes Turkish and Mongolian languages.

Many discussions are conducted in relation to this family. The first controversial question: how to classify the Altai and Ural languages \u200b\u200b(see Hashe), since they have a similar grammatical structure.

The second controversial question: Many linguists doubt that Korean, Japanese (125 million media), or Ain must be included in this family, or even that these three languages \u200b\u200bare related to each other!

Insulates are also presented here: Ketsky and Gilyatsky languages.

Chukchi-Kamchatka family (Paleosibirskaya) family

Perhaps this is the smallest family in which only 5 languages \u200b\u200bon which 23,000 carriers say. Areolet distribution of these languages \u200b\u200bis the northeast of Siberia. Many linguists believe that these are two different families.

Sino-Tibetan Family

A very significant language family, which includes about 250 languages. Only on says 1 billion people!

Languages \u200b\u200bMiao-Yao, Austro-Asian and Dai Family

Austro-Asian (Munda Languages \u200b\u200bin India and Mont-Khmer Languages \u200b\u200bin Southeast Asia) includes 150 languages, which speak 60 million people, including Vietnamese.

The family of Miao-Yao languages \u200b\u200bconsists of 4 languages, which speak 7 million people living in the south of China and Southeast Asia.

In the dwise family of 60 languages \u200b\u200band 50 million media, this includes Thai language (Siamese).

These three linguistic families are sometimes united with an Austronezian family (below) in a hypertension called Austric ( austric). On the other hand, some linguists consider Family Miao-Yao and Dais-related Chinese languages.

Austronesian family

This family includes 1000 different languages, which speak 250 million people. On Malay and Indonesian (in essence it is the same language) they say approx. 140 million among other languages \u200b\u200bof this family can be noted: Madagascarsky in Africa, Tagaloga in the Philippines, Natives of Aboriginal O.Formoses (Taiwan) - now almost displaced by Chinese - and many languages \u200b\u200bof the Pacific Ocean, from Hawaiian in the north of the Pacific to Maori in New Zealand.

Indian-Pacific and Australian Families

The Indian-Tikhokean family includes approx. 700 languages, most of them are distributed on the island of New Guinea, the number of speakers in these languages \u200b\u200bis about 3 million. Many linguists do not believe that all these languages \u200b\u200bare related to each other. In fact, some of them were not even studied! On the other hand, some believe that this family can also include Tasmansky language - now extinct.

It is possible that this family also includes 170 languages \u200b\u200bof Australian aborigines. Unfortunately, there are only 30,000 carriers of these languages \u200b\u200btoday.

Eskimo-Aleutian family

The Eskimo-Aleutian family of languages \u200b\u200bconsists of 9 languages \u200b\u200bon which OK. 85,000 people. Language Inite plays a key role in administration in Greenland (Kalallit Nunaat) and Canadian territory Nunavut.

Family of languages \u200b\u200bon-day

This family includes 34 languages \u200b\u200bwith the number of carriers approx. 200,000 people. The most famous examples: Tlingit, Heyda, Navajo and Apache.

Amerinda Family (North America)

Although many linguists do not recognize the idea of \u200b\u200buniting all the north (except Languages \u200b\u200bon Den and Eskimo-Aleuta) and South American Indian languages \u200b\u200bin one family, they are often united for convenience. The Amerinda family includes almost 600 languages, which speak more than 20 million people. In North America, the most famous languages \u200b\u200bare: Ojibva, Cree, Dakota (or SIU), Cherokee and Iroquois, Hopi and Naiathl (or Aztec), as well as Languages \u200b\u200bMaya.

Amerindia Family (South America)

The Language Map of South America includes some of the North American Substitters and others. The most famous languages: Kechua (Indian language Inca), Guarani and Caribbean. Anda's councils of languages \u200b\u200b(which includes Kechua) there are almost 9 million media!

The development of languages \u200b\u200bcan be compared with the process of reproduction of living organisms. In the old century, their number was much smaller than today, there were so-called "protofists", which were the ancestors of our modern speech. They disintegrated into a variety of adverbs, which were distributed throughout the planet, modifying and improving. Thus formed various language groups, each of which occurred from one "parent". According to this feature, such groups are determined in families that we will now list and briefly consider.

The biggest family in the world

As you guessed, the Indo-European language group (more precisely speaking, this is a family) consists of a variety of subgroups, which speak most of the world. Her distribution is the Middle East, Russia, all of Europe, as well as the Americas countries that were colonized by the Spaniards and the British. Indo-European languages \u200b\u200bare divided into three categories:

Native speech

Slavic linguistic groups are very similar both on sound, and in phonetics. All of them appeared at about the same time - in the 10th century, when the Old Slavonic language ceased to exist, invented by Greeks - Kirill and Methodius - to write the Bible. In the 10th century, this language collapsed, so to speak, for three branches, among which was Eastern, Western and South. The first of them entered the Russian language (Western Russian, Nizhny Novgorod, Old Russian and many other dialects), Ukrainian, Belarusian and Rusinsky. In the second branch turned out to be Polish, Slovak, Czech, Svinsky, Kashubsky and other adverbs. The third branch is represented by Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian, Chernogorsky, Slovenian. These languages \u200b\u200bare distributed only in those countries where they are official and international among them is Russian.

Sino-Tibetan Family

This is the second largest language family that covers the area of \u200b\u200ball Southern and Southeast Asia. The main "protofation", as you guessed, Tibetan appears here. He followed all the events from him. This is Chinese, Thai, Malay. Also language groups belonging to the Burmese regions, the language of Bai, Donggansky and many others. They are officially numbered about 300. However, if you consider adverbs, the figure will be much greater.

Nigero Congolese Family

Special phonetic system, and, of course, a special sound, unusual for us, have language groups of the peoples of Africa. A characteristic feature of grammar here is the presence of personal classes, which is not found in any Indo-European branch. On indigenous African languages, people are still talking from Sahara to Calahari. Some of them "assimilated" with English or French, some remained original. Among the main languages \u200b\u200bthat can be found in Africa, we will highlight the following: Rwanda, Makua, Sean, Rundi, Malawi, Zulu, Luba, Spit, Ibibio, Tsong, Kikuyu and many others.

Afrozian or Semit Hamitskaya Family

There are allocated linguistic groups on which they speak North Africa and the Middle East. Also here still include many dead languages \u200b\u200bof these peoples, such as Coptic. Of the current dialects that have semistry or Khamitic roots, you can call the following: Arabic (most common on the territory), Amharic, Hebrew, Tigrinya, Assyrian, Maltese. Also, the Chadian languages \u200b\u200band Berber, in fact, are often included here, which are essentially used in Central Africa.

Japanese-Ryukyia Family

It is clear that the range of distribution of these languages \u200b\u200bis Japan itself and the island of Ryuku's adjacent to it. Until now, they did not figure out, from which protibiduity all the dialects occurred, which are now used by residents of the country of the rising sun. There is a version that this language originated in Altai, from where it spread, along with the inhabitants, to the Japanese Islands, and after to America (the Indians had very similar dialects). There is also an assumption that the homeland of Japanese is China.