What is the need for a scientific classification of languages. Principles of language classification

On the globe, according to rough estimates, there are over two and a half thousand languages; the difficulty in determining the number of languages ​​is primarily due to the fact that in many cases, due to insufficient knowledge, it is not clear that this is an independent language or a dialect of any language. There are languages ​​serving a narrow circle of speakers (tribal languages ​​of Africa, Polynesia, American Indians, "one-aul" languages ​​of Dagestan); other languages ​​represent nationalities and nations, but are associated only with a given nationality (for example, the Dungan language in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, the Mansi or Vogul language in the northern Trans-Urals) or nation (for example, the Czech, Polish, Bulgarian languages); still others serve several nations (for example, Portuguese in Portugal and Brazil, French in France, Belgium and Switzerland, English in England and the USA, German in Germany and Austria, Spanish in Spain and 20 republics of South and Central America).

There are international languages ​​in which the materials of international associations are published; UN, Peace Committee, etc. (Russian, English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic); The Russian language, although it serves one nation, is an interethnic language for peoples former USSR and one of the few international languages ​​in the world.

There are also such languages ​​that, in comparison with modern languages, should be considered dead, but they are still used under certain conditions; it is primarily Latin - the language of the Catholic Church, science, nomenclature and international terminology; here, to one degree or another, are ancient Greek and classical Arabic.

Linguistics knows two approaches to the classification of languages: the grouping of languages ​​according to the commonality of linguistic material (roots, affixes, words), and thus according to the common origin - this is the genealogical classification of languages, and the grouping of languages ​​according to the common structure and type, primarily grammatical, regardless of origin is a typological, or, in other words, morphological, classification of languages.

Genealogical classification languages ​​is directly related to the historical fate of languages ​​and peoples, the speakers of these languages, and covers primarily lexical and phonetic comparisons, and then grammatical ones; morphological classification is connected with the structural-systemic understanding of the language and relies mainly on grammar.

The results of almost two hundred years of research into languages ​​by the method of comparative historical linguistics are summed up in the scheme of the genealogical classification of languages.

Language families are divided into branches, groups, subgroups, sub-subgroups of related languages. Each stage of fragmentation unites closer languages ​​in comparison with the previous, more general one. Thus, the East Slavic languages ​​show greater proximity than the Slavic languages ​​in general, and the Slavic languages ​​show greater proximity than the Indo-European ones.

GENEALOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES

I. INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

Indian group

(over 96 living languages ​​in total)

Hindi and Urdu are two varieties of the same modern Indian literary language. And also Bengali, Sindhi, Nepali, Gypsy.

Dead: Vedic, Sanskrit.

Iranian group

(more than 10 languages, finds the greatest proximity with the Indian group,

with which it unites into a common Indo-Iranian, or Aryan, group)

Persian, Dari, Tajik, Ossetian, etc.

Dead: Old Persian, Avestan, etc.

Slavic group

A. Eastern subgroup

P u c s k i y Ukrainian Belarusian

B. Southern subgroup

Bulgarian Macedonian Serbo-Croatian

Slovenian

Dead: Old Church Slavonic.

B. Western subgroup

Czech Slovak Polish etc.

Dead: Pomeranian dialects.

Baltic group

Lithuanian Latvian Latgalian

Dead: Prussian and others

German group

A. North Germanic (Scandinavian) subgroup

1) Danish 2) Swedish

3) Norwegian 4) Icelandic 5) Faroese

B. West German subgroup

6) English

7) Dutch (Dutch) with Flemish

8) Frisian

9) German; two adverbs; Low German (Northern, Niederdeutsch or Plattdeutsch) and High German (Southern, Hochdeutsch); literary language formed on the basis of South German dialects.

B. East German subgroup

Dead: Gothic, Burgundian, Vandal, etc.

Roman group

French, Provencal, Italian, Sardinian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Moldovan, Macedonian-Romanian, etc.

Dead:: Latin.

Celtic group

Irish, Scottish, Breton, etc. others

Dead: Manx

Greek group

Modern Greek, from the 12th century. Dead: Ancient Greek, X century. BC e.

Albanian group

Albanian

Armenian group

Armenian

Hitto-Luvian (Anatolian) group

Dead: Hittite, Carian, etc.

Tocharian group

Dead: Tocharian

P. CAUCASUS LANGUAGES

A. Western group: Abkhazian-Adyghe languages

Abkhaz, Adyghe, Kabardian, Ubykh, etc.

B. Eastern group: Nakh-Dagestan languages

Chechen, Ingush, Lezgi, Mingrelian, Georgian, etc.

III. OUTSIDE THE GROUP -BASQUE

IV. URAL LANGUAGES

FINNO-UGRIAN (UGRO-FINNISH) LANGUAGES

A. Ugric branch

Hungarian, Mansi, Khanty

B. Baltic-Finnish branch

Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, etc.

B. Perm branch

Komi-Zyryan, Komi-Perm, Udmurt

G. Volga branch

Mari, Mordovian

SAMOYED LANGUAGES

Nenets, Enets, etc.

V. ALTAI LANGUAGES

TURKIC LANGUAGES

Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Uzbek, Crimean Tatar, Tatar, Yakut, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, etc.

MONGOLIAN LANGUAGES

Mongolian, Buryat, Kalmyk.

TUNGUS-MANCHUR LANGUAGES

Evenki, Manchurian, Nanai, etc.

NOT INCLUDED IN ANY GROUPS

(presumably close to Altaic) Japanese, Korean, Ainu.

VI. AFRASIAN (SEMITE-HAMITE) LANGUAGES

Semitic branch

Arabic, Assyrian, etc.

Dead: Hebrew.

Egyptian branch

Dead: Ancient Egyptian, Coptic

Berbero-Libyan branch

(North Africa and West Central Africa) Ghadames, Kabyle, etc.

Kushite branch

(Northeast and East Africa) Agave, Somali, Sakho, etc.

Chadian branch

(Central Africa and West Central Sub-Saharan Africa)

Hausa, Gwandara, etc.

VII. NIGERO-CONGO LANGUAGES

(territory of sub-Saharan Africa)

1. Mande languages(bamana, etc.)

2 Atlantic languages(fur, diola, etc.)

3. Kru languages(kru, seme, etc.) and other groups (total - 10)

VIII. NILO-SAHARAN LANGUAGES

(Central Africa) Songhai, fur, mimi, etc.

IX. Khoisan languages

(on the territory of South Africa, Namibia, Angola)

Bushman languages ​​(Kung, Auni, Hadza, etc.), Hottentot languages.

X. Sino-Tibetan languages

Chinese branch: Chinese, Dungan.

Tibeto-Burmese branch: Tibetan, Burmese.

XI. THAI LANGUAGES

Thai, Lao, etc.

XII. LANGUAGES

These are the little-studied languages ​​of Central and Southern China: Yao, Miao, well.

XIII. DRAVID LANGUAGES

(languages ancient population Indian subcontinent)

Tamil, Telugu, etc.

XIV. OUTSIDE THE FAMILY - BURUSHASDI LANGUAGE

(mountainous regions of northwest India)

XV. AUSTRIASIAN LANGUAGES

Nicobar, Vietnamese, etc.

XVI. AUSTRONESIAN (MALAY-POLYNESIAN) LANGUAGES

A. Indonesian branch

Indonesian, Madurese, Tagalog (Tagalog).

B. Polynesian branch

Tonga, Maori, Hawaiian, etc.

B. Micronesian branch

Marshalsky, Truk and others.

XVII. AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGES

Many small indigenous languages ​​of Central and Northern Australia, most famously a p an n t a.

XVIII. PAPUAN LANGUAGES

Languages ​​of the central part of about. New Guinea and some smaller islands in the Pacific. A very complex and not definitively established classification.

XIX. PALEOASIATIAN LANGUAGES

Chukchi-Kamchatka languages

Chukchi, Koryak, Eskimo, Aleut, etc.

XX. INDIAN (AMERINDIAN) LANGUAGES

Language families of North America

1) Algonquian (Menomini, Yurok, Cree, etc.).

2) Iroquois (Cherokee, Seneca, etc.).

3) Penutian (Chinook, Clamack, etc.), etc.

Germanic and Romance languages: areas of distribution and distinctive features.

Germanic languages

Among the Indo-European languages, the Germanic languages ​​rank first in terms of the number of people who speak them (over 400 million people out of 1600 million speakers of various Indo-European languages). Modern Germanic languages ​​include:

1. English spoken in the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand. In these countries, it is the national language, the language of the vast majority of the population. In Canada, English is one of the two official languages, along with French, with Anglo-Canadians making up over 40% of the population. In the Republic of South Africa, English is also one of the official languages, along with Afrikaans (Boer). English was forcibly introduced as the language of colonial domination and was the official language in the former colonies and dominions of England, where along with it there were local languages ​​of the main population of these countries. With their release from the power of Great Britain, the English language loses its dominant position and is gradually being replaced by local languages. About 400 million people speak English.

2. The German language is spoken in Germany, Austria, in northern and central Switzerland, in Luxembourg, in France - in Alsace and Lorraine. It is also distributed in some other areas in Europe and the USA. About 100 million people speak German.

3. Dutch (Dutch) language - the language of the population of the Netherlands and Flanders, which unites the northern provinces of Belgium;

The Dutch language has some distribution in the USA, in the West Indies. Dutch is spoken by over 19 million people.

4. Afrikaans (Boer) - the language of the descendants of the Dutch colonists, one of the two official languages ​​of South Africa (the second official language of South Africa is English). It is spoken by about 3.5 million people.

5. Yiddish is the modern Hebrew language. Distributed in various countries among the Jewish population.

6. Frisian is not an independent national language; it is spoken by the population of the Frisian Islands, the northern coast of the Netherlands and a small region in northwestern Germany. Frisian is spoken by over 400,000 people.

The languages ​​listed above are West German subgroup. TO North Germanic (Scandinavian) subgroup include the following languages: 1. Icelandic - the language of the population of Iceland (about 270,000 people). 2. Norwegian is the language of the population of Norway (about 4.2 million people). 3. Faroese - the language of the population of the Faroe Islands (about 50,000 people). 4. Swedish is the language of the population of Sweden (about 8 million people) and part of the population of Finland (about 300 thousand people). 5. Danish - the language of the population of Denmark (over 5 million people); Danish is also spoken in Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Scandinavian languages ​​- Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish - are common in some US states and Canada among immigrants from Scandinavian countries.

English developed from Anglo-Saxon, German from Old High German, subsequently drawing Low Saxon into its orbit as Low German, Dutch (with Flemish in Belgium) from Old Low Frankish, Afrikaans from Dutch, Yiddish developed on the basis of High German, like Swiss and Luxembourgish; the Scandinavian languages ​​(Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and from the latter Icelandic and Faroese) arose from the Old Norse.

Distinctive features of the Germanic languages:

in phonetics: dynamic stress on the first (root) syllable; reduction of unstressed syllables; assimilative variation of vowels, which led to historical alternations in umlaut (by row) and refraction (by degree of rise); common German consonant movement;

in morphology: wide use of ablaut in inflection and word formation; the formation (next to a strong preterite) of a weak preterite by means of a dental suffix; distinguishing between strong and weak declensions of adjectives; manifestation of a tendency to analyticism;

in word formation: the special role of nominal word formation (basic composition); the prevalence of suffixation in nominal word production and prefixation in verb word production; the presence of a conversion (especially in English);

in syntax: tendency to fix word order;

in vocabulary: layers of native Indo-European and common Germanic, borrowings from the Celtic, Latin, Greek, French languages.

Availability already in ancient time apart from common innovations, phonetic and morphological differences between groups of languages; numerous isoglosses between Scandinavian and Gothic, Scandinavian and West Germanic, Gothic and West Germanic, testifying to historical ties in different eras.

Romance languages

The Romance group unites the languages ​​​​that arose on the basis of Latin:

Aromanian (Aromunian),

Galician,

gascon,

Dalmatian (extinct at the end of the 19th century),

Spanish,

Istro-Romanian

Italian,

Catalan,

Ladino (Jewish language of Spain)

Megleno-Romanian (Meglenite),

Moldavian,

Portuguese,

Provençal (Occitan),

Romansh; they include:

Swiss, or Western, Romansh / Graubünden / Curval / Romansh, represented by at least two varieties - Surselvian / Obwaldian and Upper Engadine, sometimes subdivided into more languages;

Tyrolean, or Central, Romansh / Ladin / Dolomite / Trentino and

Friulian/Eastern Romansh, often classified as a separate group,

Romanian,

Sardinian (Sardinian),

Franco-Provencal,

French.

Literary languages ​​have their own variants: French - in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada; Spanish in Latin America, Portuguese in Brazil. On the basis of French, Portuguese, Spanish, more than 10 Creole languages ​​arose.

In Spain and Latin American countries, these languages ​​are often referred to as Neo-Latin. The total number of speakers is about 580 million people. More than 60 countries use Romance languages ​​as national or official languages.

Zones of distribution of Romance languages:

"Old Romania": Italy, Portugal, almost all of Spain, France, south of Belgium, west and south of Switzerland, the main territory of Romania, almost all of Moldova, separate inclusions in the north of Greece, south and northwest of Yugoslavia;

"New Romania": part of North America (Quebec in Canada, Mexico), almost all of Central America and South America, most of the Antilles;

Countries, former colonies, where the Romance languages ​​(French, Spanish, Portuguese), without displacing the local ones, became official - almost all of Africa, small territories in South Asia and Oceania.

The classification of Romance languages ​​encounters difficulties due to the diversity and gradualness of transitions from language to language. In practice, the geographical principle is often used. Subgroups are distinguished: Ibero-Romance (Portuguese, Galician, Spanish, Catalan), Gallo-Romance (French, Provençal), Italian-Romance (Italian, Sardinian), Romansh, Balkan-Romance (Romanian, Moldavian, Aromunian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian) . A division is also proposed, taking into account some structural features, into the languages ​​of "continuous Romania" (Italian, Occitan, Catalan, Spanish, Galician, Portuguese), "internal" language (Sardinian, the most archaic in structure), "external" languages, with a large number innovations and experienced the greatest influence of foreign system languages ​​(French, Romansh, Balkan-Romance). The languages ​​of "continuous Romany" reflect the general Romance language type to the greatest extent.

Main features of the Romance languages:

in phonetics: rejection of quantitative differences in vowels; the common Romansh system has 7 vowels (the best preservation in Italian); the development of specific vowels (nasals in French and Portuguese, labialized front vowels in French, Provençal, Romansh; mixed vowels in Balkan-Romanian); the formation of diphthongs; reduction of unstressed vowels (especially final ones); open/close neutralization e And O in unstressed syllables; simplification and transformation of consonant groups; the emergence of affricates as a result of palatalization, which in some languages ​​have become fricative; weakening or reduction of the intervocalic consonant; weakening and reduction of the consonant in the outcome of the syllable; a tendency towards openness of the syllable and limited compatibility of consonants; a tendency to phonetically link words in a speech stream (especially in French);

in morphology: preservation of inflection with a strong tendency towards analyticism; the name has 2 numbers, 2 genders, the absence of a case category (except for the Balkan-Romance), the transfer of object relations by prepositions; a variety of forms of the article; preservation of the case system for pronouns; agreement of adjectives with names in gender and number; formation of adverbs from adjectives by means of a suffix -mente(except Balkan-Romanian); an extensive system of analytical verb forms; the typical scheme of a Romance verb contains 16 tenses and 4 moods; 2 pledges; peculiar impersonal forms;

in syntax: word order is fixed in some cases; the adjective usually follows the noun; determinatives precede the verb (except for the Balkan-Romance ones).

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MINISTRY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

BIRSKY STATE

SOCIO-PEDAGOGICAL ACADEMY

in linguistics

Classification of world languages

Fulfilled

Yarullin Ildar

106 group

Introduction

Genealogical tree of languages ​​and how it is composed

Languages ​​"inserting" and languages ​​"isolating"

Indo-European group of languages

Afro-Asiatic languages

Uralic languages

Altaic languages

Caucasian languages

Chukotka-Kamchatka and other languages ​​of Siberia and Far East

Chinese language and its neighbors

Austroasiatic languages

Dravidian and other languages ​​of mainland Asia

Pacific languages

African languages

About Indian languages

INTRODUCTION

What are the languages? What do they have in common and how do they differ from each other? How are they distributed around the globe? What is their writing style, how did it develop historically? I tried to find answers to these and many other questions.

Why can't a Russian student learn a foreign language properly, and a foreigner can't master Russian? Yes, because he simply cannot imagine that, apart from his native language, there can exist some other, completely different from him, because it seems to him that in any language everything should be expressed exactly the same or almost the same as in his own language. native. Our Russian schoolchildren do not immediately come to terms with the fact that in other languages ​​there are no solid consonants, but there are not three, but many more tenses of the verb. A foreign students puzzle over the obvious differences for you and me between jump, jump, jump, jump, jump and jump over.

That is why it is very important not only to study the grammar of the native language and foreign language, but from the very beginning to understand: different languages ​​can express the same thought, the same content in a completely different way.

PEDIGREE TREE OF LANGUAGES AND HOW IT IS COMPOSED

Languages ​​can be "relatives" to each other. Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian are the "children" of Old Russian. He, in turn, is the “son” of the language that all the Slavs spoke when they were still a single people living in a small area. True, scientists argue about where this territory was located. They are looking for it in present-day Poland, and at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains, and in the steppes of southern Ukraine. This common language of the ancient Slavs is called Common Slavonic.

Let's look for more distant ancestors. Everyone has Slavic languages with the Baltic ones, a common ancestor named the Balto-Slavic language. And its "father" is a common Indo-European language, which, in addition to Balto-Slavic, gave rise to many more Indo-European languages. Further, our genealogy breaks off: we know nothing about what was before the common Indo-European language. Most importantly, we do not know if it had its own brother languages ​​that have a common parent.

True, there are some suspicions. Twenty years ago, in late autumn, together with a small group of friends, I buried the young linguist Vyacheslav Markovich Illich-Svitich at a cemetery near Moscow. He published almost nothing in his life. But on the other hand, he managed to write a comparative dictionary of different languages ​​\u200b\u200bof Eurasia, which he called "Nostratic". Scientists are still arguing whether he is right or not. You may very well be right...

And how can we even know from which language which languages ​​\u200b\u200boriginated? No one issues birth certificates for languages. It's good if you can follow step by step, for example, according to ancient manuscripts, inscriptions, how another language turned out from one language. Let's say from Latin ancient romans - modern spanish or french. But what if the ancestor language did not have a written language? (And this happens most often.) How to establish his "paternity", and therefore the relationship of all his "children"? And in general, none of us heard how they spoke in a common Slavic or common Indo-European language. How do we know what he was like?

It turns out that this can be found out. There is a special method for establishing the relationship of languages. It is called comparative history. Here's how it's applied.

Take different Indo-European languages. As a matter of fact, we cannot yet call them Indo-European, because we do not yet know whether they are related to each other or not. Therefore, let's just say: different ancient languages ​​of Europe and Asia. Why does it have to be ancient? Why is it bad if we compare, say, modern Russian, German and French languages? The answer will be the following: from “generation” to “generation”, languages ​​change their “appearance”, become less and less similar to their distant ancestor and to each other. Who do you think should have more similarities: siblings or second cousins, fourth cousins, fifth cousins? Russian can be compared with Ukrainian and Belarusian to find out what their common "father" was, French - with Spanish, Portuguese, Italian. But in order to climb higher in our family tree, we must choose relatives, so to speak, of a more advanced age. Not French, but Latin. Not modern Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, but Old Icelandic (apparently, the Varangian squads in Kievan Rus; but nothing survived from the language of the Varangians, except for the names). Not the modern (modern Greek) language spoken in today's Greece and Cyprus, but ancient Greek. And it would be nice to be older - it means that it is best to take the language of Homer and the inscriptions of the ancient Cretan-Mycenaean era. Not the modern Hindi language (the state language of India), but its distant ancestor, which is called Sanskrit. The most ancient cultural monuments of India are written on it - the philosophical work "Vedas", containing sacred religious texts, the great poem "Mahabharata" ... True, we do not always have a choice at all. Some languages ​​were once alive. They were spoken by people, and most importantly, they were written - various documents, letters, poems. The main thing, because in this case we can restore what these languages ​​​​were. But then they became dead, they were no longer used in everyday life, they were no longer spoken. Of course, you understand - languages ​​themselves cannot die, people die ...

However, in order for a language to cease to exist, to be erased from the map of languages, it is absolutely not necessary that all speakers of it be exterminated. Although it also happens: in the last century, the last Tasmanian woman died (a native inhabitant of the island of Tasmania off the southern coast of Australia). With her death (all Tasmanians were brutally exterminated by Europeans) died, ended their history and the languages ​​of Tasmania.

More often something else happens. The people merge with other peoples, lose their language and switch to another. And when no one speaks the language, it becomes as dead as the language of the Tasmanians. Here are examples. The composition of the Cuban nation includes the descendants of the Spanish conquerors, and the descendants of Negro slaves from Africa, and the descendants of the indigenous inhabitants of Cuba - the Indians. But, neither the descendants of the Negroes, nor the descendants of the Indians have retained their native languages ​​- they all now speak Spanish and feel like a single Cuban people. There are also many in the Russian people different peoples who used to speak their own languages. These are the Baltic tribes, whose language was close to Lithuanian; and relatives of the current Estonians, and relatives of the current Tatars (Turkic peoples).

Not so often, but it still happens that a people who once spoke their own language does not merge with anyone - it continues to exist, so to speak, separately, but for one reason or another changes its language. This happened, for example, with the Jews. When history scattered them across different countries Europe, they lost their native language and began to speak to others. Those who settled in Germany (and then this group of Jews settled in Poland and other countries of Eastern Europe and further - in Russia), switched to one of the dialects German language and based on it new language- the so-called Yiddish. Another group of Jews, like the first, first lived in Spain, and from there they dispersed to other countries of Southern Europe and North Africa. Their language, which arose on the basis of the Castilian dialect Spanish, is called Sephardic; however, unlike Yiddish, few people speak it now.

One way or another, it happens that a language dies: no matter how much we want to get to know its descendants, they are not there - the language died, so to speak, childless. And it happens (by the way, much more often) on the contrary. The language is alive and well. We can study it as much as we want. Moreover, we have every reason to consider it a relative of other, including ancient, languages. But we have no idea what his “father”, “grandfather” looked like. Such, for example, is the Albanian language: we know what it is now, and what it was before, what kind of “brothers”, “uncles” or “great-uncles” it had (now deceased) is unknown. So we have to compare ancient Indian (Sanskrit), ancient Greek and other ancient languages ​​not with "ancient Albanian" (we do not know it), but with modern Albanian.

But back to how we establish the relationship of languages.

Let's take some very simple word, for example father. In Latin, this word sounds like Pater (hence the name of the Catholic priest - Pater). In the Old Germanic languages, it looked something like fadar, hence the English father and the German Vater. In the Armenian language - khair (t in the middle of the word fell out, but this is not important to us now).

Let's compare these words. We can draw the following conclusion: the Latin p in the Germanic languages ​​​​corresponds to f, and in Armenian - h (it does not sound like Russian x, but like h in German or English words, like haveep, have). This conclusion can be tested by taking other words that have the same sounds. Let's say word five: German füpf, Armenian hing. True, the corresponding Latin word has changed, but in ancient Greek we find repte. Yes, and Russian five of the same origin. We can also recall the Lithuanian repki and the ancient Indian pancha.

You have already noticed: we can not only say that this or that sound in a given language has regular correspondences in the words of other languages ​​- r lat. = f germ. = h arm. (of course, we take words with the same or very close meaning), but we also have some right to assert that it was not h that turned into f or p, but vice versa - p turned into f and h. After all, there are more “r-languages” and they are more widely distributed than “f-languages” or, moreover, “h-language” - Armenian. In addition, scientists are well aware of which sounds can most often turn into which: in the most diverse languages ​​of the world, unrelated to each other, you can see how n turns into f, but never or almost never does n turn from f.

By the way, do you think f comes from h or vice versa? With great certainty, it can be argued that it was f that turned into h. For example, the Latin filius meaning "son" gave the Spanish hijo- also "son".

And here is another example - with the word brother. In ancient Indian it is bhraatar, in Latin it is frater, in ancient Greek it is also frater, in the Germanic languages ​​Brider, brother, in Russian it is brother. Again, you can write something like an equation: bh ind. = f lat., Greek. \u003d b germ., slav. Let's compare: ancient Indian bharami "I carry", Latin and Greek fero, Russian take. From the German ones we will have to take dead language- Gothic: baira. So our formula is correct.

Arguing approximately in the same way as last time, we get that from bx arose b, and from b - f.

And now we can not only draw a table of correspondences of sounds in different languages, but also calculate - as de Saussure once did - what sound should have been in the common Indo-European language, which gave rise to ancient Indian, and ancient Greek, and Germanic, and Slavic, and Armenian . The words brother and I carry in it had to begin with the sound bh, and the words father and five - with the sound r. And it is clear that all the languages ​​considered are relatives, you can even figure out what their family tree looks like.

It would seem simple. But in reality, everything is much more confusing. That is, there is no necessary word in the required language or languages, or rather, it is of a different origin: the father in Russian and other Slavic languages ​​is in no way connected with the word pater. It turns out that in some language a sound in front of another sound suddenly begins to behave arbitrarily - you have to find out why this happens. In Latin, in the word five, n suddenly turned into square: qiinqie. Then we take a word that, it would seem, completely coincides with the word of another language both in meaning and in sound: the Latin habeo "I have" and the German habep, have.

But try to compare them - nothing will work. The fact is that the German habep corresponds to the Latin sario "I take", and not habeo at all, and the "equation" should look something like this: k lat. = h germ. That different sounds suddenly merge into one. It turns out that the desired word did not exist in the language from the very beginning, but was borrowed later from another language. I'm not talking about the fact that it is not always immediately possible to realize that words that seem to be outwardly not at all similar are in fact connected by rigid sound correspondences. Well, for example, Russian two and Armenian erku.

So the linguist who uses the comparative-historical method constantly encounters difficulties. And we can only approximately restore the ancestral languages. But we can!

Now imagine that we have before us languages ​​which, like Albanian, are known to us only in their present form. No ancient monuments, no inscriptions have been preserved. Moreover, they constantly mix, borrow words from each other. Moreover, a third of them died out, and the other third - together with the peoples speaking them - settled thousands of kilometers in different directions from the place where these peoples used to live. Try to imagine what it is like to work in these conditions! Therefore, we can not always say with certainty that such and such a language is related to such and such. One has to rely on the similarity of the linguistic type - but this is not always reliable: after all, the Latin language, for example, is synthetic, and French, Spanish and other Romance languages, of course, are the "children" of Latin - they are all analytical! Attract similarities in the culture of peoples - but we have already seen that a people can switch to another language, can (let's add in brackets) keep the language, but change the culture beyond recognition. What is common in culture, for example, between the ancient Egyptians and modern Copts (a people still living in the Arab Republic of Egypt)? Almost nothing. And the Coptic language is a direct descendant of the ancient Egyptian. (True, it is not spoken in ordinary life, but is used in churches during worship.)

So when we carefully consider the linguistic picture of the world and say that such and such languages ​​are related, this does not mean at all that we are always equally sure of this!

LANGUAGES "INSERTING" AND LANGUAGES "ISOLATING"

Now we can introduce special terms. Armenian and Turkic languages ​​are agglutinative, that is, in translation - “gluing”. In them, several particles are “glued” one after another to the word, each of them expresses any one grammatical meaning. And Russian and other languages ​​are inflectional. In the words of these languages ​​there are particles - inflections, expressing several grammatical meanings at once.

There are representatives of other, as they say, linguistic types.

Here, for example, are incorporating languages, or, in a literal translation, “inserting”. They differ in that in them several roots are easily combined into one long, long word, replacing two, three, or even four Russian words. Let's say gachny-myng-akmen-nen. In the Koryak language, in Kamchatka, this means: "left-hand-(he)-took (that is, shook it)". All in one word!

Or isolating languages, in which the root appears not surrounded by prefixes, suffixes and endings, but in isolation. Something like this: not “the girl is crying”, but “the girl is crying”. These include, among other things, Chinese, as well as Vietnamese and Lao. And in our country, such a language is Dungan, related to Chinese (and Tibetan). Dungans live in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. In this language there is neither declension nor conjugation: all grammatical connections of words are expressed only by their order - as in Russian Mother loves her daughter.

And if we oppose, say, Russian (and Armenian) and Moldavian languages, then Russian will be synthetic (from the word synthesis "connection): particles expressing grammatical meanings are connected with roots in one word. And the Moldavian language with its din will turn out to be analytical (from words analysis "dismemberment": separate words serve to express grammatical meanings in it.

Languages ​​with such a word order, as in Armenian or Turkic, are called “languages ​​with left branching” in linguistics. A parsing scheme - or something very close to it - is called a "tree". (Sentences, sometimes even "nesting" or "nesting" - this is when they are inserted into each other: Here is the wheat that is stored in a dark closet in the house that Jack built.) This "tree" just branches left and right .

Left: The person I saw today...

Right: The person I saw today..

Or: the person I saw today...

The Turkic languages, as well as Japanese and many others, are "left-branching". And Russian is “right-branching”. Lithuanian and Latvian are in the middle.

INDO-EUROPEAN GROUP OF LANGUAGES

We are primarily interested in the Slavic languages. They are divided into three groups. East Slavic languages ​​are Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian. (their kinship means that they had a common ancestor - the Old Russian or Common East Slavic language, which was spoken in Kievan Rus. The collapse of a single people and a single language was associated with feudal fragmentation ancient Russian lands and the difference in their further historical destinies. Some became part of the Polish-Lithuanian state, others united around Vladimir, and later Moscow - and so on.) The South Slavic languages ​​\u200b\u200bare Bulgarian and the languages ​​of Yugoslavia: Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Slovenian. And finally, Polish, Czech, Slovak belong to the West Slavic.

The Baltic languages, as we said, are Lithuanian and Latvian. There was also the Old Prussian language, but the Prussians were partially exterminated, and partially mixed with other peoples.

The next group, or family of languages, included among the Indo-European languages, is the Germanic languages. This includes German. (In fact, this is not a single language, but a complex system dialects of different origin. For example, the so-called Low German dialect spoken by the inhabitants of the Baltic coast (Pomerania) is a real language. It even has rich literature on it.) Next comes the Dutch language, which has two twin brothers. This is the Flemish language of Belgium (another part of the Belgians speaks French) and Afrikaans, or the Boer language of South Africa, because the Boers, who emerged as an independent people with a separate language, were immigrants from Holland. This also includes the Frisian language of the inhabitants of the Friesland Islands in the North Sea, off the coast of Germany, as well as Yiddish, which we have already spoken about. All these languages ​​are called West Germanic.

Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic are North Germanic languages. There are also East German ones - with their own characteristics and common origin. Or rather, there is not, but there were all these languages, the main of which is Gothic, disappeared from the face of the earth. The last time they sounded, apparently, somewhere at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. The Dutch ambassador to Turkey, Busbek, while in Istanbul, met two Crimean Goths on the street: a small group of them, “lagging behind” during the great migration of peoples, settled in the mountainous Crimea back in the 5th-6th centuries, creating their own small state and from time to time giving know about yourself in history. Busback took them to his house, fed them, gave them drink, and asked them to say something in Gothic, diligently writing down everything that was said. These records have been...

The next group is the Celtic languages. There used to be a lot of them and they were widespread. The Celts were, for example, the Gauls, with whom Julius Caesar is known to have fought. These Gauls have become part of the French nation, and when the French want to emphasize the historical roots of their people and culture, they always remember the Gauls as their ancestors. From the name of the Celtic tribe of the Boii comes the old name of the Czech Republic - Bohemia, preserved in the name of Bohemian glass and in the word bohemia. Today, Celtic languages ​​are spoken, firstly, by the Irish, secondly, by the Scots, thirdly, by the inhabitants of Wales - the Welsh, and fourthly, by the inhabitants of the Brittany Peninsula in France - the Bretons. (There are a few other minor languages ​​that we haven't mentioned. In general, our list is not exhaustive.) In fact, most Celtic speakers are bilingual. So, the Irish usually know English as well (and Irish emigrants in the USA, Canada and other countries, as a rule, only speak English). English language Almost all Welsh and Scots speak French, most of the Bretons speak French.

Next come the Romance languages ​​(from the word Roma, that is, Rome). I said above that their "parent" is Latin. This is correct, but not quite: if we try to restore the ancestor of the Romance languages ​​by the comparative-historical method, we will get not the language that we know from Roman literature and learn at the university, but a little different - the so-called "folk" or "vulgar" Latin. This is understandable: after all, the Romance languages ​​arose when the Roman legionaries stationed in Gaul, Spain, present-day Romania, etc., began to mix with the local population: for example, in Romania they were Getae and Dacians. And the rude Roman soldiers, of course, did not speak the refined literary language of Catullus, Virgil and Horace, they had their own, colloquial version of the Latin language.

So, the Romance languages ​​include French, Spanish (and almost all Latin America, including Cuba), Portuguese (Brazilians also speak it), Italian, Romanian, and also the Moldavian language in our country. This is not all we can say, in Southern France they spoke and wrote Provençal for many centuries, a special Romance language is Catalan ( northeast Spain, near Barcelona), Sardinian - on the island of Sardinia. There are other, very few Romance languages ​​and dialects. Among them - the so-called Romansh language is spoken in the southeastern part of Switzerland (other languages ​​spoken in this country are German, French and Italian).

Well, we have already surveyed almost the whole of Europe. There are only two languages ​​left that do not have close relatives, but are still undeniably Indo-European. These "orphan" languages ​​are Albanian and Greek. True, Greek has a more than solid past - behind it is not only the ancient Greek language of Athens and Sparta, but also the language of the Cretan-Mycenaean culture of the 2nd millennium BC - so to speak, ancient Greek.

Now we have to, having crossed the border of Russia, begin to get acquainted with the Indo-Iranian languages, or rather, with part of them - the Iranian languages. In our country, these include Tajik, Ossetian, Kurdish (in Transcaucasia and Turkmenistan) and several other minor languages. By the way, the language spoken by the ancient inhabitants of the south of Russia - the Scythians, was also Iranian.

Most of the Iranian languages ​​are spoken abroad. The main ones are Farsi (Iran), Dari and Pashto (Afghanistan, Pakistan). Dari, like Tajik, goes back to Farsi.

Indian languages ​​are perhaps the most significant in terms of the number of speakers: they are spoken by about 450 million people in total! The most famous of them are Gujarati, Sindhi, Hindustani, Bengali, Assamese, Marathi, Sinhalese, Kashmiri. The "ancestor" of Indian languages ​​is Old Indian. On his ancient form(Vedic language) in the II millennium BC, the famous "Vedas" were composed - the sacred texts of the Indian religion, and after a millennium the so-called classical Sanskrit was formed, on which a huge epic, philosophical, religious, fiction was created.

In the Soviet Union, one Indian language was spoken. This is gypsy. Nomadic gypsy tribes used to live in northwestern India.

What else can be said about Indian languages? Probably, the fact that some of them - Sindhi, Hindustani, Kash-Miri - exist, as it were, in two faces. Those who speak them in India write in the Indian alphabet, using words and expressions borrowed from Sanskrit. And the Hindustani language itself in India is called "Hindi". And nearby, in Muslim Pakistan, speakers of the same language write in Arabic letters, and insert words and expressions from Arabic and Farsi into their speech, calling their language “Urdu”.

Of the living Indo-European languages, we have only one thing left to say - Armenian. It is spoken by about four million people in Armenia and about two million abroad. The Armenian language, like Greek and Albanian, also has no close relatives. However, he himself can be regarded as two twins: the Armenians use two different literary languages ​​- Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian.

Of the extinct languages, let's name the Hittite - the language of the mighty Hittite kingdom, which successfully fought with the Egyptian pharaohs. Texts in the Hittite language date back to the 14th-15th centuries BC.

AFRO-ASIAN LANGUAGES

Also called Semitic-Hamitic. To the peoples who spoke these languages, we owe Egyptian pyramids, the first letter alphabet, biblical legends ... The most common of them is, of course, Arabic. It is spoken by about 150 million people in North Africa (Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan), Arabian Peninsula, in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan. close to Arabic Maltese - it is spoken by the inhabitants of the island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. The Afro-Asiatic Assyrian language is also spoken by a small people - the Assyrians, or Aysors, who live mainly in Armenia.

Amharic and other related languages ​​are spoken in Ethiopia. The Maasai language in East Africa apparently belongs to the same Afro-Asiatic family. We still need it.

We have known the ancient Egyptian language since about 3000 BC. He survived to this day in the form of Coptic.

The languages ​​of the nomadic population of the Sahara desert - Tuareg, Kabyle and others - are Berber languages. The language of the ancient population of the Canary Islands - the Guanches - also, apparently, was Berber

It remains to name the Hebrew language - the state language of Israel, the Chado-Hamitic languages ​​spoken in Nigeria, Niger. Cameroon. Chad and some other countries of Central Africa, the most important of which are Hausa, Cushitic languages ​​spoken in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia and Kenya

Of course, it is impossible not to name the extinct Phoenician language - it was among the Phoenicians, as we will see in the seventh chapter, that the first alphabetic writing appeared; Assyro-Babylonian, or Akkadian, and. finally, Hebrew. The inhabitants of Carthage also spoke Phoenician.

URAL LANGUAGES

So called three families of languages ​​related to each other - Finnish, Ugric and Samoyedic. The vast majority of Uralic languages ​​are spoken in Russia.

TO Finnish include Finnish with Karelian, Estonian, the language of the Sami, or Laplanders (Lapps), on the Kola Peninsula and in the adjacent regions of Finland, Norway and Sweden; then two Mordovian languages ​​- Moksha and Erzya - in the Mordovian Republic and neighboring regions, two Mari - mountain and meadow - in the Mari Republic and neighboring regions and republics; the Udmurt language in the Republic of Udmurtia; Komi - in the Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug and in some other areas

The Ugric languages ​​are Hungarian (in Hungary and partly in other countries, including Russia), Mansi and Khanty (both in the Tyumen region). How the Hungarians, obviously close in language to the peoples of Western Siberia, ended up in the Danube Valley is not entirely clear.

Samoyedic languages ​​are distributed along the Arctic Ocean - from the White Sea to the Taimyr Peninsula. The most famous of them is Nenets. Let's call it Nganasan.

ALTAI LANGUAGES

Under this name, three large families are united - Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu.

To what extent this association is justified is still debatable. If these families are related, then not close.

Most of Turkic languages widespread throughout the former Soviet Union. These are Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Turkmen, Azerbaijani, Chuvash, Tatar, Bashkir, Karachay, Balkar, Altai, Khakass, Tuva and Yakut. Beyond the borders of Russia, first of all, Turkish (in Turkey) should be mentioned. A number of Turkic peoples live in Western China; many Azerbaijanis and Turkmens in Iran, Turkmens, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz in Mongolia, Afghanistan

The Mongolian languages ​​immediately suggest the Mongolian People's Republic. Indeed, Mongolian (Khalkha-Mongolian) is spoken there; but there are at least a dozen more languages ​​spoken in the PRC and even in Afghanistan. There are two Mongolian languages ​​in Russia: Buryat in the Buryat Autonomous Okrug and Kalmyk in Kalmykia, on the Lower Volga.

The Tungus-Manchu languages ​​are spoken by numerous peoples of Eastern Siberia and the Far East, as well as the Manchus living in the northeast of the PRC.

CAUCASUS LANGUAGES

Not all linguists consider it right to combine them into a single family. But it has been absolutely proven that the languages ​​of the Caucasus (except for Indo-European, for example, Armenian and Ossetian, and Turkic, for example, Azerbaijani and Balkar) can be divided into four families. Here they are:

Abkhaz-Adyghe languages. These include Abkhazian, Abaza - not far from Abkhazia, but on the other side of the mountains, Kabardino-Circassian in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. and Karachay-Cherkess Rep., Adyghe in the Adyghe Rep. and adjacent areas.

Nakh languages: Chechen and Ingush (Chechen Republic, Ingushetia and adjacent areas)

Dagestan languages: Avar, Dargin, Lak, Lezgin, Tabasaran, Archa and more than 40 languages. Many experts combine them with the Nakh.

Kartvelian languages. The main one is Georgian, in addition, Zan and Svan.

Some linguists bring together the language of the Basques living in the Pyrenees mountains on the border of Spain and France with the Caucasian languages. Indeed, in the culture of these peoples there is much in common or at least similar. The languages ​​are also somewhat similar, but it has not yet been possible to accurately prove their relationship.

CHUKOTA-KAMCHATKA AND OTHER LANGUAGES OF SIBERIA AND THE FAR EAST

(When we say “other languages”, then, of course, we mean languages ​​not mentioned on the previous pages. After all, Tungus-Manchu, Mongolian, and many Turkic languages ​​are also languages ​​of Siberia or the Far East.)

There are only four Chukchi-Kamchatka languages ​​in the world. This is primarily the Chukchi language.

In addition to it, this group includes Koryak (in the north of Kamchatka) and two little-known languages ​​- Kerek and Alyutor. The Kerek language is generally spoken by several families - this language is on the verge of extinction.

It is very likely that all these languages ​​are related to another language of Kamchatka - Itelmen.

It remains for us to list several languages, about whose family ties we still cannot say anything definite. This is, firstly, the Yukagir language. Yukaghirs, or oduls (there are several hundred of them), roam with their reindeer herds in the north-east of Yakutia. Secondly, it is the Nivkh language. The Nivkhs who speak it (formerly called Gilyaks) live at the mouth of the Amur and on Sakhalin Island. And finally, this is the Ket language (or rather, the Ket languages, because there are several of them). It is spoken by residents of the taiga region, stretching along the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, in the middle reaches of the Yenisei, that is, in the very heart of Siberia. Whatever languages ​​they tried to compare Ket with - up to the languages ​​of Oceania! But for now, he is still "without a clan, without a tribe."

CHINESE AND ITS NEIGHBORS

We have chosen Chinese for the title of this section not because it differs in any way from other languages. It's just that far more people speak it than any other - about a billion!

However, the Chinese language is different in some ways. And even very many. For example, this is a typical isolating language (remember the end of the first chapter!). This means that it has neither declension nor conjugation; that, looking at the word, one cannot say whether it is a noun, an adjective, or a verb; that every Chinese syllable has its own musical tone (change the tone and the syllable will mean something completely different, although all the sounds are the same)...

The second difference between the Chinese language is its writing, to which we will return in the seventh chapter, the famous hieroglyphs.

Very close to the People's Republic of China is the Korean Peninsula. It has two states: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and South Korea, where they speak the same language - Korean. This language is somewhat similar to the Altaic languages, and many linguists classify Korean as an Altaic language. But he is not Turkic, and not Mongolian, and not Tungus-Manchu, but, so to speak, in itself.

And even further - if you cross the Tsushima Strait - the territory occupied by two languages ​​that also do not remember kinship. The name of this territory is Japan. Well, one of these languages ​​is, of course, Japanese, there can be no doubt about that. And second? Its name is Ainu. Previously, the Ainu in Japan were the only inhabitants. Only then did the Japanese come there and the Ainu people were pushed back to the northern tip of the Japanese islands.

But back to Chinese. Unlike his neighbors, Korean and Japanese, he is not alone and his family is not small. It includes, as already mentioned, the Tibetan language; Burmese in the State of Myanmar (Burma); Thai language - in Thailand. But Thais live in both China and Vietnam. This also includes the Lao language.

AUSTRIASIAN LANGUAGES

The main one is Vietnamese. Please note: it is very similar in structure to Chinese, although there is no relationship between them. This once again shows that one cannot judge their relationship by the type of languages, and vice versa - obviously related languages ​​can have completely different “appearance”, and languages ​​that obviously have nothing in common can be similar as two drops of water.

However, it is still far from proven that the Vietnamese language generally belongs to the Austroasiatic. Many experts believe that he is "on his own." If so, then the best-known of the languages ​​of this family is Khmer, which is spoken in Cambodia. You have probably never heard of other languages, and we will not mention them here.

DRAVID AND OTHER LANGUAGES OF CONTINENTAL ASIA

Dravidian languages ​​are spoken in India. They are not related to Hindustani and other Indo-Iranian languages ​​- this is a completely different family. Apparently, before the arrival of the Indo-European tribes in Hindustan, it was the Dravidians who were the dominant population of this part of Asia. In any case, when the inscriptions from the ancient cities of India - Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, made in a very special script, were recently deciphered, it turned out that the language of these inscriptions was similar to Dravidian. Dravidian languages, mixed with Indo-European (Indian), gave them unique features. Some of them can be seen with the simplest pocket calculator: for example, in the Dravidian languages, the most common vowel is a, and the same sound is found more often than others in the ancient Indian language. One of the songs of the epic poem "Mahabharata", for example, begins like this: Asid raja NALO NAMA, virasena suto bali 9 but on 7 other vowels! And here is the beginning of another: Asid MAdresh prathAmah raja parAmidharmikah - 11 a and only 5 other vowels. Strictly speaking, there is even more here and there - after all, ancient Indian e is a plus u, and o is a plus y.

The largest and most famous of the Dravidian languages ​​are Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada. By the way, several hundred Dravidians live in the USSR: once they, together with the Balochs, moved to the Turkmen SSR and still live there.

It remains for us to name a few more Asian languages. Of these, only one Burushaski is among the living, it is spoken by about 40 thousand inhabitants of the small Gilgut region, not far from the place where the borders of the USSR, Afghanistan, China and India meet. And this language is really amazing, because it is not like any other. For example, in many languages ​​of the world, if a voiceless sound falls between two vowels, it becomes voiced: ata → hell. And in any case, a combination like hell can never turn into ata! Nowhere - except for the Burushaski language ...

We forgot to name the ancient language of the Apennine Peninsula - Etruscan. A lot in culture, mythology, religion ancient rome borrowed from the Etruscans. Many inscriptions remain from them. Alas, we do not know how to read them yet. So whether the Etruscan language was Indo-European (as many scientists believe), or whether it belonged to some other family, or was, so to speak, lonely - no one knows ...

LANGUAGES OF THE PACIFIC

These are primarily Austronesian languages. They used to be called Malayo-Polynesian, but, as we will see in a moment, this is just as inaccurate a name as "Semitic-Hamitic", because the Austronesian languages ​​include those that cannot be called either Malay (more precisely, Indonesian) or Polynesian. .

So Indonesian. They are spoken by most of the inhabitants of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippine Islands. The main language of Malaysia is Malay; and the state language of Indonesia - Indonesian - is, in essence, the same Malay; we have already seen in India a very similar situation with the Hindi and Urdu languages. Another very known language Indonesian - Javanese; in fact, it is not he himself who is known, but his ancestor - the Old Javanese language, or Kawi. The main language of the Philippine Islands is Tagalog. Let's call it Sundanese.

Interestingly, related to all these languages ​​​​and similar to them, the Malagash language now has nothing to do with the Pacific Ocean: it is spoken on the largest island of another ocean - the Indian - in Madagascar, off the eastern coast of Africa. The fact is that the Malagasy used to live in Indonesia, and then, having crossed the Indian Ocean, they settled in Madagascar.

Now we can move on to the already mentioned Polynesian languages. Polynesia is the name given to thousands of islands scattered across the expanse of the Pacific Ocean, and it turns out that most of them speak very similar languages. This is, for example, the language of Samoa; Tahiti language; Hawaiian; the Maori language spoken by the indigenous people of New Zealand; and even Rapanui, the language of Easter Island, from which it is closer to get to South America than to other islands of Polynesia.

But not all Pacific islands speak Polynesian. There are also Melanesian languages. (Polynesia is translated as “a country of many islands”; and Melanesia is “a country of black islands.” Black, of course, are not the islands themselves, but their inhabitants.) The most famous of them is the Fiji language on the islands of the same name. Melanesian languages ​​are also spoken by many inhabitants of the island of New Guinea, to which we shall return shortly.

Of the Austronesian languages, we still have m and k-Ronesian ("country of small islands"). Indeed, these islands - Caroline, Marshal, Mariana - are, in essence, not islands, but small coral reefs.

Now back to New Guinea. Throughout this book, we will more than once turn to the languages ​​​​of this island, which (unless, of course, they are among the Austronesian ones) are called Papuan. By the way, the word itself is of unknown origin. There is a hypothesis that the word Papua, or rather Papua, one Indonesian tribe called people with curly coarse hair: the Papuans have just such hair. New Guinea is a real reserve of languages, and peoples too. On this relatively small island alone, with a little over two million people, you can find about 500 various languages, not counting the Austronesian ones! We list here only those that will be mentioned in later chapters of this book. These are Abelam, Ava, Asmat, Bongu, Veri, Gadsup, Guli, Keva, Kiwai, Monumbo, Nasioi, Tangma, Telefol, Fore. And tokpisin is the language of intertribal communication between different peoples of New Guinea.

Whether the Papuan languages ​​are related to each other is not exactly known. In any case, this has not been proven. However, even if we believe those scientists who believe that they are related, at least twenty languages ​​of New Guinea still remain, so to speak, ownerless: no links have been established either between them themselves, or between them and other languages. But it is possible that there is a relationship between the Papuan languages ​​and some isolated languages ​​of the Indian Ocean islands, such as the island of Timor and the Andaman Islands.

And finally, Australia. Those few of its indigenous inhabitants - the aborigines, who still survive and who speak their native languages, are connected both by the unity of culture, and - although not very close - by the relationship of these languages. Of the Australian languages, we will meet Aranta and Saibalgal.

AFRICAN LANGUAGES

In Africa (even apart from the Afro-Asiatic languages) there are so many languages ​​and their family ties so intricate that it is simply impossible to describe them in a way that will satisfy all Africanists.

I think all Africanists will agree only that there is a large family of Bantu languages ​​in Africa. The most famous of them is Swahili. It is spoken in Tanzania, Zaire, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Mozambique, and to some extent even in Madagascar and other islands off the coast of Africa. Another language that you might have come across is the Zulu language, which is spoken by residents of various states of southern Africa. As you read this book further, you will also come across the Luba, Lugan-da, Ovimbundu, and Yaounde languages. All these are also Bantu languages.

Bantu are typical agglutinative languages. As in the Turkic ones, all the endings in them are strung like beads, and each of these endings has a narrow "specialty": one expresses only the number, the other - only the time, the third - only the person ... However, about the "endings". In Bantu, you almost never have to talk about them - the word in these languages ​​\u200b\u200bis “strings” not endings, but prefixes.

Another family, undoubtedly distinguished by all Africanists, is the so-called Kwa or Guinean languages. They are spoken by the inhabitants of the northern coast of the Gulf of Guinea. The most popular of these languages ​​are Yoruba (Nigeria, Cameroon, Benin, Togo, Sierra Leone), Ewe (Ghana, Togo, Benin), Ga (Ghana, Togo, Benin). These languages ​​are a bit like Chinese, Vietnamese, Lao, although they are not related to them: in short, these are also typical isolating languages.

We will only mention the rest of the languages ​​of West and Central Africa, or rather, some of them. We will meet in the pages of this book the Tiv language - it is spoken by about a million people in Nigeria and Cameroon, as well as the Yaounde language. Will not meet, but is very famous and also has about a million speaking the language Songhai (Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria). Two major language Republic of Mali - bambara and raspberry. In many countries of West Africa - in Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, on the islands of Cape Verde - they speak the Wolof language. Its close relative is the equally well-known Fula language, or rather Fulbe. It is spoken in Mauritania, Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Togo, Ghana, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast. In a word, this is 9 million people in virtually all of West Africa!

In the very south of the African continent, pushed back into the deserts, live the Hottentots and Bushmen, who speak the so-called Khoisan languages. In our book we will meet two of these languages: the Hottentot language Nama and the Bushman language Kung.

ABOUT INDIAN LANGUAGES

The names of these languages ​​cannot but sound like music to your ears. Chippeway and Navajo. Apache and Ojibwa. Shawnee and Delaware. Cheyenne and Choctaw. Ponca and Kwakiutl. Nootka, Sioux and Dakota. Oneida, Cherokee and Zuni. (We only traveled through Canada and the USA, more about other Indian languages ​​​​below.)

If in North America the Indian language, which is spoken by 2-3 thousand people, can already be considered a major one, then in Mexico and Central America we would pass it by without paying attention, because - despite the long "efforts" of the Spanish colonialists - here the Indian population was largely preserved. The most significant of these languages ​​are Maya; the language of the mothers on the border of Mexico and Guatemala; the Quekchi language, the Quiche language and the Kaqchikel language (all three in Guatemala); the Nahuatl language is, in fact, the language spoken by the ancient Aztecs; Otomi language; the Mixtec, Mazatec, and Zapotec languages ​​are all spoken in Mexico.

As for the languages ​​of South America, some of them not only survived - they are spoken by many millions of South Americans, they are in some places (for example, the Quechua language in Peru) even official (along with Spanish). Of the languages ​​of South America we will name Itonama in Bolivia; the Tupi language in Brazil; the Guarani language in Paraguay and nearby areas; the Quechua language - it is spoken by as many as 11 million almost all over the continent - in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina; the Aymara language (or a group of closely related languages) in Peru and Bolivia; Araucanian language (or languages?) in southern Chile and in Argentina.

How related the Indian languages ​​are to each other is difficult to say, because, except for the Maya, all of them were unwritten by the time the Europeans arrived, and we know them only in their current state. But separate language families can definitely be established: for example, Tupi is related to Guarani, Quechua is related to the Aymara language, Mixtek and Mazatec are relatives.

We have come to the very end of our review. Only one family of languages ​​remained - remained, because we moved with you along the map of the hemispheres, and you can’t even tell about these languages ​​in which hemisphere to look for them. This is an Eskimo-Aleutian family. It, in fact, consists of two separate, but related languages ​​- Eskimo and Aleut. But the fact is that Eskimo is spoken in our country in Chukotka, and in the US state of Alaska, and in Northern Canada, and on the island of Greenland.

Moreover - Greenland, which used to be a colony of Denmark, has two official languages ​​- Danish and Eskimo! Thus, Eskimo is spoken in Asia, and in America, and (I don’t know where it refers - to America or Europe) in Greenland.

The same situation is with the Aleutian language. It is spoken by the inhabitants of the American Aleutian Islands and the inhabitants of the Commander Islands - this is near Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands, which means real Asia.

We have listed over 250 languages. But this is only a tiny fraction of all the languages ​​of the world - there are (according to various opinions) from 3 to 5 thousand!

Among them are the so-called world languages ​​- Russian, English, French, Spanish. There are "zonal" languages ​​spoken by people from different neighboring countries - Arabic, Swahili. There are state or official languages ​​- Polish in Poland, Mongolian in Mongolia, Swedish in Sweden and many others. And most languages ​​do not have any official “position” - they are simply spoken ... One has 10 people, another 100, a third a thousand, a fourth 10 thousand.

Based on the materials of the book by A.A. Leontiev Journey through the Map of World Languages.

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The enumeration of languages ​​is accompanied by minimal geographical, historical and philological commentary.

I. INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

1. Indian group 1

(over 96 living languages ​​in total)

1) Hindi and Urdu(sometimes referred to as Hindustani 2) - two varieties of one new Indian literary language: Urdu - the state language of Pakistan, has a written language based on the Arabic alphabet; Hindi (official language of India) - based on the Old Indian script Devanagari.
2) Bengal.
3) Punjabi.
4) Lakhnda (landi).
5) Sindhi.
6) Rajasthani.
7) Gujarati.
8) Mrathi.
9) Sinhalese.
10) Nepal(Eastern Pahari, in Nepal)
11) Bihari.
12) Oriya.(otherwise: audrey, utkali, in eastern India)
13) Assamese.
14) Gypsy, released as a result of resettlements and migrations in the 5th - 10th centuries. AD
15) Kashmiri and others Dardic languages

Dead:
16) Vedic- the language of the most ancient sacred books of the Indians - the Vedas, formed in the first half of the second millennium BC. e. (recorded later).
17) Sanskrit. The "classical" literary language of the Indians from the 3rd century BC. BC. to the 7th century AD (literally samskrta means "processed", as opposed to prakrta "not normalized" spoken language); rich literature, religious and secular (epos, dramaturgy), remained in Sanskrit; the first Sanskrit grammar of the 4th c. BC. Panini reworked in the 13th century. AD Vopadeva.
18) Pali- Central Indian literary and cult language of the medieval era.
19) Prakrits- various colloquial Middle Indian dialects, from which the new Indian languages ​​\u200b\u200bcame; replicas of minor persons in Sanskrit dramaturgy are written on prakrits.

1 On Indian languages, see: 3grapher G.A. Languages ​​of India, Pakistan, Ceylon and Nepal. M., I960.
2 See, for example, the title of the book by A.P. Barannikov "Hindustani (Urdu and Hindi)". D., 1934.

2. Iranian group 1

(more than 10 languages; finds the greatest proximity with the Indian group, with which it unites into a common Indo-Iranian, or Aryan, group;
arya - tribal self-name in the most ancient monuments, from it Iran, and Alan - self-name of the Scythians)

1) Persian(Farsi) - writing based on the Arabic alphabet; for Old Persian and Middle Persian, see below.
2) Dari(Farsi-Kabuli) is the literary language of Afghanistan, along with Pashto.
3) Pashto(Pashto, Afghan) - literary language, from the 30s. state language of Afghanistan.
4) Baloch (baluchi).
5) Tajik.
6) Kurdish.
7) Ossetian; dialects: Iron (Eastern) Digor (Western). Ossetians - descendants of the Alans-Scythians
8) Talysh.
10) Caspian(Gilyan, Mazanderan) dialects.
11) Pamir languages(Shugnan, Rushan, Bartang, Capykol, Khuf, Oroshor, Yazgulyam, Ishkashim, Vakhani) are the non-written languages ​​of the Pamirs.
12) Yagnobsky.

Dead:
13) Old Persian- the language of cuneiform inscriptions of the Achaemenid era (Darius, Xerxes, etc.) VI - IV centuries. BC e.
14) Avestan- another ancient Iranian language, which came down in the Middle Persian lists of the sacred book "Avesta", which contains the religious texts of the cult of the Zoroastrians, the followers of Zarathushtra (in Greek: Zoroaster).
15) Pahlavi- Middle Persian language III - IX centuries. n. e., preserved in the translation of the "Avesta" (this translation is called "Zend", from where for a long time the Avestan language itself was incorrectly called Zend).
16) Median- a genus of northwestern Iranian dialects; no written monuments have been preserved.
17) Parthian- one of the Middle Persian languages ​​\u200b\u200bof the 3rd century. BC e. - III century. n. e., common in Parthia to the southeast of the Caspian Sea.
18) Sogdian- the language of Sogdiana in the Zeravshan valley, the first millennium AD. e.; ancestor of the Yaghnobi language.
19) Khwarezmian- the language of Khorezm along the lower reaches of the Amu Darya; the first - the beginning of the second millennium AD.
20) Scythian- the language of the Scythians (Alans), who lived in the steppes Along the northern coast of the Black Sea and east to the borders of China in the first millennium BC. e. and the first millennium AD. e.; preserved in proper names in Greek transmission; ancestor of the Ossetian language.
21) Bactrian(Kushan) - the language of the ancient Bakt along the upper reaches of the Amu Darya, as well as the language of the Kushan beginning of the first millennium AD.
22) Saky(Khotanese) - in Central Asia and in Chinese Turkestan; from V - X centuries. AD texts written in the Indian Brahmi script remained.

Note. Most contemporary Iranian scholars subdivide the living and dead Iranian languages ​​into the following groups:

A. Western
1) Southwestern: ancient and middle Persian, modern Persian, Tajik, Tat and some others.
2) Northwestern: Median, Parthian, Balochi (Baluchi), Kurdish, Talysh and other Caspian.
B. Oriental
1) Southeastern: Saka (Khotanese), Pashto (Pashto), Pamir.
2) Northeastern: Scythian, Sogdian, Khorezmian, Ossetian, Yagnob.

1 On Iranian languages, see: Oransky I.M. Iranian languages. M, 1963. - Tat - Tats are divided into Muslim Tats and "Mountain Jews"

3. Slavic group

A. Eastern subgroup
1) Russian; adverbs: northern (great) Russian - "surrounding" and southern (great) Russian - "aking"; The Russian literary language developed on the basis of the transitional dialects of Moscow and its environs, where from the south and southeast the Tula, Kursk, Oryol and Ryazan dialects spread features alien to the northern dialects, the former dialectal basis of the Moscow dialect, and displacing some of the features of the latter, as well as by mastering the elements of the Church Slavonic literary language; in addition, in the Russian literary language in the XVI-XVIII centuries. included various foreign language elements; writing based on the Russian alphabet, reworked from the Slavic - "Cyrillic" under Peter the Great; ancient monuments of the 11th century. (they also apply to the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages); official language Russian Federation, an interethnic language for communication between the peoples of the Russian Federation and adjacent territories of the former USSR, one of the world languages.
2) Ukrainian or Ukrainian A indian; before the revolution of 1917 - Little Russian or Little Russian; three main dialects: northern, southeastern, southwestern; the literary language begins to take shape from the 14th century, the modern literary language exists from the end of the 18th century. on the basis of the Podneprovsky dialects of the southeastern dialect; writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet in its post-Petrine variety.
3) Belorussian; writing since the 14th century. based on Cyrillic Dialects North-Eastern and South-Western; literary language - on the basis of Central Belarusian dialects.

B. Southern subgroup
4) Bulgarian- formed in the process of contacting Slavic dialects with the language of the Kama Bulgars, from where it got its name; writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet; ancient monuments from the 10th century. AD
5) Macedonian.
6) Serbo-Croatian; the Serbs write on the basis of the Cyrillic alphabet, the Croats - on the basis of the Latin; ancient monuments from the 12th century.
7) Slovenian;- writing based on the Latin alphabet; the oldest monuments from the X - XI centuries.

Dead:
8) Old Church Slavonic(or Old Church Slavonic) - the common literary language of the Slavs of the medieval period, which arose on the basis of the Solun dialects of the ancient Bulgarian language in connection with the introduction of writing for the Slavs (two alphabets: Glagolitic and Cyrillic) and the translation of church books to promote Christianity among the Slavs in the 9th-10th centuries . n. e.. Among the Western Slavs, it was supplanted by Latin in connection with Western influence and the transition to Catholicism; in the form of Church Slavonic - constituent element Russian literary language.

IN. Western subgroup
9) Czech; writing based on the Latin alphabet; ancient monuments from the 13th century.
10) Slovak; Polish; writing based on the Latin alphabet; ancient monuments from the 14th century,
12) Kashubian; lost its independence and became a dialect of the Polish language.
13) Lusatian(abroad: Sorabian, Vendian); two options: upper Lusatian (or eastern) and lower Lusatian (or western); writing based on the Latin alphabet.

Dead:
14) Polabsky- died out in the 18th century, was distributed along both banks of the river. Labs (Elbes) in Germany.
15) Pomeranian dialects- died out in the medieval period due to forced Germanization; were distributed along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in Pomerania (Pomerania).

4. Baltic group

1) Lithuanian; writing based on the Latin alphabet; monuments from the 14th century. Latvian; writing based on the Latin alphabet; monuments from the 14th century.
3) Latgalian 1 .

Dead:
4) Prussian- died out in the 17th century. in connection with forced Germanization; the territory of the former East Prussia; monuments of the XIV-XVII centuries.
5) Yatvyazh, Curonian and other languages ​​in the territory of Lithuania and Latvia, extinct by the 17th-18th centuries.

1 There is an opinion that this is only a dialect of the Latvian language.

5. German group

A. North Germanic (Scandinavian) subgroup
1) Danish; writing based on the Latin alphabet; served as a literary language for Norway until the end of the 19th century.
2) Swedish; writing based on the Latin alphabet.
3) Norwegian; writing based on the Latin alphabet, originally Danish, since the literary language of the Norwegians until the end of the 19th century. was Danish. In modern Norway, there are two forms of the literary language: riksmol (otherwise: Bokmål) - bookish, closer to Danish, Ilansmol (otherwise: Nynorsk), closer to Norwegian dialects.
4) Icelandic; writing based on the Latin alphabet; written monuments from the 13th century. ("sagas").
5) Faroese.

B. West German subgroup
6) English; Literary English developed in the 16th century. AD based on the London dialect; 5th-11th centuries - Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), XI-XVI centuries. - Middle English and from the 16th century. - New English; writing based on the Latin alphabet (no changes); written monuments from the 7th century; language of international importance.
7) Dutch (Dutch) with Flemish; writing in Latin; in the Republic of South Africa live Boers, settlers from Holland, who speak a variety of Dutch, in Boer (otherwise: Afrikaans).
8) Frisian; monuments from the 14th century.
9) German; two dialects: Low German (Northern, Niederdeutsch or Plattdeutsch) and High German (Southern, Hochdeutsch); the literary language developed on the basis of South German dialects, but with many northern features (especially in pronunciation), but still does not represent unity; in the VIII-XI centuries. - Old High German, in the XII-XV centuries. -Middle High German, from the 16th century. - New High German, worked out in the Saxon offices and translations of Luther and his associates; writing based on the Latin alphabet in two varieties: Gothic and Antiqua; one of the largest languages ​​in the world.
10) Yiddish(or Yiddish, New Hebrew) - various High German dialects mixed with elements of Hebrew, Slavic and other languages.

IN. East German subgroup
Dead:
11) Gothic, existed in two dialects. Visigothic - served the medieval Gothic state in Spain and Northern Italy; had a written language based on the Gothic alphabet, compiled by Bishop Wulfila in the 4th century. n. e. for the translation of the Gospel, which is the most ancient monument of the Germanic languages. Ostrogothic - the language of the Eastern Goths, who lived in the early Middle Ages on the Black Sea coast and in the southern Dnieper region; existed until the 16th century. in the Crimea, thanks to which a small dictionary compiled by the Dutch traveler Busbeck has been preserved.
12) Burgundian, Vandal, Gepid, Heruli- the languages ​​of the ancient Germanic tribes in East Germany.

6. Romanesque group

(before the collapse of the Roman Empire and the formation of Romance 1 languages ​​- Italian)

1) French; literary language developed by the 16th century. based on the Île-de-France dialect centered in Paris; French dialects were formed at the beginning of the Middle Ages as a result of crossing the folk (vulgar) Latin of the Roman conquerors and the language of the conquered native Gauls - Gallic; writing based on the Latin alphabet; the oldest monuments from the 9th century. AD; the middle French period from the 9th to the 15th centuries, the new French - from the 16th century. French became an international language earlier than other European languages.
2) Provencal (Occitan); minority language of southeastern France (Provence); as a literary one existed in the Middle Ages (the lyrics of the troubadours) and survived until the end of the 19th century.
3) Italian; the literary language developed on the basis of the Tuscan dialects, and in particular the dialect of Florence, which arose due to the crossing of vulgar Latin with the languages ​​\u200b\u200bof the mixed population of medieval Italy; writing in the Latin alphabet, historically - the first national language in Europe 3 .
4) Sardinian(or Sardinian). Spanish; formed in Europe as a result of crossing folk (vulgar) Latin with the languages ​​of the native population of the Roman province of Iberia; writing based on the Latin alphabet (the same applies to Catalan and Portuguese).
6) Galician.
7) Catalan.
8) Portuguese.
9) Romanian; formed as a result of crossing folk (vulgar) Latin and the languages ​​​​of the natives of the Roman province of Dacia; writing based on the Latin alphabet.
10) Moldavian(a kind of Romanian); writing based on the Russian alphabet.
11) Macedonian-Romanian(Aromunian).
12) Romansh- the language of the national minority; since 1938 it has been recognized as one of the four official languages ​​of Switzerland.
13) Creole languages- Crossed Romance with local languages ​​(Haitian, Mauritian, Seychelles, Senegalese, Papiamento, etc.).

Dead (Italian):
14) Latin- the literary state language of Rome in the republican and imperial era (III century BC - the first centuries of the Middle Ages); the language of rich literary monuments, epic, lyrical and dramatic, historical prose, legal documents and oratory; the oldest monuments from the VI century. BC.; the first description of the Latin language by Varro. 1st century BC.; classical grammar of Donat - IV century. AD; the literary language of the Western European Middle Ages and the language of the Catholic Church; along with ancient Greek - a source of international terminology.
15) Medieval Vulgar Latin- folk Latin dialects of the early Middle Ages, which, when crossed with the native languages ​​​​of the Roman provinces of Gaul, Iberia, Dacia, etc., gave rise to Romance languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, etc.
16) Oscan, Umbrian, Saber and other Italian dialects are preserved in fragmentary written monuments recent centuries BC.

1 The name "Romance" comes from the word Roma, as Rome was called by the Latins, and now by the Italians.
2 See Ch. VII, § 89 - on the formation of national languages.
3 See ibid.

7. Celtic group

A. Goidel subgroup
1) Irish; written records from the 4th c. n. e. (Ogham script) and from the 7th century. (on a Latin basis); is literary and at the present time.
2) Scottish (Gaelic).

Dead:
3) Manx- the language of the Isle of Man (in the Irish Sea).

B. Brythonic subgroup
4) Breton; Bretons (formerly Britons) moved after the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons from the British Isles to the European continent.
5) Welsh (Welsh).

Dead:
6) Cornish; in Cornwall, a peninsula in southwestern England.

b. Gallic subgroup
7) Gallic; extinct since the era of education French; was distributed in Gaul, Northern Italy, the Balkans and even in Asia Minor.

8. Greek group

1) modern Greek, from the 12th century

Dead:
2) ancient greek, 10th century BC. - V c. AD;
Ionic-Attic dialects from the 7th-6th centuries. BC.;
Achaean (Arcade-Cypriot) dialects from the 5th c. BC.;
northeastern (Boeotian, Thessalian, Lesbosian, Aeolian) dialects from the 7th century. BC.
and western (Dorian, Epirus, Cretan) dialects; - the oldest monuments from the 9th century. BC. (poems by Homer, epigraphy); from the 4th century BC. common literary language koine based on the Attic dialect centered in Athens; the language of rich literary monuments, epic, lyrical and dramatic, philosophical and historical prose; from III-II centuries. BC. works of Alexandrian grammarians; along with Latin - a source of international terminology.
3) Middle Greek or Byzantine- the state literary language of Byzantium from the first centuries AD. until the 15th century; the language of monuments - historical, religious and artistic.

9. Albanian group

Albanian, written monuments based on the Latin alphabet from the 15th century.

10. Armenian group

Armenian; literary since the 5th century. AD; contains some elements dating back to the Caucasian languages; the ancient Armenian language - Grabar - is very different from the modern living Ashkharabar.

11. Hitto-Luvian (Anatolian) group

Dead:
1) Hittite (Hittite-Nesite, known from cuneiform monuments of the 18th-13th centuries. BC.; the language of the Hittite state in Asia Minor.
2) Luvian in Asia Minor (XIV-XIII centuries BC).
3) Palai in Asia Minor (XIV-XIII centuries BC).
4) carian
5) Lydian- Anatolian languages ​​of ancient times.
6) Lycian

12. Tocharian group

Dead:
1) Tocharian A (Turfan, Karashar)- in Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang).
2) Tocharsky B (Kuchansky)- there; in Kucha until the 7th century. AD Known from manuscripts around the 5th-8th centuries. n. e. based on the Indian Brahmi script discovered during excavations in the 20th century.

Note 1. For a number of reasons, the following groups of Indo-European languages ​​converge: Indo-Iranian (Aryan), Slavs - Baltic and Italo-Celtic.
Note 2. The Indo-Iranian and Slavo-Baltic languages ​​can be grouped under satem languages, as opposed to the other kentom languages; this division is carried out according to the fate of the Indo-European *g and */s of the middle palatals, which in the first gave front-lingual fricatives (catam, simtas, sto - "hundred"), and in the second remained back-lingual plosives; in German, thanks to the movement of consonants - fricatives (hekaton, kentom (later centum), hundert, etc. - "one hundred").
Note 3. The question of belonging to the Indo-European languages ​​​​of the Venetian, Messapian, obviously, the Illyrian group (in Italy), Phrygian, Thracian (in the Balkans) as a whole can be considered resolved; Pelasgian languages ​​(Peloponnese before the Greeks), Etruscan (in Italy before the Romans), Ligurian (in Gaul) have not yet been clarified in their relationship to the Indo-European languages.

II. CAUCASUS LANGUAGES 1

A. Western group: Abkhazian-Adyghe languages

1. Abkhaz subgroup
Abkhazian; dialects: bzybsky- northern and Abjui(or Kadbrian) - southern; writing until 1954 on the basis of the Georgian alphabet, now - on the Russian basis.
Abaza; writing based on the Russian alphabet.
2. Circassian subgroup
Adyghe.
Kabardian (Kabardino-Circassian).
Ubykh(Ubykhs emigrated to Turkey under tsarism).

B. Eastern group: Nakh-Dagestan languages

1. Nakh subgroup
Chechen; are written in Russian.
Ingush
Batsbi (tsova-tushinsky).

2. Dagestan subgroup
Avar.
Darginsky.
Laksky.
Lezginsky.
Tabasaran.
These five languages ​​are written on the basis of Russian. Other languages ​​are unwritten:
Andean.
Karatinsky.
Tyndinsky.
Chamalinsky.
Bagvalinsky.
Akhvakhsky.
Botlikh.
Godoberinsky.
Tsezsky.
Betinsky.
Khvarshinsky.
Gunzibsky.
Ginuhsky.
Tsakhursky.
Rutulsky.
Agulsky.
Archinsky.
Bududhekiy.
Kryzsky.
Udinsky.
Khinalugsky.

3. Southern group: Kartvelian (Iberian) languages
1) Megrelian.
2) Laz (Chan).
3) Georgian: writing in the Georgian alphabet from the 5th century BC. AD, rich literary monuments of the Middle Ages; dialects: Khevsurian, Kartli, Imeretian, Gurian, Kakhetian, Adjarian, etc.
4) Svansky.

Note. All languages ​​that have a written language (except Georgian and Ubykh) are based on the Russian alphabet, and in the previous period for several years - on Latin.

1 The question of whether these groups represent one family of languages ​​has not yet been resolved by science; rather, one can think that there are no family ties between them; the term "Caucasian languages" refers to their geographical distribution.

III. OUTSIDE THE GROUP - BASQUE

IV. URAL LANGUAGES

1. FINNO-UGRIAN (UGRIC-FINNISH) LANGUAGES

A. Ugric branch

1) Hungarian, written in Latin.
2) Mansi (Vogul); writing on a Russian basis (since the 30s of the XX century).
3) Khanty (Ostyak); writing on a Russian basis (since the 30s of the XX century).

B. Baltic-Finnish branch

1) Finnish (Suomi); writing based on the Latin alphabet.
2) Estonian; writing based on the Latin alphabet.
3) Izhora.
4) Karelian.
5) Vepsian.
6) Vodsky.
7) Livsky.
8) Sami (Saami, Lappish).

B. Perm branch

1) Komi-Zyryansky.
2) Komi-Permyak.
3) Udmurt.

G. Volga branch

1) Mari (Mari, Cheremis), adverbs: upland on the right bank of the Volga and meadow - on the left.
2) Mordovian: two independent language: Erzya and Moksha.

Note. Finnish and Estonian are written based on the Latin alphabet; for the Mari and Mordovian - for a long time based on the Russian alphabet; in Komi-Zyryan, Udmurt and Komi-Perm - on the Russian basis (since the 30s of the XX century).

2. SAMOYED LANGUAGES

1) Nenets (Yuraco-Samoyed).
2) Nganasani (Tavgian).
3) Enets (Yenisei-Samoyed).
4) Selkup (Ostyak-Samoyed).

Note. modern science considers the Samoyedic languages ​​to be related to the Finno-Ugric languages, which were previously considered as an isolated family and with which the Samoyedic languages ​​form a larger association - the Uralic languages.

V. ALTAI LANGUAGES 1

1. TURKIC LANGUAGES 2

1) Turkish(earlier Ottoman); writing since 1929 based on the Latin alphabet; until then for several centuries - based on the Arabic alphabet.
2) Azerbaijani.
3) Turkmen.
4) Gagauz.
5) Crimean Tatar.
6) Karachay-Balkarian.
7) Kumyk- was used as a common language for the Caucasian peoples of Dagestan.
8) Nogai.
9) Karaite.
10) Tatar, with three dialects - middle, western (Mishar) and eastern (Siberian).
11) Bashkir.
12) Altai (Oirot).
13) Shorsky with the Kondom and Mrassky dialects 3 .
14) Khakassian(with dialects of Sogai, Beltir, Kachin, Koibal, Kyzyl, Shor).
15) Tuva.
16) Yakut.
17) Dolgansky.
18) Kazakh.
19) Kyrgyz.
20) Uzbek.
21) Karakalpak.
22) Uighur (New Uighur).
23) Chuvash, a descendant of the language of the Kama Bulgars, writing from the very beginning based on the Russian alphabet.

Dead:
24) Orkhon- according to the Orkhon-Yenisei runic inscriptions, the language (or languages) of the powerful state of the 7th-8th centuries. n. e. in Northern Mongolia on the river. Orkhon. The name is conditional.
25) Pechenegsky- the language of the steppe nomads of the IX-XI centuries. AD
26) Polovtsian (Cuman)- according to the Polovtsian-Latin dictionary compiled by Italians, the language of the steppe nomads of the XI-XIV centuries.
27) Old Uyghur- the language of a huge state in Central Asia in the 9th-11th centuries. n. e. with writing based on a modified Aramaic alphabet.
28) Chagatai- literary language of the XV-XVI centuries. AD in Central Asia; Arabic graphics.
29) Bulgarian- the language of the Bulgar kingdom at the mouth of the Kama; Bulgarian language formed the basis Chuvash language, part of the Bulgars moved to the Balkan Peninsula and, having mixed with the Slavs, entered the Bulgarian language as an integral element (superstratum).
30) Khazar- the language of a large state of the 7th-10th centuries. AD, in the area of ​​the lower reaches of the Volga and Don, close to the Bulgar.

Note 1. All living Turkic languages, except Turkish, have been written since 1938-1939. on the basis of the Russian alphabet, until then for several years - on the basis of Latin, and many even earlier - on the basis of Arabic (Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar, Tatar and all Central Asian, and foreign Uighurs still). In sovereign Azerbaijan, the question of switching to the Latin alphabet has been raised again.
Note 2. The question of the grouping of the Turko-Tatar languages ​​has not yet been finally resolved by science; according to F.E. Korsh (see: Korsh F.E. Classification of Turkish tribes by language, 1910.) - three groups: Northern, Southeastern and southwestern; according to V.A. Bogoroditsky (see: Bogoroditsky V.A. Introduction to Tatar linguistics in connection with other Turkic languages, 1934.) - eight groups: northeastern, Abakan, Altai, West Siberian, Volga-Urals, Central Asian, Southwestern (Turkish) and Chuvash; according to V. Schmidt (See: Schmidt W. Die Sprachfamilien und Sprachenkreise der Erde, 1932.) - three groups: Southern, Western, Eastern, while V. Schmidt classifies the Yakut as Mongolian. Other classifications were also proposed - V.V. Radlova, A.N. Samoilovich, G.I. Ramstedt, S.E. Malova, M. Ryasyanen and others. In 1952, N.A. Baskakov proposed a new scheme for classifying the Turkic languages, which the author thinks of as "periodization of the history of the development of peoples and Turkic languages" (see: "Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Department of Literature and Language", vol. XI, issue 2), where ancient divisions intersect with new and historical with geographical (see also: Baskakov N.A. Introduction to the study of Turkic languages. M., 1962; 2nd ed. - M., 1969).

1 A number of scientists are of the opinion about the possible distant relationship of the three language families - Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu, forming the Altai macrofamily. However, in the accepted usage, the term "Altaic languages" denotes rather a conditional association than a proven genetic grouping (V.V.).
2 In view of the fact that in Turkology there is no single point of view on the grouping of Turkic languages, we give them a list; at the end, different points of view on their grouping are given.
3 Currently, Altaic and Shor languages ​​use the same literary language based on Altaic.

2. MONGOLIAN LANGUAGES

1) Mongolian; writing was based on the Mongolian alphabet, received from the ancient Uighurs; since 1945 - based on the Russian alphabet.
2) Buryat; from the 30s 20th century writing based on the Russian alphabet.
3) Kalmyk.

Note. There are also a number of smaller languages ​​(Dagurian, Tung Xiang, Mongolian, etc.), mainly in China (about 1.5 million), Manchuria and Afghanistan; No. 2 and 3 have since the 30s. 20th century writing based on the Russian alphabet, and until then, for several years - based on the Latin alphabet.

3. TUNGUS-MANCHUR LANGUAGES

A. Siberian group

1) Evenki (Tungus), with Negidal and Solon.
2) Even (Lamut).

B. Manchurian group

1) Manchurian, dies out, had rich monuments of medieval writing in the Manchu alphabet.
2) Jurchen- a dead language, known from the monuments of the XII-XVI centuries. (hieroglyphic writing modeled on Chinese)

B. Amur group

1) Nanai (Gold), with Ulch.
2) Udei (Udege), with Oroch.

Note. No. 1 and 2 have since 1938-1939. writing based on the Russian alphabet, and until then, for several years - based on the Latin alphabet.

4. INDIVIDUAL LANGUAGES OF THE FAR EAST NOT INCLUDED IN ANY GROUPS

(presumably close to Altai)

1) Japanese; writing based on Chinese characters in the 8th century. AD; new phonetic-syllabic writing - katakana and hiragana.
2) Ryukyuan, obviously related to Japanese.
3) Korean; the first monuments based on Chinese characters from the 4th century. AD, modified in the 7th century. AD; from the 15th century - folk Korean letter "onmun" - an alpha-syllabic system of graphics.
4) Ainu, mainly on the Japanese Islands, also on Sakhalin Island; now out of use and superseded by Japanese.

VI. AFRASIAN (SEMITE-HAMITE) LANGUAGES

1. Semitic branch

1) Arab; international cult language of Islam; there are, in addition to classical Arabic, regional varieties (Sudanese, Egyptian, Syrian, etc.); writing in the Arabic alphabet (on the island of Malta - based on the Latin alphabet).
2) Amharic, official language of Ethiopia.
3) Tigre, tigray, gurage, harari and other languages ​​of Ethiopia.
4) Assyrian (Aysor), the language of isolated ethnic groups in the countries of the Middle East and some others.

Dead:
5) Akkadian (Assyrian - Babylonian); known from the cuneiform monuments of the ancient East.
6) Ugarit.
7) Hebrew- language ancient parts Bibles, the cult language of the Jewish church; existed as a colloquial language until the beginning of our era; from the 19th century on its basis, Hebrew was formed, now the official language of the state of Israel (along with Arabic); writing based on the Hebrew alphabet.
8) Aramaic- the language of the later books of the Bible and the common language of the Near East in the era of the III century. BC. - IV century. AD
9) Phoenician- the language of Phoenicia, Carthage (Punic); dead BC; writing in the Phoenician alphabet, from which subsequent types of alphabetic writing originated.
10) Geez- the former literary language of Abyssinia IV-XV centuries. AD; now a cult language in Ethiopia.

2. Egyptian branch

Dead:
1) ancient egyptian- language ancient egypt, known from hieroglyphic monuments and documents of demotic writing (from the end of the 4th millennium BC to the 5th century AD).
2) Coptic- a descendant of the ancient Egyptian language in the medieval period from the 3rd to the 17th centuries. AD; the cult language of the Orthodox Church in Egypt; writing is Coptic, the alphabet is based on the Greek alphabet.

3. Berbero-Libyan branch

(North Africa and West Central Africa)

1) Ghadames, Sioua.
2) Tuareg(tamahak, ghat, taneslemt, etc.).
3) 3enaga.
4) Kabyle.
5) Tashelhit.
6) Zenetian(reef, shauya, etc.).
7) Tamazight.

Dead:
8) Western Numidian.
9) Eastern Numidian (Libyan).
10) Guanche, existed until the 18th century. languages ​​(dialects?) of the natives of the Canary Islands.

4. Kushite branch

(North East and East Africa)

1) Bedauye (beja).
2) Agavian(aungi, bilin, etc.).
3) Somalia.
4) Sidamo.
5) Afar, saho.
6) Oromo (galla).
7) Iraqw, Ngomvia and etc.

5. Chadian branch

(Central Africa and West Central Sub-Saharan Africa)

1) Hausa(belongs to the Western Chadian group) is the largest language of the branch.
2) Other Western Chadian: gvandara, ngizim, boleva, karekare, angas, sura and etc.
3) Central Chadian: tera, margi, mandara, kotoko and etc.
4) Eastern Chadian: mubi, sokoro and etc.

VII. NIGERO-CONGO LANGUAGES

(territory of sub-Saharan Africa)

1. Mande languages

1) Bamana (bambara).
2) Soninka.
3) Coco (susu).
4) Maninka.
5) Kpelle, scrap, mende, etc.

2. Atlantic languages

1) Fula (fulfulde).
2) Wolof.
3) Serer.
4) Diola. Cognacs.
5) Gola, dark, bull and etc.

3. Ijoid languages

Represented by isolated language ijo(Nigeria).

4. Kru languages

1) Seme.
2) Bethe.
3) Godier.
4) Crewe.
5) Grebo.
6) Wobe and etc.

5. Kwa languages

1) Akan.
2) Baule.
3) Adele.
4) Adangme.
5) Ewe.
6) Background and etc.

6. Dogon language

7. Gur languages

1) Bariba.
2) Senari.
3) suppire.
4) Gurenne.
5) Gourma.
b) Kasem, cabre, kirma and etc.

8. Adamawa-Ubangu languages

1) Longuda.
2) Tula.
3) Chamba.
4) Mumue.
5) Mbum.
b) Gbaya.
7) Ngbaka.
8) Sere, Mundu, Zande and etc.

9. Benuecongo languages

The largest family in the Niger-Congo macrofamily covers the territory from Nigeria to the east coast of Africa, including South Africa. It is divided into 4 branches and many groups, among which the largest is the Bantu languages, which in turn are divided into 16 zones (according to M. Gasri).

1) Nupe.
2) Yoruba.
3) Ygbo.
4) Edo.
5) Jukun.
6) Efik, ibibio.
7) Kambari, birom.
8) Tiv.
9) Bamilek.
10) Kom, lamnso, tikar.
11) Bantu(Duala, Ewando, Teke, Bobangi, Lingala, Kikuyu, Nyamwezi, Togo, Swahili, Kongo, Luganda, Kinyarwanda, Chokwe, Luba, Nyakyusa, Nyanja, Yao, Mbundu, Herero, Shona, Sotho, Zulu, etc.).

10. Kordofanian languages

1) Kanga, Miri, Tumtum.
2) Katla.
3) Rere.
4) Morning
5) Tegem.
6) Tegali, tagbi and etc.

VIII. NILO-SAHARAN LANGUAGES

(Central Africa, geographic Sudan zone)

1) Songhai.
2) Saharan: kanuri, tuba, zagawa.
3) Fur.
4) Mimi, mabang.
5) Eastern Sudanese: wilds, mahas, bale, suri, nera, ronge, tama and etc.
6) Nilotic: Shilluk, Luo, Alur, Acholi, Nuer Bari, Teso, Nandi, Pakot and etc.
7) Central Sudanese: kresh, sinyar, capa, bagirmi, moru, madi, logbara, mangbetu.
8) Kunama.
9) Bertha.
10) Kuama, komo, etc.

IX. Khoisan languages

(on the territory of South Africa, Namibia, Angola)

1) Bushman languages(Kung, Auni, Hadza, etc.).
2) Hottentot languages(nama, quran, san-dave, etc.).

X. Sino-Tibetan languages

A. Chinese branch

1) Chinese is the world's largest spoken language. Folk Chinese is divided into a number of dialect groups that differ greatly primarily phonetically; Chinese dialects are usually defined geographically. Literary language based on the northern (Mandarin) dialect, which is also the dialect of the capital of China - Beijing. For thousands of years, the literary language of China was Wenyan, which was formed in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. and existed as a developing but incomprehensible bookish language until the 20th century, along with the more colloquial literary language Baihua. The latter became the basis of the modern unified literary Chinese language - Putonghua (based on Northern Baihua). The Chinese language is rich in written records from the 15th century. BC, but their hieroglyphic nature makes it difficult to study the history of the Chinese language. Since 1913, along with hieroglyphic writing, a special syllabo-phonetic letter "zhu-an izymu" was used on a national graphic basis for pronunciation identification of the reading of hieroglyphs by dialects. Later, more than 100 different projects for the reform of Chinese writing were developed, of which the project of phonetic writing on the Latin graphic basis has the greatest promise.
2) Dungan; the Dungans of the People's Republic of China have an Arabic script, the Dungans of Central Asia and Kazakhstan are originally Chinese (hieroglyphic), later - Arabic; since 1927 - on a Latin basis, and since 1950 - on a Russian basis.

B. Tibeto-Burmese branch

1) Tibetan.
2) Burmese.

XI. THAI LANGUAGES

1) Thai- the state language of Thailand (until 1939, the Siamese language of the state of Siam).
2) Laotian.
3) Zhuang.
4) Kadai (li, lakua, lati, gelao)- a group of Thai or an independent link between Thai and Austronesian.

Note. Some scholars consider the Thai languages ​​to be related to Austronesian; in former classifications they were included in the Sino-Tibetan family.

XII. LANGUAGES

1) miao, with dialects hmong, hmu and etc.
2) yao, with dialects mien, kimmun and etc.
3) Well.

Note. These little-studied languages ​​of Central and South China were formerly included in the Sino-Tibetan family without sufficient reason.

XIII. DRAVID LANGUAGES

(languages ​​of the most ancient population of the Indian subcontinent, presumably related to the Uralic languages)

1) Tamil.
2) Telugu.
3) Malayalam.
4) Kannada.
For all four, there is a script based on (or type of) the Indian Brahmi script.
5) Tulu.
6) Gondi.
7) Brahui and etc.

XIV. OUTSIDE THE FAMILY - THE LANGUAGE OF BURUSHASDI (VERSHIK)

(mountainous regions of Northwest India)

XV. AUSTRIASIAN LANGUAGES

1) Languages munda: santal i, mundari, ho, birkhor, juang, sora, etc.
2) Khmer.
3) Palaung (rumai) and etc.
4) Nicobar.
5) Vietnamese.
6) Khasi.
7) Malacca group(semang, semai, sakai, etc.).
8) Naali.

XVI. AUSTRONESIAN (MALAY-POLYNESIAN) LANGUAGES

A. Indonesian branch

1.Western group
1) Indonesian, has been named since the 1930s. XX century., Currently the official language of Indonesia.
2) Batak.
3) Cham(Chamsky, Dzharai, etc.).

2. Javanese group
1) Javanese.
2) Sundanese.
3) Madura.
4) Balinese.

3. Dayak or Kalimantan group
Dayak and etc.

4. South Sulawesian group
1) Saddansky.
2) Buginese.
3) Makassarsky and etc.

5. Philippine group
1) Tagalog(Tagalog).
2) Ilokan.
3) Bikolsky and etc.

6. Madagascar group
Malagasy (formerly Malagasy).

Dead:
Kawi- Old Javanese literary language; monuments from the ninth century. n. e.; by origin, the Javanese language of the Indonesian branch was formed under the influence of the languages ​​\u200b\u200bof India (Sanskrit).

B. Polynesian branch

1) Tonga and Niue.
2) Maori, Hawaiian, Tahiti and etc.
3)Sam6a, uvea and etc.

B. Micronesian branch

1) Nauru.
2) Marshall.
3) Ponape.
4) Truk and etc.

Note. The classification of the Austronesian macrofamily is given in an extremely simplified form. In fact, it covers a huge number of languages ​​​​with an extremely complex multi-stage subdivision, regarding which there is no consensus (V.V.)

XVII. AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGES

Numerous minor indigenous languages ​​of Central and Northern Australia, most prominently guarantee. Apparently, they form a separate family Tasmanian languages on about. Tasmania.

XVIII. PAPUAN LANGUAGES

Languages ​​of the central part of about. New Guinea and some smaller islands in the Pacific. A very complex and not definitively established classification.

XIX. PALEOASIATIAN LANGUAGES 1

A. Chukchi-Kamchatka languages

1) Chukchi(Luoravetlansky).
2) Koryak(Nymylan).
3) Itelmensky(Kamchadal).
4) Alyutorsky.
5) Kereksky.

B. Eskimo-Aleut languages

1) Eskimo(Yuite).
2) Aleutian(Unangan).

B. Yenisei languages

1) Ket. This language reveals features of kinship with the Nakh-Dagestan and Tibetan-Chinese languages. Its bearers were not natives of the Yenisei, but came from the south and assimilated by the surrounding people.
2) Kott, Arin, Pumpokol and other extinct languages.

D. Nivkh (Gilyak) language

E. Yukagiro-Chuvan languages

Extinct languages ​​(dialects?): Yukagir(previously - odulian), Chuvan, Omok. Two dialects have been preserved: Tundra and Kolyma (Sakha-Yakutia, Magadan, region).

1 Paleoasian languages ​​- a conditional name: Chukchi-Kamchatka represent a community of related languages; the rest of the languages ​​are included in Paleoasiatic rather on a geographical basis.

XX. INDIAN (AMERINDIAN) LANGUAGES

A. Language families of North America

1) Algonquian(Menomini, Delaware, Yurok, Mikmak, Fox, Cree, Ojibwa, Potowatomy, Illinois, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, Arapaho, etc., as well as disappeared - Massachusetts, Mohican, etc.).
2) Iroquois(Cherokee, Tuscarora, Seneca, Oneida, Huron, etc.).
3) Sioux(Crow, Hidatsa, Dakota, etc., along with several extinct ones - ofo, biloxi, tutelo, katawba).
4) gulf(natchez, tunic, chickasaw, choctaw, muskogee, etc.).
5) Na-dene(haida, tlingit, eyak; Athabaskan: nava-ho, tanana, tolova, hupa, mattole, etc.).
6) Mosan, including Vakash (Kwakiutl, Nootka) and Salish (Chehalis, Skomish, Kalispel, Bella Kula).
7) Penutian(Tsimshian, Chinook, Takelma, Klamath, Miubk, Zuni, etc., as well as many extinct ones).
8) hocaltec(karok, shasta, yana, chimariko, pomo, salina, etc.).

B. Language families of Central America

1) Yuto-Aztec(Nahuatl, Shoshone, Hopi, Luiseño, Papago, Bark, etc.). This family is sometimes combined with the Iowa-Tano languages ​​(Kiowa, Piro, Tewa, etc.) within the Tano-Aztec phylum.
2) maya quiche(Mam, Kekchi, Quiche, Yucatek Maya, Ixil, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, Chol, Huastec, etc.). The Maya, before the arrival of Europeans, reached a high level of culture and had their own hieroglyphic writing, partially deciphered.
3) Ottoman(Pame, Otomi, Popolok, Mixtec, Trick, Zapotec, etc.).
4) Miskito - Matagalpa (Miskito, Sumo, Matagalpa, etc.). These languages ​​are sometimes included in Chibchan.
5) Chibchanskiye (karake, rama, getar, guaimi, chibcha, etc.). The Chibchan languages ​​are also spoken in South America.

B. Language families of South America

1) Tupi Guarani(tupi, guarani, yuruna, tuparia, etc.).
2) Kechumara(Quechua is the language of the ancient state of the Incas in Peru, currently in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador; Aymara).
3) Arawak(chamicuro, chipaya, itene, uanyam, guana, etc.).
4) Araucanian(Mapuche, Picunche, Pehuiche, etc.) -
5) pano takana(chacobo, kashibo, pano, takana, chama, etc.).
6) same(Canela, Suya, Xavante, Kaingang, Botokudsky, etc.).
7) Caribbean(wayana, pemon, chaima, yaruma, etc.).
8) Language alakaluf and other isolated languages.

15. Genealogical classification of languages

Modern linguistics is engaged not only in the study and description of the languages ​​of the world, but also in their classification, determining the place of each language among the languages ​​of the world. The classification of languages ​​is the distribution of the languages ​​of the world into groups based on certain characteristics, in accordance with the principles underlying the study. There are various classifications of languages, among which the main ones are genealogical (or genetic), typological (originally known as morphological) and geographical (or areal). The principles of classification of the languages ​​of the world are different for them.

Genealogical classification is based on the concept of linguistic affinity. Its purpose is to determine the place of a particular language in the circle of related languages, to establish its genetic links. The main research method is comparative-historical, the main classification category is a family, a branch, a group of languages ​​(for example, according to this classification, the Russian language is included in the family of Slavic languages, distinguished on the basis of their common source - the Proto-Slavic language; French - in the family of Romance languages , dating back to a common source - folk Latin).

Morphological classification is based on the concept of similarity (formal and / or semantic) and, accordingly, the difference of languages. It is based primarily on the features of the structure of languages, in particular, on the signs of the morphological structure of the word, the ways of connecting morphemes, the role of inflections and affixes in the formation of grammatical forms of the word and in the transfer of the grammatical meaning of the word. Its purpose is to group languages ​​into large classes based on the similarity of their grammatical structure, or rather the principles of its organization, to determine the place of a particular language, taking into account the formal organization of its linguistic structure. The main research method is comparative, the main classification category is the type, class of languages ​​(for example, the Russian language, like other Indo-European languages, belongs to languages ​​of the inflectional type, since inflection, closely related to the stem of the word, is stable and essential sign of the morphological structure of the word).

Geographic classification associated with the place of distribution (original or later) of a particular language (or dialect). Its purpose is to determine the area of ​​the language (or dialect), taking into account the boundaries of its linguistic features. The main research method is linguo-geographic, the main classification category is an area or zone (cf. the areas of interaction of dialects or languages ​​within the framework of a linguistic union). An areal classification is also possible within one language in relation to its dialects (cf. the areal classification of Russian dialects, according to which North Russian and South Russian dialects are distinguished, as well as transitional Central Russian dialects).

These classifications differ not only in their goals, but also in the degree of their stability: a genealogical classification is absolutely stable (since each language originally belongs to a particular family, group of languages ​​and cannot change the nature of this affiliation); morphological classification is always relative and historically changeable (since each language is constantly evolving, its structure and the very theoretical understanding of this structure are changing); an areal classification is more or less stable, depending on the features underlying it.

In addition to these three main types of classifications, sometimes there are functional (or social) , and cultural- historical classification . Functional classification comes from the scope of the functioning of the language. It is based on the study of acts of speech and types of linguistic communication. In accordance with this classification, languages ​​are divided into natural, which are a means of communication (oral and written languages) and artificial, i.e. graphic languages ​​that do not reproduce the forms of natural languages ​​and are used in the field of science and technology (cf., for example, programming languages, information languages, logical languages, etc.). The cultural-historical classification examines languages ​​from the point of view of their relationship to the history of culture. In accordance with this classification, which takes into account the historical sequence of the development of culture, unwritten, written languages, literary languages ​​of the people and the nation, languages ​​of interethnic communication are distinguished.

Classification of languages ​​- determining the place of each language among the languages ​​of the world; distribution of the languages ​​of the world into groups based on certain features in accordance with the principles underlying the study.

The issues of classifying the diversity of world languages, their distribution under certain headings began to be actively developed in early XIX century.

The most developed and recognized are two classifications - genealogical and typological (or morphological).

Genealogical (genetic) classification:

Based on the concept of linguistic kinship;

The goal is to determine the place of a particular language in the circle of related languages, to establish its genetic links;

The main method is comparative-historical;

The degree of stability of the classification is absolutely stable (since each language initially belongs to a particular family, group of languages ​​and cannot change the nature of this affiliation).

In accordance with this classification, the following language families are distinguished:

Indo-European;

Afroasian;

Dravidian;

Ural;

Altai;

Caucasian;

Sino-Tibetan.

There are many branches in the Indo-European family, among them - Slavic (Russian, Polish, Czech, etc.), Germanic (English, Dutch, German, Swedish, etc.), Romance (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese etc.), Celtic (Irish, Scottish, Breton, Welsh).

The Tatar language is part of the Altaic language family, in the Turkic branch

Typological classification (originally known as morphological):

Based on the concept of similarity (formal and / or semantic) and, accordingly, the difference between languages; is based on the features of the structure of languages ​​(on the signs of the morphological structure of the word, the ways of connecting morphemes, the role of inflections and affixes in the formation of grammatical forms of the word and in the transfer of the grammatical meaning of the word);

The goal is to group languages ​​into large classes based on the similarity of their grammatical structure (principles of its organization), to determine the place of a particular language, taking into account the formal organization of its linguistic structure;

The main method is comparative;

The degree of classification stability is relative and historically variable (since each language is constantly evolving, its structure and theoretical basis this structure).

According to morphological classification languages ​​are divided into 4 classes:

1) isolating or amorphous languages, such as Chinese, most of the languages ​​of Southeast Asia. The languages ​​of this group are characterized by the absence of inflection, the grammatical significance of the order of words, and the weak opposition of significant and functional words.

2) agglutinative languages

In agglutinative languages, each morphological meaning is expressed by a separate affix, and each affix has one purpose, as a result of which the word is easily divided into its component parts, the connection between the root part and affixes is weak. These languages ​​include Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Iberian-Caucasian (for example, Georgian). They are characterized by a developed system of word-formation and inflectional affixation, a single type of declension and conjugation, and grammatical unambiguity of affixes.

3) inflectional languages

The connection between the base and affixes is closer, which is manifested in the so-called fusion - the fusion of the affix with the base. This group includes Indo-European languages ​​(Russian, German, Latin, English, Indian, etc.), Semitic (Arabic, Hebrew, etc.).

4) incorporating or polysynthetic languages

For example, Chukchi-Kamchatka, many languages ​​​​of the Indians of North America. In these languages, the whole sentence is combined into one complex whole - a verb with a subject, an object, with a definition and circumstances. In polysynthetic languages, there are no words outside the sentence; the sentence is the basic unit of speech. This unit is multi-component, words are included in this unit, therefore they are polysynthetic.

Cultural-historical classification considers languages ​​from the point of view of their relationship to the history of culture; takes into account the historical sequence of the development of culture; highlights:

unwritten languages;

written languages;

Literary languages ​​of the nationality and nation;

Languages ​​of international communication.

According to the prevalence of the language and the number of people speaking it, they distinguish:

Languages ​​that are common in a narrow circle of speakers (tribal languages ​​of Africa, Polynesia; "one-aul" languages ​​of Dagestan);

Languages ​​spoken by individual nationalities (Dungan - in Kyrgyzstan);

Languages ​​spoken by the entire nation (Czech, Bulgarian);

Languages ​​that are used by several nations, the so-called international (French - in France, Belgium, Switzerland; Russian, serving the peoples of Russia);

Languages ​​that function as international languages ​​(English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Russian).

According to the degree of language activity, there are:

Living - actively functioning languages;

Dead (Latin, Gaulish, Gothic) - preserved only in written monuments, in place names or in the form of borrowings in other languages, or disappeared without a trace; some dead languages ​​are used today (Latin is the language of the Catholic Church, medicine, scientific terminology).