Lecture on the topic
"VARIETY OF LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD"
The population of the Earth is 7 billion people
Number of languages - 2.5-5 thousand (up to 6-7 thousand)
Once the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published the data at its disposal: there are 2,796 languages in the world. Usually linguists prefer to give approximate figures. The reasons for the discrepancies are as follows.
1) Difficulty distinguishing between language and dialect.
2) Insufficient knowledge of languages. We live in a world where, it would seem, everything is already open and mapped. However, from time to time it becomes known from newspapers or TV shows that somewhere in the jungles of the Amazonian lowland or New Guinea, modern travelers managed to find a tiny lost tribe that shuns contact with other people and speaks a language unknown to any of the specialists.
3) H Finally, languages can die. In Russia, for example, the Kerek language in Kamchatka literally died out right before our eyes, the languages of such peoples as the Itelmens, Yukaghirs, and Tofalars are disappearing. These are tiny peoples, only a few hundred people each, many of whom, especially young people, no longer know their own language ... Only in the 20th century dozens of languages disappeared from the face of the earth.With the development of communications, the number living languages reduced from average speed 1 language in two weeks.
So to establish the exact number of languages in the world is very difficult, if not impossible.
Most spoken languages (by number of speakers):
Chinese
As of January 2012 - 1349718000 people, more than 885 million people speak Mandarin.
English, Spanish, Hindi (challenging for second place)
English is the national language of not only the British and Americans, but also Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders .. This is one of the official languages of India and 15 African states (former British colonies), it is also spoken in other countries.
English is the international language. One and a half billion people around the world speak this language. It is native to 400-500 million people in 12 countries, and more than a billion use English as a second language.
English is the language of business and politics. It is one of the working languages of the United Nations. World information technologies also based in English. More than 90% of all information in the world is also stored in English. This language is defined as the primary language of the Internet. Television and radio broadcasting of the world's largest companies (CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC, CBC), covering an audience of 500 million people, is also performed in English. More than 70% of scientific publications are published in English. Sing in this language songs and films.
Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, German, French, etc.
Language map of the world (toart of languages of the world)
is a map of families and groups of languages, as well as their individual representatives. The area of distribution of languages is indicated by a certain color.
Lesser-spoken languages
CurrentlyThere are just over 400 languages that are considered endangered.They are spoken by a very small number of mostly elderly people and, apparently, these languages will forever disappear from the face of the Earth with the death of these "last of the Mohicans". Here are some examples:
Russia: Kerek (2 people) and Udege (100 people) languages;
Africa: Bikia (1 person), Elmolo (8 people), Goundo (30 people), Kambap (30 people);
Australia: Alahua language (about 20 people);
North America: Chinook (12 people), Kansa (19 people), Kaguila (35 people);
South America: Tehulche (about 30 people), Itonama (about 100 people).
In 1996, a man named Red Thundercloud died in the United States ... He was the last person to know the Catouba language of the Sioux Indian tribe. True, before his death, he managed to record speech samples and ritual songs of his language for the Smithsonian Institution, which rendered a huge service to science. Unfortunately, this rarely happens, most often the language dies quietly and unnoticed along with its last speakers...
Every two weeks somewhere in the world, along with its last speaker, a language dies, and with it a picture of the hopes, beliefs and views of an entire ethnic group. The loss of every language, therefore, always means the loss of the culture of its native people. These languages cannot even leave behind museum exhibits, since most of them have no written traditions. So with the death of their last speaker, the language disappears without a trace and forever.Languages die along with the last carrier, and therefore the danger threatens, first of all, peoples who do not use writing.
According to scientists, half of the existing languages will disappear in 50-100 years. In order for the language to be preserved, about 100 thousand of its speakers are required.
In 2009 UNESCO has recognized 136 languages in Russia as endangered.
Languages have always died. As a result of wars, natural disasters, epidemics, the enslavement of one people by another, but never before has the disappearance gone at such a rapid pace. It is estimated that over the past 500 years mankind has lost about half of all the languages that it knew, and half of all the remaining languages will disappear before the end of this century. There are many reasons leading to the death of a language, but the main ones that currently play a decisive role can probably be called economic and political factors: globalization, modernization, industrialization and urbanization, entailing the transformation of the world, which once consisted of a motley collection of relatively self-sufficient individual peoples into one "global village".
As a rule, "strong" languages, such as, say, English, Russian, French, Arabic or Chinese, all without exception with a large number of speakers and a developed written tradition, are studied by linguists quite well. This is opposed by thousands of practically unexplored and rapidly disappearing languages, which puts the question of their study and description among the most urgent and topical problems of modern linguistics.
Many languages disappear due to the fact that their speakers come into contact with a stronger language environment Therefore, the languages of small nationalities and the languages of peoples that do not have statehood are under the threat of extinction in the first place. If less than 70% of children learn a language, it is considered endangered. According to the "Atlas of world languages in danger of extinction" UNESCO , currently in Europe about 50 languages are threatened with extinction.
Scientists and politicians have long sounded the alarm. The UN proclaimed 1994-2004 the decade of the world's indigenous peoples, and UNESCO and the Council of Europe set tasks for scientists to create the Red Book, a global database and atlases of endangered languages.
So languages are divided into
1) live;
2) dead, for example:
Latin (the language of the Roman Empire - the political basis of Western European civilization, the language of the Catholic Church, the main language of the scientific terminology of mankind);
c Taroslavic ( literary, religious and political language Slavs and their neighbors (Lithuanians, Moldavians, Finno-Ugric peoples) from the Adriatic and Baltic to the Urals);
Sanskrit ( divine living and developing language of Indian culture and one of the languages of Buddhist culture).
Another interesting example Ubykh language. The original distribution zone of the Ubykh language is the Black Sea coast Caucasus , currently the region Lazarevsky, Central and Khostinsky districts Sochi city . In the 1860s, after graduatingCaucasian WarUbykhs were evicted by the Russian government in Turkey , the rest mixed with the local population, as a result of which the language lost its natural distribution area. Last known speaker of the Ubykh language Tevfik Esenç died in 1992 in Turkey . The Ubykh language is known for its unique phonetics - it has 84 consonants (of which four were used only in loanwords) and only two vowels ("a" long and "a" short).
Languages are also divided into
1) natural - in linguistics and philosophy of language language and used for communication between people (as opposed to formal languages and other types of sign systems , also called languages in semiotics ) and not created artificially (unlikeartificial languages).
2) artificial -special languages, which, unlike natural designed purposefully.Multilingualism has always prevented peoples from communicating with each other, so people dreamed of a language understandable to everyone.
There are the following types of artificial languages:
- Programming languages and computer languages— languages for automatic information processing using COMPUTER.
- Information languages — languages used in various information processing systems.
- Formalized languages science - languages intended for symbolic notation scientific facts and theories of mathematics, logic, chemistry and other sciences.
- Languages of non-existent peoples, created infictionor entertainment purposes, for example: Elvish language, coined by J. Tolkien, Klingon, invented by Mark Okrand for a fantasy series"Star Trek" (see fictional languages), language Na "vi created for the movie Avatar".
- International auxiliary languages- languages created from elements natural languages and offered as an auxiliary means of international communication.
Esperanto - the most famous and widespread of artificially created languages. This language was created by the Warsaw doctor and linguist Ludwig Zamenhof in 1887. The word "Esperanto" ("esperanto" - hoping) was originally a pseudonym under which Zamenhof published his works.
Esperanto is based on international words borrowed from Latin and Greek, and 16 grammar rules with no exceptions. In this language, there is no grammatical gender, it has only two cases - nominative and accusative, and the meanings of the rest are conveyed using prepositions. The alphabet is based on Latin, and all parts of speech have fixed endings: -o for nouns, -a for adjectives, etc. All this makes Esperanto such a simple language that an unprepared person can become fluent enough in a few months of regular practice. In order to learn at the same level any of the naturallanguages, it takes at least a few years.
Currently, Esperanto is actively used, according to various estimates, from several tens of thousands to several million people. At the same time, it is believed that for ~ 500-1000 people this language is native, that is, studied from the moment of birth. Usually these are children from marriages where the parents belong to different nations and use Esperanto for intra-family communication.
World congresses are held in Esperanto, newspapers and magazines are published, and radio stations broadcast their own. Esperanto is one of the most widely spoken languages on the Internet.
Of the artificial languages, the most famous are also Basic English, Volapuk, Interlingua etc. There are also languages that were specifically designed to communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence, for example, linkos.
Languages:
- Monofunctional
2) Multifunctional
Today there are seven languages that are "world languages". This is English, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, French, German, Portuguese. Each of these languages \u200b\u200bis spoken in the territories of several states, which has its own historical reasons. For these reasons, a fairly large number of people speak these languages. Such languages \u200b\u200bare , Hindi and Urdu are also among the most important languages in the world, but are less popular in the international arena.
6 official languagesUnited Nations:
English, French, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic (“memory” - AFRICA).
All major UN documents, including resolutions, are published in the official languages.
Polyglot (from Greek. πολυ-, "a lot" and γλώττα, "language") - a person who owns many languages.
The greatest polyglots in history are the Italian cardinalGiuseppe Mezzofanti(1774-1849), who spoke 27 (according to other sources 38) languages, as well as a Danish professor Rusk (1787-1832), Englishman John Bowring (1792-1872) and Dr. Harold Williams from New Zealand (1876-1928), who spoke 28 languages each.
In our time, the most outstanding polyglot is recognized George Schmidt who worked for the UN. The bibliographic guide of this organization noted that Schmidt spoke "only" 19 languages and, due to lack of time, could not activate another 12 languages.
The language world is very diverse. Almost every nation has its own language and a certain set of dialects. It is impossible to calculate the exact number of languages in the world. He believes that there are approximately 2.5 thousand to 5 thousand of them, but this number is not accurate, since no one excludes the existence of languages \u200b\u200bthat are unknown to us.
Language Classification Problem- very important. The first classification that linguists took up was the so-called genealogical classification, that is, a classification that distributes languages into families depending on the supposed commonality of their origin. The earliest attempts at such a classification date back to the Renaissance, when the advent of printing made it possible to get acquainted with the languages of peoples. The very fact of the similarity between languages very soon led to their unification into families. In the beginning there were much fewer such families than at present.
Genealogical the classification of languages is established on the basis of the comparative-historical method. Most of the languages are distributed into so-called language families, each of which in turn consists of various subgroups, or branches, and these latter - from separate languages.
The following large language families are known: Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Tungus-Manchu, Iberian-Caucasian, Semitic, Hamitic, Paleoasian, and so on. A special position among the languages of the world is occupied by the Tibetan-Chinese languages, as well as single languages: Japanese, Basque, etc.
Indo-European languages fall into 12 subgroups. Some of which consist of separate languages (Greek, Armenian, Albanian), and the other part - of relatively large, directly related linguistic associations (families). These are: the Slavic family of languages, Indian, Romance, Germanic, Celtic, Iranian, Baltic, etc. Within the Slavic family of languages, subgroups are distinguished: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian); West Slavic (Polish, Czech, Slovak); South Slavic (Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian). Germanic languages: German, English, Swedish, Danish,… Romance languages: French, Spanish, Italian, …
The concept of language kinship is a purely linguistic concept. In no case should it be confused with the ethnic relations of peoples, or with their racial characteristics. Linguistic kinship is not always determined by geographical proximity. The Hungarian language is surrounded by Indo-European languages, but itself belongs to another language family - Finno-Ugric.
What is the relationship between languages? First of all, in its grammatical structure, in the generality of the lexical fund, in the regular sound connections between them.
Morphological (typological) classification: first of all, the structure of the word is put in the basis. Languages in which the relationship between words in a sentence is expressed primarily by inflections are usually called inflectional (synthetic), and languages in which these same relations are transmitted primarily by prepositions and word order - analytical. Thus, the Russian language turns out to be inflectional (synthetic), while French and English are analytical.
There are practically no "purely" inflectional languages, nor "purely" analytic languages. There are many analytic tendencies in inflectional languages, just as inflectional languages have no last value. Despite constant complications, the division of languages into inflectional and analytic ones still retains scientific significance. This division is based on one or another prevailing linguistic trend.
The morphological classification of languages becomes much more complicated when it is based not only on one language family (at least as large as Indo-European), but on all the languages of the world. In this case, the following types of languages are usually installed: root(or insulating) agglutinative and inflectional. Sometimes languages are added to this classification. incorporating(or polysynthetic). In root languages, the word is usually equal to the root, and the relationship between words is conveyed primarily by word order, auxiliary words, rhythm, and intonation. The root languages include, for example, Chinese.
Articles on specific issues
VG And they are. The development of the structure of a simple sentence in the Indo-European languages. - "Issues of linguistics", 1960, M "1.
Yu.D. Apresyan. About strong and weak management - "Questions of Linguistics", 1964, No. 3.
N. D. Arutyunova. On the concept of a word-formation system. - "Philological Sciences", 1960, Wi 2.
V. V. Vinogradov. Word formation and its relation to grammar and vocabulary. - In: Questions of the theory and history of language. M., 1952.
B. N. G about l about in and and. On the question of the essence of the grammatical category. - "Issues of linguistics", 1955, No. 1.
B. N. Golovin. Notes on grammatical meaning. - "Issues of linguistics", 1962, No. 2.
E. V. G u l y g a. The problem of grammatical category. - Uch. app. MGPIIA, vol. 5, 1953. -
E. A. Zemskaya. On one feature of the combination of word-forming morphemes in the Russian language. - "Issues of linguistics", 1964, No. 2.
N. N, Korotkov, V. 3. Panfnlov. On the typology of grammatical categories. - "Issues of linguistics", 1965, No. 1.
M. G. K r a v c h e k o i T. V. S tro e v a. To the question of the word and phrase. - "Issues of linguistics", 1962, No. 2.
T.P. Lomtesh. On controversial issues in the theory of syntax.-NDVSH, Philological Sciences, 1958, No. 4.
I. A. Melchuk. On internal inflection in Indo-European and Semitic languages. - "Issues of linguistics", 1963, No. 4.
V. N. Mngrin. Relations between parts of speech and members of a sentence. - NDVSh, Philological Sciences, 1959, No. 1.
N. S. Pospelov. On the grammatical nature of a compound sentence. - In: Questions of the syntax of the modern Russian language. M., Uchpedgiz, 1950.
N. S. P about this l about in. The doctrine of parts of speech in the Russian grammatical tradition. Publishing House of Moscow State University, 1954.
N. S. Pospelov. Complex sentence and its structural types. - "Issues of linguistics", 1959, No. 2.
I, P. R a s p o p o v. On the question of predictability. - "Issues of Linguistics", 195B, No. 5.
A. A. Kholodovich. On the secondary members of the proposal. From the history and theory of the question. - NDVSh, philological sciences, 1959, M 4.
E. I. Shendels. On grammatical polysemy. - "Issues of linguistics", 1962, No. 3.
E. I. Shendels. The concept of grammatical homonymy. - NDVSH,
Philological Sciences, 1959, No. 1.
L. V. Shcherba. About parts of speech in Russian. - Sat: Selected works In Russian. M., 1957.
LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION
§ 64. Variety of world languages. languages and dialects. Living and dead languages.
Currently, there are about two and a half thousand languages in the world. The number of languages has not been precisely established and is difficult to establish. Prior to their burrows, there are territories that are poorly studied linguistically. These include parts of Australia, Oceania, South America. The population of such areas is usually small, lives in small groups isolated from each other, their languages are poorly studied and it is not always possible to decide whether such groups speak different languages or different dialects of the same language. In countries with a multilingual population, it is also not (it is always easy to distinguish between languages and dialects. In India, for example, according to 1951, there are 720 languages and dialects, in Nepal, with a population of 9.5 million people, there are about 60 languages and large dialects .
A dialect variant of the language system used by some troupe of a tribe (of a people, a nation living on the same territory. Such dialects are called terrottori or other dialects. They differ from languages in their limited (functions: they are used as a means of everyday everyday life). communication, they do not perform the functions of the state language (see § 79), the language of science, etc. Writing in a dialect is usually absent or very poorly developed. Differences between dialect systems are more frequent than differences between language systems. Systems of different dialects have many common links.Trends in the development of dialect systems largely depend on the trends in the development of the system of the language of which they are part.
However, it is not always easy to distinguish a dialect from a language, because, firstly, the structures of some related languages are very close to each other, the differences between languages are sometimes smaller than the differences between dialects (some dialects of German differ more from each other than Ukrainian and Russian languages; the population of Northern China almost does not understand speakers of southern Chinese dialects, while speakers of various Turkic languages \u200b\u200b- Tatar, Bashkir, Kazakh, etc. - usually understand each other). Secondly, in certain historical periods (see § 79), dialects can perform functions close to the function of a language: they can be used in business correspondence in state affairs, writing can appear in dialects. Such a situation is observed, for example, in India and Pakistan at the present time, which is explained by the fragmentation of the country in the past and the obstacles to the development of a common Indian language on the part of the English colonialists. Thirdly, some languages, especially in the early stages of their development, do not differ from dialects in terms of their functions. So, tribal languages are usually used only for everyday communication, they do not have a written language, that is, they differ little from dialects. Therefore, in relation to many poorly studied languages, it is difficult to establish boundaries between languages and dialects. For example, in New Guinea, almost every village has its own language and it is very difficult to say with confidence whether it is really a language or just a dialect.
It should also be taken into account that the number of languages is not constant, since in the process of historical development, languages disappear and new ones appear. Languages disappear if the collectives that speak these languages disappear. So, as a result of forced German assimilation, the Polabian language disappeared, one of the Slavic languages, in which almost until the 18th century. spoke the population living on the Elbe River (its old name is Laba). Sometimes languages cease to be used in live communication (since the groups of people who used them disappear), but are preserved in written monuments. Such languages are called dead. In territories where turbulent historical events unfolded in the past, where some peoples replaced others, several layers of such dead languages were often preserved. For example, on the territory of Western Asia, the Sumerian language is known, the monuments of which date back to the end of the 4th millennium BC. e., and the "dead" Sumerian language became, obviously, by the middle of the II millennium BC. e. At the turn of the IV and III millennium BC. e. the oldest Elamite monuments date back, but the Elamite language existed for a long time, perhaps traces of it were noted until the 10th century. n. e. By the middle of the III millennium BC. e. the Hurrian language also became dead, although separate groups of Hurrians survived in the valley of the upper Euphrates and in the mountains of the Armenian Taurus until the 7th century. BC e-Close to Hurrian, the Hattian language disappears by the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. These languages changed by the 2nd millennium BC. e. Akkadian, who dominated the country for about one and a half thousand years, but from about the middle of the 1st century BC. e. and the Akkadian language becomes dead, replaced by dialects of the Aramaic language. The Aramaic language survived until the Middle Ages, when it was replaced by Arabic, but traces of it have survived to this day. A language close to Aramaic is spoken by the population of several villages in Syria and more than 20,000 Aysors living on the territory of the Armenian SSR. History has preserved information about other dead languages that were once common in Asia Minor: Hittite (II millennium BC), Phrygian, Lycian.
Some dead languages are used by other nations as languages of culture and science. In this capacity, for example, he acted for a long time Latin language, which was the official language of many Western European countries (see § 79). A similar role in the East was played by the dead ancient Tibetan, ancient Mongolian languages.
Modern living Languages are far from uniform in distribution: some are spoken by tens and even hundreds of millions of people, others by several thousand or even several hundred people. According to recent data, about 60% of all mankind speaks the 10 largest languages of our time. The most common languages are: Chinese, which is spoken by over 690 million people (Chinese and some national minority groups of China), English - 270 million people (England, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other former colonies of England), Russian - about 150 million people (-for about 430 million people it turns out to be native, the rest widely use it as the language of interethnic communication in the USSR), Spanish - 150 million (Spain, countries of Central and South America, North Africa), languages Hindi and Urdu, which are different literary varieties of a common language - Hindustani, serve, according to some sources, about 150 million people, according to others - even 180 million people.
The nature of the distribution of these languages is far from the same. If Russian, Chinese, Hindustani are widespread in the territories of indigenous settlement, they are the native languages for the majority of those who speak them, then English and non-Pan languages spread mainly due to colonial conquests. In Europe, in the old territory of the distribution of English and Spanish, only about 20% of the total number of speakers of these languages lives. These languages are mainly spoken in the former colonies of England and Spain, where they supplanted the local languages, sometimes with very cruel measures.
The distribution of the Portuguese language, which is spoken by about 85 million people in Portugal, Brazil and some other countries, and French, serving over 60 million in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, North Africa, has the same character. Widespread languages also include Japanese - 95 million, German (spread in the GDR, the FRG, Austria, Switzerland, spoken by about 90 million people), Arabic (in North Africa and Western Asia, about 85 million).
Along with large languages, there are small languages spoken by only a few thousand people. Such languages are especially characteristic of countries where tribal languages are still preserved. For example, some of the Bantu languages (see § 68) in Africa are spoken by only a few thousand people. The cruel colonial policy of the imperialist states led many African peoples to extinction, and along with the tribes, languages also died out. So, in 1870, the number of the Bongo tribe living in the Nile Valley was 100 thousand, and according to the data of 1931, only 5 thousand people spoke the Bongo language. The same situation is observed in America. One of the largest language groups - Iroquois - included 5-6 tribal languages, which were spoken by about 110 thousand people. At present, there are less than 20,000 Iroquois left. The tribes that lived within the Right Bank of the Mississippi were part of the Caddo group; about 25 thousand people spoke the languages of this group, now there are no more than 2 thousand left.
Smaller languages are also found in the Soviet Union, especially in the Caucasus and Siberia. So, the Abazins living in 16 villages of the Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Region (within the Stavropol Territory) number only 20 thousand people (according to the 1959 census). The Agul language, which is widespread mainly in Dagestan, is spoken by 8 thousand people, Rutul - 7, Tsakhur - 6 thousand people. Many small languages are found in the north of the European part of the USSR and in Siberia: Sami serves 1.8 thousand inhabitants of the Kola Peninsula, Selkup - 3.8 (population along the banks of the Taz River - between the Ob and Yenisei), Itelmen - 1.1 (in Kamchatka ), Yukaghir (north of the Yakut ASSR) - 0.4 thousand, etc.
The Leninist national policy made it possible for the languages of all the peoples of the Soviet Union to develop. In the Soviet Union, there is no significant reduction in the number of speakers of one language or another, since there is not a decrease, but even an increase in small peoples. So, in 1895, 7185 people were registered as Aguls, in 1926 - 7653, and in 1959 - 8000 people.
The languages of the peoples of the world are very different both in structure and in material composition (sound composition, word roots). Some of them are very similar to each other, form groups of related languages, others differ significantly. All this raises the question of the classification of the languages of the world.
§ 65. Classification of languages. Types of classifications
By the XVI-XVII centuries. As a result of important geographical discoveries, Europeans became acquainted with many new languages. Among these languages were those that showed similarities with European languages (Sanskrit and other languages of India), and those that did not have similarities with before. known languages(languages of central and southern parts of Africa, languages of America, Oceania). This aroused interest not only in the study of languages, but also in their systematization. Attempts to classify languages begin in the 16th century. In 1538 the work of Guilelm Postellus "On the Relationship of Languages" was published. In 1610, the work of I. Yu. Scaliger “Discourse on European Languages” was published, in which the author tries to outline the main groups of European languages. E. Guichard, G.V. Leibniz and other linguists
M. V. Lomonosov achieved great success in attempts to group European languages. In the 19th century the basic principles of the classification of languages have already come to light, in accordance with which the main groups and types of languages have been outlined.
The classification of languages can be approached from different points of view. One can, for example, approach from a geographical point of view, i.e., group languages according to their territorial distribution: the languages of America, the languages of Oceania, the languages of Australia, etc. This is done in cases where languages are poorly studied, information about them is insufficient for another, deeper approach. For example, D. Brinton in 1891 proposed to divide all the languages of America into 5 main groups: North Atlantic, North Pacific, Central, South Pacific and South Atlantic. Brinton took into account the differences in the grammatical structure of languages, but his classification still turned out to be an external, purely geographical principle. The geographical approach is also used in other types of classification to distinguish smaller groups (again, when information about languages is still insufficient). For example, within the family (see below) of the Bantu languages (Central and South Africa), seven groups are usually distinguished, often on a territorial basis: the northwestern group, the northern group, the southeastern group, etc. Each of the groups includes a significant the number of languages that have common features; for example, the northwestern languages are characterized by a monosyllabic form of prefixes, the absence of incorporated (see § 74) pronominal indicators in verbs, the presence of initial nasal sounds at the end of a syllable, etc. not fully disclosed.
Currently, there are 2 main types of classification:
1) by material proximity, material similarity, i.e., by the similarity of the material elements of the language themselves - roots, endings;
2) by structural-typological similarity, that is, by the similarity of the linguistic structure itself.
The first type of classification is called genealogical (from the Greek genealogia - genealogy) classification, since it is based on the kinship of languages, their origin from one common source (see § 66), the second type is called typological classification, and in recent times in connection with the significant changes made to this classification, they began to talk about the structural-typological classification of languages.
Section 66. Genealogical classification languages
The genealogical classification of languages developed in the 19th century as a result of the work of many scientists: Franz Bopp, Rasmus Rask, Jacob Grimm, Vostokov and others. The genealogical classification received a particularly complete presentation in the book published in 1861-68. the work of August Schleicher, which was called "Compendium (i.e., an abridged presentation - L. B.) comparative grammar of the Indo-Germanic languages". Clarifications and amendments to the language classification system were made later and continue to be made to this day.
Genealogical classification divides all languages into families, and within families - into groups. In families and groups, languages are grouped according to their material similarity.
First of all, this is the similarity of the roots of words, moreover, not an accidental similarity of the roots of individual words, but the presence of entire groups of words with the same roots. For example, in all Slavic languages, there is a great similarity of roots in terms of kinship:
Russian mother brother sister children grandson
Ukrainian mother brother sister child grandson
Belarusian matsi brother syastra dzeci unuk
Bulgarian T-shirt brother sister deca grandson
Serbian mother, majka brother sister dete unuk
Czech mater, matka bratrsestra dite, deti vnuk
Polish ma, matka brat siostra dzieci wnuk
Ukrainian
Belorussian
Bulgarian
A similar similarity is in the names of the seasons: Russian summer,winter; Ukrainian lithen, winter; Belarusian summer, hima; Bulgarian late, winter; Serbian cold, winter; Polish tato, winter; Czech leto, winter. Similar relationships in the names of parts of the day: Russian night Day; Ukrainian nih, day; Belarusian night, day; Bulgarian night, day; Serbian buth, given: Polish pos,dzien; Czech pos,den.
There are common roots in the names of many natural phenomena, for example: Russian wind, snow; Ukrainian initep, sniG Belarusian wind, snow; Bulgarian vyatar, took off; Serbian wind, snow; Polish wiatr, snieg; Czech vitr, snih.
Common roots are also observed in adjectives, for example, in adjectives denoting magnitude: Russian great(big), small; Ukrainian great, maly; Belarusian sluggishitoi, are small; Bulgarian golam, fry; Serbian big, small; Polish wielki, maly; Czech Velky, maly. Adjectives denoting color are also indicative: Russian yellow green; Ukrainian Zhovty, decrees; Belarusian
jouts, green; Bulgarian yellow, green; Serbian creepy, green
Polish zdlty, zielony; Czech zluty, greenery.
The kinship of languages is always very clearly manifested in the numerals:
Russian Ukrainian Belarusian Bulgarian Serbian Polish Czech
one one ajin one jedan jeden jeden
two two two two two dwa dva
three three three three three trzy tri
four chotiri chatyry chetiri chetiri cztery ctyri
five p "yat five five pet petpiec pet
six six szesc sest
seven sim sed sed sed sied(e) m sedm
eight hanging eight osem osiem osm
nine virgins "yat for devet devet devet dziewiec devet
ten ten dzesyats deset deset dzleslec deset
The same similarity is found in other groups of related languages when comparing words of the same semantic groups: terms of kinship, natural phenomena, names of domestic animals; adjectives denoting color, size, quality; basic numerals; names of the most important actions, etc.
The correspondences that we find in the languages of the Germanic group are indicative (see § 67):
Father Daughter Water Summer Good
German Vater Tochter Wasser Sommer gut
English father daughter water summer good
Dutch vader dochter water zomer good
Swedish fader dotter vatten sommar got
Similar correspondences are observed in the Romance languages (see § 67);
Horse Cow Cat Earth Big Wear
Latin caballus vacca cattus terra grandis portare
French cheval vache chat terre grand porter
Italian cavallo vacca gatto terra grande portare
spanish caballo vaca gato tierra grande portar
Even among the few examples given, there are those that suggest similarities between the three groups of languages considered. Indeed, the Slavic, Germanic and Romance languages, together with some others (see § 67), are combined into one large family of languages, which is called Indo-European, since it includes many languages \u200b\u200blocated in Europe and India. Indo-European languages have many common roots in the same word groups.
Quite different roots are found in similar words in another, for example, Turkic family of languages:
Mother Father Daughter Horse Earth No
Tatar ana ata kyz at fat yuk
Azerbaijan ana ata gyz at (er) jok
Kazakh ana ata kyz at zher zhok
Turkmen ana ata kyz at er- yok
Uzbek she ota kiz ot er yuk
B a sh k i y ana ata kyz ater yuk
In related languages, similarities are found not only in the roots of words, but also in affixes. The similarity in affixes with a relational meaning (see § 48) is especially important, since such affixes cannot be borrowed from one language to another (see § 82), therefore their similarity, and sometimes complete coincidence, can be a convincing indicator of the primordial connection of languages . Let's give an example of case forms of the word
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bone in Slavic languages: |
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Belarusian Serbian |
Polish |
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bone-and (jy) |
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What Academician I. Meshchaninov is talking about
On the globe, people speak almost two thousand different languages. The science of languages - linguistics - is of great importance in our country. Its problems are being developed at five research institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The works of Soviet linguists occupy a leading place among the works of scientists from other countries. Academician Ivan Ivanovich Meshchaninov, Hero of Socialist Labor, works a lot and fruitfully in the field of studying the problems of language.
The specialty I have chosen, of course, put me in front of the need to know a large number of languages, - says Academician I. I. Meshchaninov. - My acquaintance with languages began at an early age. In addition to my native Russian language, my family taught me to speak German. Later, at school and at university, I studied English and French. These languages are usually required by anyone who decides to devote himself to research activities in any field of science. Without them, it is impossible to follow the scientific literature that appears in other countries. One or two of the most common foreign languages needed by people of different professions. Sailors, for example, absolutely need knowledge of the English language, because international maritime radio communications are carried out in English. For diplomatic communication, as is known, three languages are now accepted: English, Russian and French.
Gradually I mastered Italian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Polish, Turkish so much so that he could read scientific literature. Already at the beginning of my scientific work I was convinced what a fascinating and useful activity is the study of even such ancient, long-forgotten languages, such as the Khaldic language, which was spread on the territory of Armenia in the 6th-7th centuries BC. Reading the ancient Khald inscriptions discovered by archaeologists brings to mind the history of Transcaucasia.
A special task faced me in the study of the national languages of the peoples of the Soviet Union. The population of our country speaks almost 160 languages. Many of them are little studied and are of great interest to the researcher. Some nationalities before the revolution did not even have their own written language. Soviet linguistics helps the development of national languages and enriches them. Here is an example of how, with the introduction of writing, the whole structure of syntax changes and a series of consecutive simple sentences is gradually replaced by a developed system of complex composition and subordination. Let's take literal translation Khanty (Ostyak) fairy tale: “There is summer. One day has come. I took my nets. Went fishing. Set up your networks. Got the fish. Went out to the shore. The food began to cook. Fire kindled. The cauldron is hung up." With an introduction literary language this tale sounds different: “One day he took his nets and went fishing. Having set up the nets, he got the fish and went ashore. He began to cook food, lit the fire and hung up the cauldron. Our scientists, studying national languages, develop scientific grammars for them, compose new dictionaries.
Of the languages spoken by the peoples of the Soviet Union, I first studied Azeri, Kazakh, Kazan-Tatar and Gilyak. The latter has no written language, and I had to memorize it directly by ear. In order to be able to compare the languages of different systems, I got acquainted with a group of North Caucasian languages: Adyghe, Kabardian, Avar, Lezgi, Lak. Of exceptional interest are the languages of the peoples of the North that I studied: Nenets, Selkup (Ostyak-Samoyed), Yukagir, Aleut, Yuit (Eskimo), as well as the languages of the African Bantu tribe. Comparing the structure of different languages, we find out the basic principles for constructing sentences and shaping words, which is very important for clarifying the question of their origin.
I am sometimes asked: how can you keep in mind a large number of languages that are so little similar to each other? I believe that this is achieved by systematic memory training and as professionally as, say, the memory for numbers in accountants. It is very important for people learning a new language to practice speaking and reading literature frequently. Quite often, mastering the language takes place without much difficulty. I recall a conversation with a young Armenian who worked on citrus plantations. It was ten years ago, in the Armenian village of Esheri, in Abkhazia. It seemed strange to the young man that I could speak fluently four Western European languages. But it immediately became clear that, in addition to his native Armenian, he himself knows Abkhazian, which is spoken by the local population, and is also fluent in Greek, since Greeks live nearby, Russian, which is familiar to almost the entire urban population of Abkhazia, and, finally, can be explained in Turkish, because he met with the Turks more than once in the bazaars. Knowledge of so many different languages became natural for him, because the need to communicate with the environment pushed him to this.
Studying the diversity and richness of human speech, scientists have made an interesting calculation of the number of people who speak one language or another. Our Russian language, for example, is widespread in Europe, Asia, and America. It is spoken by a total of up to 200 million people, while it is native to 90 million people.
Growth international importance The USSR aroused extraordinary interest in the Russian language in all countries. Our young people hardly know that for foreigners studying languages, Russian is the most difficult. Nevertheless, abroad - in America, England, France, and especially in the Slavic countries - a large number of people master it.
Widely distributed throughout the world English language, which is spoken by at least 250 million people, including 106 million Americans and 47 million English native speakers. French 107 million people use it, of which 45 million use this language as their mother tongue.
In the East, Chinese is the most widely spoken language. It is spoken by over 500 million people.
Along with the living languages that people use as a colloquial language, there are many dead languages. Their number, according to scientists, exceeds the number of living. It is customary for us to call dead languages those languages that are no longer spoken. Many of them, however, have rich literature. An example is Latin, the language of the ancient Romans. Their cultural and scientific significance is very great.
Strengthening international relations between Soviet Union and other countries awakened in our youth a clear desire to learn foreign languages. People who really want to know the language, with systematic studies, master it within two to three years.
The population of the Earth is 7 billion people
Number of languages - 2.5-5 thousand (up to 6-7 thousand)
Once the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published the data at its disposal: there are 2,796 languages in the world. Usually linguists prefer to give approximate figures. The reasons for the discrepancies are as follows.
1) Difficulty distinguishing between language and dialect.
2) Insufficient knowledge of languages. We live in a world where, it would seem, everything is already open and mapped. However, from time to time it becomes known from newspapers or TV shows that somewhere in the jungles of the Amazonian lowland or New Guinea, modern travelers managed to find a tiny lost tribe that shuns contact with other people and speaks a language unknown to any of the specialists.
3) Finally, languages can die. In Russia, for example, the Kerek language in Kamchatka literally died out right before our eyes, the languages of such peoples as the Itelmens, Yukaghirs, and Tofalars are disappearing. These are tiny peoples, only a few hundred people each, many of whom, especially young people, no longer know their own language ... Only in the 20th century dozens of languages disappeared from the face of the earth. With the development of communications, the number of living languages is decreasing at an average rate of 1 language in two weeks.
So to establish the exact number of languages in the world is very difficult, if not impossible.
Most spoken languages (by number of speakers):
Chinese
As of January 2012 - 1349718000 people, more than 885 million people speak Mandarin.
English, Spanish, Hindi (challenging for second place)
English is the national language of not only the British and Americans, but also Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders .. This is one of the official languages of India and 15 African states (former British colonies), it is also spoken in other countries.
English is the international language. One and a half billion people around the world speak this language. It is native to 400-500 million people in 12 countries, and more than a billion use English as a second language.
English is the language of business and politics. It is one of the working languages of the United Nations. The world of information technology is also based in English. More than 90% of all information in the world is also stored in English. This language is defined as the primary language of the Internet. Television and radio broadcasting of the world's largest companies (CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC, CBC), covering an audience of 500 million people, is also performed in English. More than 70% of scientific publications are published in English. Songs are sung and films are made in this language.
Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, German, French, etc.
Language map of the world (toart of languages of the world)
is a map of families and groups of languages, as well as their individual representatives. The area of distribution of languages is indicated by a certain color.
Lesser-spoken languages
There are currently just over 400 languages that are considered endangered. They are spoken by a very small number of mostly elderly people and, apparently, these languages will forever disappear from the face of the Earth with the death of these "last of the Mohicans". Here are some examples:
Russia: Kerek (2 people) and Udege (100 people) languages;
Africa: Bikia (1 person), Elmolo (8 people), Goundo (30 people), Kambap (30 people);
Australia: Alahua language (about 20 people);
North America: Chinook (12 people), Kansa (19 people), Kaguila (35 people);
South America: Tehulche (about 30 people), Itonama (about 100 people).
In 1996, a man named Red Thundercloud died in the United States ... He was the last person to know the Catouba language of the Sioux Indian tribe. True, before his death, he managed to record speech samples and ritual songs of his language for the Smithsonian Institution, which rendered a huge service to science. Unfortunately, this rarely happens, most often the language dies quietly and unnoticed along with its last speakers...
Every two weeks somewhere in the world, along with its last speaker, a language dies, and with it a picture of the hopes, beliefs and views of an entire ethnic group. The loss of every language, therefore, always means the loss of the culture of its native people. These languages cannot even leave behind museum exhibits, since most of them have no written traditions. So with the death of their last speaker, the language disappears without a trace and forever. Languages die along with the last carrier, and therefore the danger threatens, first of all, peoples who do not use writing.
According to scientists, half of the existing languages will disappear in 50-100 years. In order for the language to be preserved, about 100 thousand of its speakers are required.
In 2009, UNESCO recognized 136 languages in Russia as endangered.
Languages have always died. As a result of wars, natural disasters, epidemics, the enslavement of one people by another, but never before has the disappearance gone at such a rapid pace. It is estimated that over the past 500 years mankind has lost about half of all the languages that it knew, and half of all the remaining languages will disappear before the end of this century. There are many reasons leading to the death of a language, but the main ones that currently play a decisive role can probably be called economic and political factors: globalization, modernization, industrialization and urbanization, entailing the transformation of the world, which once consisted of a motley collection of relatively self-sufficient individual peoples into one "global village".
As a rule, "strong" languages, such as, say, English, Russian, French, Arabic or Chinese, all without exception with a large number of speakers and a developed written tradition, are studied by linguists quite well. This is opposed by thousands of practically unexplored and rapidly disappearing languages, which puts the question of their study and description among the most urgent and topical problems of modern linguistics.
Many languages disappear due to the fact that their speakers come into contact with a stronger language environment, therefore, the languages of small nationalities and the languages of peoples that do not have statehood are in danger of disappearing in the first place. If less than 70% of children learn a language, it is considered endangered. According to the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, approximately 50 languages are currently threatened with extinction in Europe.
Scientists and politicians have long sounded the alarm. The UN proclaimed 1994-2004 the decade of the world's indigenous peoples, and UNESCO and the Council of Europe set tasks for scientists to create the Red Book, a global database and atlases of endangered languages.
So languages are divided into