Composition of the Indo-European family of languages. "New" Indo-European languages

Orange: Countries with the most IL broadcasters. Yellow: countries in which the FL minority language has official status - the most common family of related languages, one of more than 20 language families in the world.
The belonging of individual languages ​​and language groups to the family of Indo-European languages ​​is determined on the basis of the similarity of their structure, studied using the comparative historical method and is explained as a result of their origin from the only Indo-European proto-language in the past.
According to signs of close relationship, the Indo-European languages ​​are divided into groups of languages ​​and individual languages ​​at the level of groups.
There are 7 groups of living Indo-European languages ​​and 3 separate languages, which also include dead languages ​​known from history that are closely related to them, which were previous stages in the development of modern languages ​​or belonged to the corresponding groups as independent languages.
The largest group of living Indo-European languages ​​are Indian languages ​​- 96, which are spoken by more than 770 million people. These include the Hindi and Urdu languages ​​(2 varieties of a single literary language in India and Pakistan), Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Assami, Sindhi, Gypsy, etc., as well as dead languages ​​​​- Vedic and Sanskrit, which have preserved many written records.
The group of Iranian languages ​​includes living languages ​​- Persian, Tajik, Dari (Farsi-Kabul), Afghan (Pashto), Ossetian, Yagnob, Kurdish, Baloch, Talysh, a number of Pamir languages, etc. (Total 81 million speakers) and dead languages - Old Persian, Avestan, Pahlavi, Median, Parthian, Sogdian, Khorezmian, Scythian, Alanian, Saks (Khotanese). On the basis of a number of common structures, features, the Iranian languages ​​are united with the Indian languages ​​in the Indo-Iranian languages: there is an assumption regarding their origin from the former linguistic unity.
The Slavic group of languages ​​(see Slavic languages) is divided into 3 subgroups (more than 290 million speakers): eastern (Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian; see East Slavic languages), western (Polish, Czech, Slovak, Upper, Lower) and southern ( Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian); the western subgroup also included the Polabian language, which disappeared at the beginning of the 18th century.
The group of Baltic languages ​​consists of living languages ​​- Lithuanian and Latvian (4.3 million people) and dead ones - Prussian, Yatvingian, Curonian, etc. Given the special structural proximity of the Baltic languages ​​​​to Slavic, it is possible that in the past what kind of Balto-Slavic linguistic community existed ( proto-language, origin from close Indo-European dialects, long-term contact).
The group of Germanic languages ​​(about 550 million speakers) includes living languages: English is the second (after Chinese) most common in the world, German, Dutch, Frisian, Luxembourgish, Afrikaans, Yiddish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese and the dead - Gothic, Burgundian, barbarian, Gepid, Herulian.
The Romance group of languages ​​(576 million people) is represented by living languages ​​- French, Provençal (Occitan), Italian, Sardinian (Sardinian), Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Romanian (Romanians and Moldavians), Aromunian, Romansh, a number of Creole languages. All Romance languages ​​developed from Latin, the literary form of which is now known from numerous written sources and is still used today as the language of the Catholic liturgy and (to a limited extent) as the international language of science. The Latin language, together with the dead languages ​​Oscan and Umbrian, formed a group of Italian languages.
The Celtic group of languages ​​consists of rare living languages ​​- Irish, Gaelic (Scottish), Welsh, Breton and the dead - Manx, Cornish, Celtiberian, Lepontian, Gaulish. In the past, the Celtic languages ​​were spread over a vast area of ​​Europe - from present-day Great Britain to the Carpathians and the Balkans. In the structure of the Celtic languages ​​there are a number of common features with the Italian languages, with which they are usually combined into a more common Italo-Celtic group.
The Greek language (12.2 million people) occupies a separate place among the Indo-European languages ​​at the level of the language group. In its history, ancient Greek (Ancient Greek) and Middle Greek (Byzantine) periods are distinguished.
The Albanian language (4.9 million people) is genetically related to the dead Illyrian and Messapian languages.
The Armenian language (over 6 million people) is considered the successor of the former Hayas-Armeni language as part of the state of Urartu.
Numerous written sources present two groups of completely extinct Indo-European languages ​​- Anatolian, or Hittite-Luvian (languages ​​Hittite cuneiform, or Nesitska, Luvian cuneiform, Palai, hieroglyphic Hittite, Lydian, Lycian, Carian, sitetska, Pisidian) and Tocharian (languages ​​Tocharian A, or Karasharska or Turpanskaya, and Tocharian B, or Kuchanskaya). Less information has been preserved about other dead Indo-European languages ​​- Phrygian, Thracian, Illyrian, Messapska, Venetsky.
During the long development after the collapse of the proto-language, which had a highly developed structure of a synthetic type, the Indo-European languages ​​underwent significant structural differentiation - from synthetism (better preserved in the Baltic and Slavic languages) to analyticism (all developed in Afrikaans), from the fusionism of many ancient Indo-European languages ​​to agglutination in new Indian and Iranian languages. Significant differences also appeared in the phonetics of the Indo-European languages. There is an opinion (in particular, it was substantiated in detail by the Russian linguist V. Ilyich-Svitych) that the Indo-European languages, together with the Afroasian, Uralic, Altaic, Dravidian and Kartvelian languages, belong to a wide “supersimy” of the so-called. Nostratic languages.

The Indo-European branch of languages ​​is one of the largest in Eurasia. It has spread over the past 5 centuries also in South and North America, Australia and partly in Africa. The Indo-European languages ​​before occupied the territory from East Turkestan, located in the east, to Ireland in the west, from India in the south to Scandinavia in the north. This family includes about 140 languages. In total, they are spoken by approximately 2 billion people (2007 estimate). occupies a leading place among them in terms of the number of carriers.

Significance of Indo-European languages ​​in comparative historical linguistics

In the development of comparative historical linguistics, the role that belongs to the study of the Indo-European languages ​​is important. The fact is that their family was one of the first to be identified by scientists with great temporal depth. As a rule, in science, other families were determined, focusing directly or indirectly on the experience gained in the study of the Indo-European languages.

Ways to compare languages

Languages ​​can be compared in various ways. Typology is one of the most common of them. This is the study of types of linguistic phenomena, as well as the discovery on the basis of this of universal patterns that exist at different levels. However, this method is not applicable genetically. In other words, it cannot be used to investigate languages ​​in terms of their origin. The main role for comparative studies should be played by the concept of kinship, as well as the method of establishing it.

Genetic classification of Indo-European languages

It is an analogue of biological, on the basis of which different groups of species are distinguished. Thanks to it, we can systematize many languages, of which there are about six thousand. Having identified patterns, we can reduce all this set to a relatively small number of language families. The results obtained as a result of genetic classification are invaluable not only for linguistics, but also for a number of other related disciplines. They are especially important for ethnography, since the emergence and development of various languages ​​is closely connected with ethnogenesis (the appearance and development of ethnic groups).

Indo-European languages ​​suggests that the differences between them intensify over time. This can be expressed in such a way that the distance between them increases, which is measured as the length of the branches or arrows of the tree.

Branches of the Indo-European family

The genealogical tree of the Indo-European languages ​​has many branches. It distinguishes both large groups and those consisting of only one language. Let's list them. These are Modern Greek, Indo-Iranian, Italic (including Latin), Romance, Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, Albanian, Armenian, Anatolian (Hitto-Luvian), and Tocharian. It also includes a number of extinct ones that are known to us from scarce sources, mainly from a few glosses, inscriptions, toponyms and anthroponyms from Byzantine and Greek authors. These are Thracian, Phrygian, Messapian, Illyrian, Ancient Macedonian, Venetian languages. They cannot be attributed with full certainty to one or another group (branches). Perhaps they should be separated into independent groups (branches), making up the genealogical tree of the Indo-European languages. Scientists do not have a consensus on this issue.

Of course, there were, in addition to those listed above, other Indo-European languages. Their fate was different. Some of them died out without a trace, others left behind a few traces in the substrate vocabulary and toponomastics. Attempts have been made to reconstruct some of the Indo-European languages ​​from these meager traces. The most famous reconstructions of this kind include the Cimmerian language. He supposedly left traces in the Baltic and Slavic. Also of note is Pelagian, which was spoken by the pre-Greek population of ancient Greece.

pidgins

In the course of the expansion of various languages ​​​​of the Indo-European group, which took place over the past centuries, dozens of new ones - pidgins - were formed on the Romance and Germanic basis. They are characterized by a radically reduced vocabulary (1,500 words or less) and simplified grammar. Subsequently, some of them were creolized, while others became complete both functionally and grammatically. Such are Bislama, Tok Pisin, Krio in Sierra Leone, and the Gambia; Sechelva in the Seychelles; Mauritian, Haitian and Reunion, etc.

As an example, we give a brief description of the two languages ​​of the Indo-European family. The first one is Tajik.

Tajik

It belongs to the Indo-European family, to the Indo-Iranian branch and the Iranian group. It is state in Tajikistan, distributed in Central Asia. Together with the Dari language, the literary idiom of the Afghan Tajiks, it belongs to the eastern zone of the New Persian dialect continuum. This language can be seen as a variant of Persian (Northeast). Mutual understanding is still possible between those who use the Tajik language and the Persian-speaking inhabitants of Iran.

Ossetian

It belongs to the Indo-European languages, to the Indo-Iranian branch, the Iranian group and the Eastern subgroup. The Ossetian language is spoken in South and North Ossetia. The total number of speakers is about 450-500 thousand people. It left traces of ancient contacts with Slavic, Turkic and Finno-Ugric peoples. The Ossetian language has 2 dialects: Iron and Digor.

The collapse of the base language

Not later than the fourth millennium BC. e. there was a collapse of a single Indo-European language-base. This event led to the emergence of many new ones. Figuratively speaking, the genealogical tree of the Indo-European languages ​​began to grow from the seed. There is no doubt that the Hitto-Luvian languages ​​were the first to separate. The timing of the allocation of the Tocharian branch is the most controversial due to the paucity of data.

Attempts to merge different branches

Numerous branches belong to the Indo-European language family. More than once attempts were made to combine them with each other. For example, hypotheses have been put forward that the Slavic and Baltic languages ​​are especially close. The same was assumed in relation to the Celtic and Italic. To date, the most generally recognized is the union of Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages, as well as Nuristani and Dardic, into the Indo-Iranian branch. In some cases, it was even possible to restore the verbal formulas characteristic of the Indo-Iranian proto-language.

As you know, the Slavs belong to the Indo-European language family. However, it is still not exactly established whether their languages ​​should be separated into a separate branch. The same applies to the Baltic peoples. The Balto-Slavic unity causes a lot of controversy in such an association as the Indo-European language family. Its peoples cannot be unequivocally attributed to one or another branch.

As for other hypotheses, they are completely rejected in modern science. Various features can form the basis for the division of such a large association as the Indo-European language family. The peoples who are the bearer of one or another of its languages ​​are numerous. Therefore, it is not so easy to classify them. Various attempts have been made to create a coherent system. For example, according to the results of the development of back-lingual Indo-European consonants, all languages ​​of this group were divided into centum and satem. These associations are named after the reflection of the word "hundred". In satem languages, the initial sound of this Proto-Indo-European word is reflected in the form "sh", "s", etc. As for the centum languages, "x", "k", etc. are characteristic of it.

The first comparativists

The emergence of comparative historical linguistics proper dates back to the beginning of the 19th century and is associated with the name of Franz Bopp. In his work, he for the first time proved scientifically the relationship of the Indo-European languages.

The first comparativists were Germans by nationality. These are F. Bopp, J. Zeiss, and others. They first drew attention to the fact that Sanskrit (an ancient Indian language) is very similar to German. They proved that some Iranian, Indian and European languages ​​have a common origin. These scholars then grouped them into an "Indo-Germanic" family. After some time, it was established that Slavic and Baltic are also of exceptional importance for the reconstruction of the proto-language. So a new term appeared - "Indo-European languages".

The merit of August Schleicher

August Schleicher (his photo is presented above) in the middle of the 19th century summarized the achievements of his comparative predecessors. He described in detail each subgroup of the Indo-European family, in particular, its most ancient state. The scientist proposed to use the principles of reconstruction of a common proto-language. He had no doubts about the correctness of his own reconstruction. Schleicher even wrote the text in Proto-Indo-European, which he recreated. This is the fable "Sheep and Horses".

Comparative-historical linguistics was formed as a result of the study of various related languages, as well as the processing of methods for proving their relationship and reconstructing some initial proto-linguistic state. August Schleicher has the merit of depicting schematically the process of their development in the form of a family tree. In this case, the Indo-European group of languages ​​appears in the following form: the trunk - and the groups of related languages ​​are branches. The family tree has become a clear image of distant and close kinship. In addition, it indicated the presence of a closely related common proto-language (Balto-Slavic - among the ancestors of the Balts and Slavs, Germanic-Slavic - among the ancestors of the Balts, Slavs and Germans, etc.).

Contemporary research by Quentin Atkinson

More recently, an international group of biologists and linguists established that the Indo-European group of languages ​​originated from Anatolia (Turkey).

It is she, from their point of view, that is the birthplace of this group. The research was led by Quentin Atkinson, a biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Scientists have applied to the analysis of various Indo-European languages ​​the methods that have been used to study the evolution of species. They analyzed the vocabulary of 103 languages. In addition, they studied data on their historical development and geographical distribution. Based on this, the researchers came to the following conclusion.

Consideration of cognates

How did these scientists study the language groups of the Indo-European family? They looked at the cognates. These are words with the same root that have a similar sound and a common origin in two or more languages. They are usually words that are less subject to changes in the process of evolution (denoting family relationships, names of body parts, as well as pronouns). Scientists compared the number of cognates in different languages. Based on this, they determined the degree of their relationship. Thus, cognates were likened to genes, and mutations were likened to differences in cognates.

Use of historical information and geographic data

Scholars then resorted to historical data on the time when the divergence of languages ​​supposedly took place. For example, it is believed that in 270, the languages ​​of the Romance group began to separate from Latin. It was at this time that the emperor Aurelian decided to withdraw the Roman colonists from the province of Dacia. In addition, the researchers used data on the modern geographical distribution of various languages.

Research results

After combining the obtained information, an evolutionary tree was created based on the following two hypotheses: Kurgan and Anatolian. The researchers compared the resulting two trees and found that "Anatolian" is statistically the most likely.

The reaction of colleagues to the results obtained by the Atkinson group was very ambiguous. Many scientists have noted that a comparison with the biological evolution of linguistic is unacceptable, since they have different mechanisms. However, other scientists found it justified to use such methods. However, the group was criticized for not testing the third hypothesis, the Balkan one.

Note that today the main hypotheses of the origin of the Indo-European languages ​​are Anatolian and Kurgan. According to the first, the most popular among historians and linguists, their ancestral home is the Black Sea steppes. Other hypotheses, Anatolian and Balkan, suggest that the Indo-European languages ​​spread from Anatolia (in the first case) or from the Balkan Peninsula (in the second).

Each of us probably had to deal with the concept of the “Indo-European family of languages” in one way or another. But hardly anyone, with the exception of linguists, has a complete idea of ​​which languages ​​are included in this group, which countries and peoples belong to this language family. In this article, we will present the main theories of the origin of the Indo-European languages, as well as talk about the composition of this language group.

Indo-European family of languages ​​on the world map

In fact, the concept of the Indo-European linguistic community is comprehensive, since there are practically no such countries and continents in the world that would not be related to it. The peoples of the Indo-European family of languages ​​inhabit a vast territory from Europe and Asia to both American continents, including Africa and even Australia! The entire population of modern Europe speaks these languages, with only a few exceptions. Some common European languages ​​are not part of the Indo-European language family. These include, for example, the following: Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian and Turkish. In Russia, part of the Altaic and Uralic languages ​​also have a different origin.

Origin of the languages ​​of the Indo-European group

The very concept of Indo-European languages ​​was introduced at the beginning of the 19th century by the German scholar Franz Bopp in order to designate a single group of languages ​​​​of Europe and Asia (including northern India, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh), which have strikingly similar features. This similarity has been confirmed by numerous studies by linguists. In particular, it has been proven that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Hittite, Old Irish, Old Prussian, Gothic, as well as some other languages, were remarkably identical. In this regard, scientists began to put forward various hypotheses about the existence of a certain parent language, which was the progenitor of all the main languages ​​\u200b\u200bof this group.

According to some scholars, this proto-language began to develop somewhere in Eastern Europe or Western Asia. The Eastern European theory of origin connects the beginning of the formation of the Indo-European languages ​​with the territory of Russia, Romania and the Baltic countries. Other scientists considered the Baltic land to be the ancestral home of the Indo-European languages, others connected the origin of these languages ​​with Scandinavia, northern Germany and southern Russia. In the 19th-20th centuries, the Asian theory of origin became widespread, which was subsequently rejected by linguists.

According to numerous hypotheses, the south of Russia is considered the birthplace of the Indo-European civilization. To be more precise, its distribution area covers a vast territory from the northern part of Armenia along the coast of the Caspian Sea up to the Asian steppes. The most ancient monuments of the Indo-European languages ​​are the Hittite texts. Their origin dates back to the 17th century BC. Hittite hieroglyphic texts are ancient evidence of an unknown civilization, giving an idea about the people of that era, about their vision of themselves and the world around them.

Groups of the Indo-European family of languages

In general, Indo-European languages ​​are spoken by 2.5 to 3 billion people in the world, with the largest poles of their distribution being in India, which has 600 million speakers, in Europe and America - 700 million people in each country. Consider the main groups of the Indo-European family of languages.

Indo-Aryan languages

In the large family of Indo-European languages, the Indo-Aryan group constitutes the largest part of it. It includes about 600 languages, these languages ​​are spoken by a total of 700 million people. Indo-Aryan languages ​​include Hindi, Bengali, Maldivian, Dardic and many others. This linguistic zone stretches from Turkish Kurdistan to central India, including parts of Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

Germanic languages

The Germanic group of languages ​​(English, German, Danish, Dutch, etc.) is also represented on the map by a very large territory. With 450 million speakers, it covers northern and central Europe, all of North America, part of the Antilles, Australia and New Zealand.

Romance languages

Another significant group of the Indo-European family of languages ​​are, of course, the Romance languages. With 430 million speakers, the Romance languages ​​are linked by their common Latin roots. Romance languages ​​(French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian and others) are distributed mainly in Europe, as well as throughout South America, in parts of the USA and Canada, in North Africa and on individual islands.

Slavic languages

This group belongs to the fourth largest place in the Indo-European language family. Slavic languages ​​(Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Bulgarian and others) are spoken by more than 315 million inhabitants of the European continent.

Baltic languages

In the Baltic Sea area, the only surviving languages ​​of the Baltic group are Latvian and Lithuanian. There are only 5.5 million speakers.

Celtic languages

The smallest language group of the Indo-European family, whose languages ​​are on the verge of extinction. It includes Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Breton and some other languages. The number of Celtic speakers is less than 2 million.

Linguistic isolates

Languages ​​such as Albanian, Greek and Armenian are isolate languages ​​within the modern Indo-European languages. These are perhaps the only surviving languages ​​that do not belong to any of the above groups and have their own characteristic features.

History reference

Between about 2000 and 1500 BC, the Indo-Europeans, thanks to their highly organized militancy, managed to capture vast areas of Europe and Asia. Already at the beginning of 2000, the Indo-Aryan tribes penetrated into India, the Hittites settled in Asia Minor. Subsequently, by 1300, the Hittite empire disappeared, according to one version, under the onslaught of the so-called "people of the sea" - a pirate tribe, which, by the way, had an Indo-European origin. By 1800, in Europe, on the territory of modern Greece, the Hellenes settled, the Latins settled in Italy. A little later, the Slavs, and then the Celts, Germans and Baltics, captured the rest of Europe. And already by 1000 BC, the division of the peoples of the Indo-European language family was finally completed.

All these peoples spoke different languages ​​by that time. Nevertheless, it is known that all these languages, which had a supposed common common language of origin, were similar in many ways. Having numerous common features, over time they acquired more and more new differences, such as, for example, Sanskrit in India, Greek in Greece, Latin in Italy, the Celtic language in central Europe, Slavic in Russia. In the future, these languages, in turn, broke up into numerous dialects, acquired new features and eventually became the modern languages ​​that today are spoken by most of the world's population.

Given that the Indo-European family of languages ​​is one of the largest language groups, it is the most studied linguistic community. Its existence can be judged, first of all, by the presence of a large number of ancient monuments. The existence of the Indo-European language family is also supported by the fact that all these languages ​​have established genetic ties.

Indo-European language family, the most widely spoken in the world. Its distribution area includes almost all of Europe, both Americas and continental Australia, as well as a significant part of Africa and Asia. Over 2.5 billion people speak Indo-European languages. All the languages ​​of modern Europe belong to this family of languages, with the exception of Basque, Hungarian, Sami, Finnish, Estonian and Turkish, as well as several Altaic and Uralic languages ​​\u200b\u200bof the European part of Russia

The Indo-European family of languages ​​includes at least twelve groups of languages. In order of geographical location, moving clockwise from northwestern Europe, these are the following groups: Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Tocharian, Indian, Iranian, Armenian, Hitto-Luvian, Greek, Albanian, Italic (including Latin and descended from her Romance languages, which are sometimes separated into a separate group). Of these, three groups (Italic, Hitto-Luvian, and Tocharian) consist entirely of dead languages.

Indo-Aryan languages ​​(Indian listen)) is a group of related languages ​​dating back to the ancient Indian language. Included (together with the Iranian languages ​​and closely related Dardic languages) in the Indo-Iranian languages, one of the branches of the Indo-European languages. Distributed in South Asia: northern and central India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Republic of Maldives, Nepal; outside this region - Romani languages, Domari and Parya (Tajikistan). The total number of speakers is about 1 billion people. (estimate, 2007). ancient Indian languages.

Ancient Indian language. Indian languages ​​come from dialects of the ancient Indian language, which had two literary forms - Vedic (the language of the sacred "Vedas") and Sanskrit (created by Brahmin priests in the Ganges valley in the first half - the middle of the first millennium BC). The ancestors of the Indo-Aryans came out of the ancestral home of the "Aryan expanse" at the end of the 3rd - beginning of the 2nd millennium. The related Indo-Aryan language is reflected in proper names, theonyms and some lexical borrowings in the cuneiform texts of the state of Mitanni and the Hittites. Indo-Aryan writing in the Brahmi syllabary originated in the 4th-3rd centuries BC.

The Middle Indian period is represented by numerous languages ​​and dialects that were in use in oral, and then in written form from the middle. 1st millennium BC e. Of these, Pali (the language of the Buddhist Canon) is the most archaic, followed by Prakrits (the Prakrits of inscriptions are more archaic) and Apabhransha (dialects that developed by the middle of the 1st millennium AD as a result of the development of Prakrits and are a transitional link to the New Indian languages ).

The New Indian period begins after the 10th century. It is represented by about three dozen major languages ​​and a large number of dialects, sometimes quite different from each other.

In the west and northwest they border on Iranian (Balochi, Pashto) and Dardic languages, in the north and northeast - with Tibeto-Burman languages, in the east - with a number of Tibeto-Burman and Mon-Khmer languages, in the south - with Dravidian languages ​​(Telugu, Kannada). In India, linguistic islands of other linguistic groups (Munda languages, Mon-Khmer, Dravidian, etc.) are interspersed in the array of Indo-Aryan languages.

1. Hindi and Urdu (Hindustani) - two varieties of the same New Indian literary language; Urdu - the state language of Pakistan (the capital of Islamabad), has a written language based on the Arabic alphabet; Hindi (state language of India (New Delhi) - based on the Old Indian script Devanagari.

2. Bengal (State of India - West Bengal, Bangladesh (Kolkata))

3. Punjabi (eastern part of Pakistan, Punjab state of India)

5. Sindhi (Pakistan)

6. Rajasthani (Northwest India)

7. Gujarati - s-W subgroup

8. Marathas - Western subgroup

9. Sinhalese - island subgroup

10. Nepali - Nepal (Kathmandu) - central subgroup

11. Bihari - Indian state of Bihar - eastern subgroup

12. Oriya - ind. state of Orissa - eastern subgroup

13. Assamese - ind. Assam State, Bangladesh, Bhutan (Thimphu) - east. subgroup

14. Gypsy -

15. Kashmiri - Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan - Dardic group

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.

17. Sanskrit is the literary language of the ancient Indians from the 3rd century BC. to 4th century AD

18. Pali - Middle Indian literary and cult language of the medieval era

19. Prakrits - various colloquial Middle Indian dialects

Iranian languages- a group of related languages ​​within the Aryan branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Distributed mainly in the Middle East, Central Asia and Pakistan.

The Iranian group was formed according to the generally accepted version as a result of the separation of languages ​​from the Indo-Iranian branch in the territory of the Volga region and the southern Urals during the period of the Andronovo culture. There is also another version of the formation of the Iranian languages, according to which they separated from the main body of the Indo-Iranian languages ​​on the territory of the BMAC culture. The expansion of the Aryans in ancient times took place to the south and southeast. As a result of migrations, Iranian languages ​​spread by the 5th century BC. in large areas from the Northern Black Sea region to Eastern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Altai (Pazyryk culture), and from the Zagros Mountains, eastern Mesopotamia and Azerbaijan to the Hindu Kush.

The most important milestone in the development of the Iranian languages ​​was the identification of the Western Iranian languages, which spread westward from Deshte-Kevir along the Iranian plateau, and the Eastern Iranian languages ​​opposed to them. The work of the Persian poet Firdousi Shahnameh reflects the confrontation between the ancient Persians and the nomadic (also semi-nomadic) East Iranian tribes, nicknamed by the Persians as Turans, and their habitats as Turan.

In II - I centuries. BC. the Great Central Asian Migration of Peoples takes place, as a result of which the Eastern Iranians populate the Pamirs, Xinjiang, Indian lands south of the Hindu Kush, and invade Sistan.

As a result of the expansion of Turkic-speaking nomads from the first half of the 1st millennium AD. Iranian languages ​​begin to be supplanted by Turkic ones, first in the Great Steppe, and with the beginning of the 2nd millennium in Central Asia, Xinjiang, Azerbaijan and a number of regions of Iran. The relic Ossetian language (a descendant of the Alano-Sarmatian language) in the mountains of the Caucasus, as well as the descendants of the Saka languages, the languages ​​of the Pashtun tribes and the Pamir peoples, remained from the steppe Iranian world.

The current state of the Iranian-speaking array was largely determined by the expansion of the Western Iranian languages, which began under the Sassanids, but gained full strength after the Arab invasion:

The spread of the Persian language throughout the territory of Iran, Afghanistan and the south of Central Asia and the massive displacement of local Iranian and sometimes non-Iranian languages ​​in the respective territories, as a result of which the modern Persian and Tajik communities were formed.

Expansion of the Kurds into Upper Mesopotamia and the Armenian Highlands.

Migration of the semi-nomads of Gorgan to the southeast and the formation of the Baloch language.

Phonetics of Iranian languages shares many similarities with the Indo-Aryan languages ​​in development from the Indo-European state. The ancient Iranian languages ​​belong to the inflectional-synthetic type with a developed system of inflectional forms of declension and conjugation and are thus similar to Sanskrit, Latin and Old Church Slavonic. This is especially true of the Avestan language and, to a lesser extent, Old Persian. In Avestan, there are eight cases, three numbers, three genders, inflectional-synthetic verbal forms of present, aorist, imperfect, perfect, injunctiva, conjunctiva, optative, imperative, there is a developed word formation.

1. Persian - writing based on the Arabic alphabet - Iran (Tehran), Afghanistan (Kabul), Tajikistan (Dushanbe) - southwestern Iranian group.

2. Dari is the literary language of Afghanistan

3. Pashto - since the 30s the state language of Afghanistan - Afghanistan, Pakistan - East Iranian subgroup

4. Baloch - Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan (Ashgabat), Oman (Muscat), United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi) - northwestern subgroup.

5. Tajik - Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan (Tashkent) - Western Iranian subgroup.

6. Kurdish - Turkey (Ankara), Iran, Iraq (Baghdad), Syria (Damascus), Armenia (Yerevan), Lebanon (Beirut) - Western Iranian subgroup.

7. Ossetian - Russia (North Ossetia), South Ossetia (Tskhinval) - East Iranian subgroup

8. Tatsky - Russia (Dagestan), Azerbaijan (Baku) - western subgroup

9. Talysh - Iran, Azerbaijan - northwestern Iranian subgroup

10. Caspian dialects

11. Pamir languages ​​are the unwritten languages ​​of the Pamirs.

12. Yagnob is the language of the Yaghnobi, the inhabitants of the Yagnob river valley in Tajikistan.

14. Avestan

15. Pahlavi

16. Median

17. Parthian

18. Sogdian

19. Khorezmian

20. Scythian

21. Bactrian

22. Saky

Slavic group. Slavic languages ​​are a group of related languages ​​of the Indo-European family. Distributed throughout Europe and Asia. The total number of speakers is about 400-500 million people [source not specified 101 days]. They differ in a high degree of closeness to each other, which is found in the structure of the word, the use of grammatical categories, the structure of the sentence, semantics, the system of regular sound correspondences, and morphonological alternations. This proximity is explained by the unity of the origin of the Slavic languages ​​and their long and intense contacts with each other at the level of literary languages ​​and dialects.

The long independent development of the Slavic peoples in different ethnic, geographical, historical and cultural conditions, their contacts with various ethnic groups led to the emergence of differences in material, functional, etc. The Slavic languages ​​within the Indo-European family are closest to the Baltic languages. The similarity between the two groups served as the basis for the theory of the "Balto-Slavic proto-language", according to which the Balto-Slavic proto-language first emerged from the Indo-European proto-language, later splitting into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. However, many scientists explain their special closeness by the long contact of the ancient Balts and Slavs, and deny the existence of the Balto-Slavic language. It has not been established in which territory the separation of the Slavic language continuum from the Indo-European / Balto-Slavic took place. It can be assumed that it took place to the south of those territories that, according to various theories, belong to the territory of the Slavic ancestral homelands. From one of the Indo-European dialects (Proto-Slavic), the Proto-Slavic language was formed, which is the ancestor of all modern Slavic languages. The history of the Proto-Slavic language was longer than the history of individual Slavic languages. For a long time it developed as a single dialect with an identical structure. Dialect variants arose later. The process of transition of the Proto-Slavic language into independent languages ​​took place most actively in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium AD. e., during the formation of the early Slavic states in the territory of South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. During this period, the territory of Slavic settlements increased significantly. Areas of various geographical zones with different natural and climatic conditions were mastered, the Slavs entered into relationships with the population of these territories, standing at different stages of cultural development. All this was reflected in the history of the Slavic languages.

The history of the Proto-Slavic language is divided into 3 periods: the most ancient - before the establishment of close Balto-Slavic language contact, the period of the Balto-Slavic community and the period of dialect fragmentation and the beginning of the formation of independent Slavic languages.

Eastern subgroup

1. Russian

2. Ukrainian

3. Belarusian

Southern subgroup

1. Bulgarian - Bulgaria (Sofia)

2. Macedonian - Macedonia (Skopje)

3. Serbo-Croatian - Serbia (Belgrade), Croatia (Zagreb)

4. Slovenian - Slovenia (Ljubljana)

Western subgroup

1. Czech - Czech Republic (Prague)

2. Slovak - Slovakia (Bratislava)

3. Polish - Poland (Warsaw)

4. Kashubian - a dialect of Polish

5. Lusatian - Germany

Dead: Old Church Slavonic, Polabian, Pomeranian

Baltic group. The Baltic languages ​​are a language group representing a special branch of the Indo-European group of languages.

The total number of speakers is over 4.5 million people. Distribution - Latvia, Lithuania, earlier the territories of (modern) north-east of Poland, Russia (Kaliningrad region) and north-west of Belarus; even earlier (before the 7th-9th, in some places the 12th centuries) up to the upper reaches of the Volga, the Oka basin, the middle Dnieper and Pripyat.

According to one theory, the Baltic languages ​​are not a genetic formation, but the result of an early convergence [source not specified 374 days]. The group includes 2 living languages ​​(Latvian and Lithuanian; sometimes the Latgalian language is distinguished separately, which is officially considered the dialect of Latvian); the Prussian language attested in the monuments, which became extinct in the 17th century; at least 5 languages ​​known only by toponymy and onomastics (Curonian, Yatvingian, Galindian/Golyadian, Zemgalian and Selonian).

1. Lithuanian - Lithuania (Vilnius)

2. Latvian - Latvia (Riga)

3. Latgalian - Latvia

Dead: Prussian, Yatvyazhsky, Kurzhsky, etc.

German group. The history of the development of the Germanic languages ​​is usually divided into 3 periods:

Ancient (from the emergence of writing to the XI century) - the formation of individual languages;

middle (XII-XV centuries) - the development of writing in the Germanic languages ​​​​and the expansion of their social functions;

new (from the 16th century to the present) - the formation and normalization of national languages.

In the reconstructed Proto-Germanic language, a number of researchers single out a layer of vocabulary that does not have Indo-European etymology - the so-called pre-Germanic substratum. In particular, these are the majority of strong verbs, the conjugation paradigm of which also cannot be explained from the Proto-Indo-European language. The displacement of consonants compared to the Proto-Indo-European language - the so-called. "Grimm's law" - supporters of the hypothesis also explain the influence of the substrate.

The development of the Germanic languages ​​from antiquity to the present day is associated with numerous migrations of their speakers. The Germanic dialects of the most ancient times were divided into 2 main groups: Scandinavian (northern) and continental (southern). In the II-I centuries BC. e. part of the tribes from Scandinavia moved to the southern coast of the Baltic Sea and formed an East Germanic group, opposing the West Germanic (formerly southern) group. The East Germanic tribe of the Goths, moving south, penetrated the territory of the Roman Empire up to the Iberian Peninsula, where they mixed with the local population (V-VIII centuries).

Inside the West Germanic area in the 1st century AD. e. 3 groups of tribal dialects were distinguished: Ingveon, Istveon and Erminon. The migration in the 5th-6th centuries of part of the Ingvaeonic tribes (Angles, Saxons, Jutes) to the British Isles predetermined the further development of the English language. The complex interaction of West Germanic dialects on the continent created the prerequisites for the formation of Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Old Low Frankish and Old High German languages. Scandinavian dialects after their isolation in the 5th century. from the continental group they were divided into eastern and western subgroups, on the basis of the first Swedish, Danish and Old Gutnish languages ​​were later formed, on the basis of the second - Norwegian, as well as insular languages ​​​​- Icelandic, Faroese and Norn.

The formation of national literary languages ​​was completed in England in the 16th-17th centuries, in the Scandinavian countries in the 16th century, in Germany in the 18th century. The spread of the English language outside of England led to the creation of its variants in the USA, Canada, and Australia. The German language in Austria is represented by its Austrian variant.

North German subgroup.

1. Danish - Denmark (Copenhagen), northern Germany

2. Swedish - Sweden (Stockholm), Finland (Helsinki) - contact subgroup

3. Norwegian - Norway (Oslo) - continental subgroup

4. Icelandic - Iceland (Reykjavik), Denmark

5. Faroese - Denmark

West German subgroup

1. English - UK, USA, India, Australia (Canberra), Canada (Ottawa), Ireland (Dublin), New Zealand (Wellington)

2. Dutch - Netherlands (Amsterdam), Belgium (Brussels), Suriname (Paramaribo), Aruba

3. Frisian - Netherlands, Denmark, Germany

4. German - Low German and High German - Germany, Austria (Vienna), Switzerland (Bern), Liechtenstein (Vaduz), Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg

5. Yiddish - Israel (Jerusalem)

East German subgroup

1. Gothic - Visigothic and Ostrogothic

2. Burgundian, Vandal, Gepid, Herulian

Roman group. Romance languages ​​(lat. Roma "Rome") - a group of languages ​​and dialects that are part of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family and genetically ascend to a common ancestor - Latin. The name Romanesque comes from the Latin word romanus (Roman). The science that studies the Romance languages, their origin, development, classification, etc. is called romance and is one of the subsections of linguistics (linguistics). The peoples who speak them are also called Romance. The Romance languages ​​developed as a result of the divergent (centrifugal) development of the oral tradition of different geographical dialects of the once single folk Latin language and gradually became isolated from the source language and from each other as a result of various demographic, historical and geographical processes. This epoch-making process was initiated by Roman colonists who settled regions (provinces) of the Roman Empire remote from the capital - the city of Rome - in the course of a complex ethnographic process called ancient Romanization in the period of the 3rd century BC. BC e. - 5 in. n. e. During this period, the various dialects of Latin are influenced by the substrate. For a long time, the Romance languages ​​were perceived only as vernacular dialects of the classical Latin language, and therefore were practically not used in writing. The formation of the literary forms of the Romance languages ​​was largely based on the traditions of classical Latin, which allowed them to converge again in lexical and semantic terms already in modern times.

1. French - France (Paris), Canada, Belgium (Brussels), Switzerland, Lebanon (Beirut), Luxembourg, Monaco, Morocco (Rabat).

2. Provencal - France, Italy, Spain, Monaco

3. Italian – Italy, San Marino, Vatican, Switzerland

4. Sardinian - Sardinia (Greece)

5. Spanish - Spain, Argentina (Buenos Aires), Cuba (Havana), Mexico (Mexico City), Chile (Santiago), Honduras (Tegucigalpa)

6. Galician - Spain, Portugal (Lisbon)

7. Catalan - Spain, France, Italy, Andorra (Andorra la Vella)

8. Portuguese - Portugal, Brazil (Brazilia), Angola (Luanda), Mozambique (Maputo)

9. Romanian - Romania (Bucharest), Moldova (Chisinau)

10. Moldavian - Moldova

11. Macedonian-Romanian - Greece, Albania (Tirana), Macedonia (Skopje), Romania, Bulgarian

12. Romansh - Switzerland

13. Creole languages ​​are crossed Romance languages ​​with local languages

Italian:

1. Latin

2. Medieval Vulgar Latin

3. Oscan, Umbrian, Saber

Celtic group. The Celtic languages ​​are one of the western groups of the Indo-European family, close, in particular, to the Italic and Germanic languages. Nevertheless, the Celtic languages, apparently, did not form a specific unity with other groups, as was sometimes believed earlier (in particular, the hypothesis of Celto-Italic unity, defended by A. Meie, is most likely incorrect).

The spread of the Celtic languages, as well as the Celtic peoples, in Europe is associated with the spread of the Hallstatt (VI-V centuries BC), and then the La Tene (2nd half of the 1st millennium BC) archaeological cultures. The ancestral home of the Celts is probably located in Central Europe, between the Rhine and the Danube, but they settled very widely: in the 1st half of the 1st millennium BC. e. they penetrated the British Isles, around the 7th century. BC e. - in Gaul, in the VI century. BC e. - to the Iberian Peninsula, in the V century. BC e. they spread to the south, cross the Alps and come to northern Italy, finally, by the 3rd century. BC e. they reach Greece and Asia Minor. We know relatively little about the ancient stages of the development of the Celtic languages: the monuments of that era are very scarce and not always easy to interpret; nevertheless, data from the Celtic languages ​​(especially Old Irish) play an important role in the reconstruction of the Indo-European parent language.

Goidel subgroup

1. Irish - Ireland

2. Scottish - Scotland (Edinburgh)

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

Brythonic subgroup

1. Breton - Brittany (France)

2. Welsh - Wales (Cardiff)

3. Cornish - dead - in Cornwall - peninsula southwest of England

Gallic subgroup

1. Gaulish - extinct since the formation of the French language; was distributed in Gaul, Northern Italy, the Balkans and Asia Minor

Greek group. The Greek group is currently one of the most peculiar and relatively small language groups (families) within the Indo-European languages. At the same time, the Greek group is one of the most ancient and well-studied since antiquity. Currently, the main representative of the group with a full set of language features is the Greek language of Greece and Cyprus, which has a long and complex history. The presence of a single full-fledged representative today brings the Greek group closer to the Albanian and Armenian, which are also actually represented by one language each.

At the same time, other Greek languages ​​​​and extremely isolated dialects existed earlier, which either died out or are on the verge of extinction as a result of assimilation.

1. modern Greek - Greece (Athens), Cyprus (Nicosia)

2. ancient Greek

3. Middle Greek, or Byzantine

Albanian group.

Albanian (alb. Gjuha shqipe) is the language of the Albanians, the indigenous population of Albania itself and part of the population of Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Lower Italy and Sicily. The number of speakers is about 6 million people.

The self-name of the language - "shkip" - comes from the local word "shipe" or "shpee", which actually means "stony soil" or "rock". That is, the self-name of the language can be translated as "mountain". The word "shkip" can also be interpreted as "understandable" (language).

Armenian group.

Armenian is an Indo-European language, usually classified as a separate group, rarely combined with Greek and Phrygian. Among the Indo-European languages, it is one of the ancient written languages. The Armenian alphabet was created by Mesrop Mashtots in 405-406. n. e. (see Armenian script). The total number of speakers around the world is about 6.4 million people. During its long history, the Armenian language has been in contact with many languages. Being a branch of the Indo-European language, Armenian later came into contact with various Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages ​​- both living and now dead, adopting from them and bringing to our days much of what direct written evidence could not preserve. At different times, Hittite and hieroglyphic Luwian, Hurrian and Urartian, Akkadian, Aramaic and Syriac, Parthian and Persian, Georgian and Zan, Greek and Latin came into contact with the Armenian language at different times. For the history of these languages ​​and their speakers, the data of the Armenian language are in many cases of paramount importance. These data are especially important for urartologists, Iranianists, Kartvelists, who draw many facts of the history of the languages ​​they study from Armenian.

Hitto-Luvian group. The Anatolian languages ​​are a branch of the Indo-European languages ​​(also known as the Hitto-Luvian languages). According to glottochronology, they separated quite early from other Indo-European languages. All languages ​​of this group are dead. Their carriers lived in the II-I millennium BC. e. on the territory of Asia Minor (the Hittite kingdom and the small states that arose on its territory), were later conquered and assimilated by the Persians and / or Greeks.

The oldest monuments of the Anatolian languages ​​are the Hittite cuneiform and Luwian hieroglyphics (there were also brief inscriptions in the Palai language, the most archaic of the Anatolian languages). Through the work of the Czech linguist Friedrich (Bedřich) the Terrible, these languages ​​were identified as Indo-European, which contributed to their decipherment.

Later inscriptions in Lydian, Lycian, Sidetic, Carian, and other languages ​​were written in Asia Minor alphabets (partially deciphered in the 20th century).

1. Hittite

2. Luuvian

3. Palai

4. Carian

5. Lydian

6. Lycian

Tocharian group. Tocharian languages ​​- a group of Indo-European languages, consisting of the dead "Tocharian A" ("East Tocharian") and "Tocharian B" ("Western Tocharian"). They were spoken in the territory of modern Xinjiang. The monuments that have come down to us (the first of them were discovered at the beginning of the 20th century by the Hungarian traveler Aurel Stein) date back to the 6th-8th centuries. The self-name of the carriers is unknown, they are called “Tochars” conditionally: the Greeks called them Τοχάριοι, and the Turks - toxri.

1. Tocharian A - in Chinese Turkestan

2. Tocharsky V - ibid.

53. The main families of languages: Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Sino-Tibetan languages.

Indo-European languages. The first language family, established by means of a comparative historical method, was the so-called "Indo-European". After the discovery of Sanskrit, many European scientists - Danish, German, Italian, French, Russian - began to study the details of the relationship of various outwardly similar languages ​​​​of Europe and Asia, using the method proposed by William Jones. German experts called this large grouping of languages ​​"Indo-Germanic" and often continue to call it that to this day (in other countries this term is not used).

Separate language groups, or branches included in the Indo-European family from the very beginning, are indian, or Indo-Aryan; Iranian; Greek, represented by dialects of the Greek language alone (in the history of which the ancient Greek and modern Greek periods differ); Italian, which included the Latin language, whose numerous descendants form the modern Romanesque group; Celtic; Germanic; Baltic; Slavic; as well as isolated Indo-European languages ​​- Armenian and Albanian. Between these groups there are generally recognized rapprochements, allowing us to speak of such groupings as the Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian languages.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. inscriptions in languages ​​were discovered and deciphered Hitto-Luvian, or the Anatolian group, including in the Hittite language, which shed light on the earliest stage in the history of the Indo-European languages ​​(monuments of the 18th-13th centuries BC). The involvement of materials from the Hittite and other Hittite-Luvian languages ​​stimulated a significant revision of the systematizing statements about the structure of the Indo-European proto-language, and some scholars even began to use the term "Indo-Hittite" to denote the stage that preceded the separation of the Hittite-Luvian branch, and the term "Indo-European" is proposed to be retained for one or more later steps.

Also included among the Indo-European Tocharian a group that includes two dead languages ​​spoken in Xinjiang in the 5th to 8th centuries. AD (texts in these languages ​​were found at the end of the 19th century); Illyrian a group (two dead languages, Illyrian proper and Messapian); a number of other isolated dead languages ​​​​common in the 1st millennium BC. in the Balkans, Phrygian, Thracian, Venetian and ancient Macedonian(the latter was under strong Greek influence); Pelasgian the language of the pre-Greek population of Ancient Greece. Without a doubt, there were other Indo-European languages, and possibly groups of languages ​​that disappeared without a trace.

In terms of the total number of languages ​​included in it, the Indo-European family is inferior to many other language families, but in terms of geographical distribution and the number of speakers it has no equal (even without taking into account those hundreds of millions of people almost all over the world who use English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian , Hindi, to a lesser extent German and New Persian as the second).

Afroasian languages. The Semitic language family has been recognized for a long time, the similarity between Hebrew and Arabic was already noticed in the Middle Ages. The comparative study of the Semitic languages ​​began in the 19th century, and the archaeological finds of the 20th century. brought in a lot of important new information. The establishment of a relationship between the Semitic family and some languages ​​of northeast Africa led to the postulation of the Semitic-Hamitic macrofamily; this term is still very common today. A more detailed study of the African members of this group led to the rejection of the notion of some special "Hamitic" linguistic unity, opposed to the Semitic one, in connection with which the name "Afrasian" (or "Afroasiatic") languages, now generally accepted among specialists, was proposed. The significant degree of divergence of the Afroasian languages ​​and the very early estimated time of their divergence make this grouping a classic example of a macrofamily. It consists of five or, according to other classifications, six branches; besides Semitic, This Egyptian a branch consisting of the ancient Egyptian language and the successor to it Coptic, now the cult language of the Coptic Church; cushitic branch (the most famous languages ​​are Somali and Oromo); formerly included in the Cushitic languages Omotian branch (a number of languages ​​​​in the south-west of Ethiopia, the largest - Volamo and Kaffa); Chadian branch (the most significant language is Hausa); and Berber-Libyan the branch, also called the Berber-Libyan-Guanche, because, according to modern ideas, in addition to numerous languages ​​​​and / or dialects of the nomads of North Africa, it also included the languages ​​\u200b\u200bof the aborigines of the Canary Islands exterminated by Europeans. In terms of the number of languages ​​included in it (more than 300), the Afroasian family is one of the largest; the number of Afroasian speakers exceeds 250 million people (mainly due to Arabic, Hausa and Amharic; Oromo, Somali and Hebrew are also quite large). The languages ​​Arabic, Ancient Egyptian, Hebrew revived in the form of Hebrew, Ge'ez, as well as the dead Akkadian, Phoenician and Aramaic languages ​​and a number of other Semitic languages ​​play an outstanding cultural role at the present time or have played in history.

Sino-Tibetan languages. This language family, also called Sino-Tibetan, is the largest in the world in terms of the number of speakers of it as a mother tongue. Chinese language, which along with Dungan forms a separate branch in its composition; other languages, numbering from about 200 to 300 or more, are combined into the Tibeto-Burmese branch, the internal structure of which is interpreted by various researchers in different ways. With the greatest confidence in its composition, the Lolo-Burmese groups stand out (the largest language is Burmese), bodo-garo, kuki-chin (the largest language - meithei, or Manipuri in eastern India), Tibetan (the largest language - Tibetan, fragmented into very different dialects), Gurung and several groups of so-called "Himalayan" languages ​​(the largest - newari in Nepal). The total number of speakers of the languages ​​of the Tibeto-Burmese branch is over 60 million people, in Chinese - more than 1 billion, and due to it, the Sino-Tibetan family ranks second in the world in terms of the number of speakers after the Indo-European. Chinese, Tibetan and Burmese languages ​​have long written traditions (since the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, 6th century AD and 12th century AD respectively) and great cultural significance, however, most of the Sino-Tibetan languages ​​remain unwritten. According to numerous monuments discovered and deciphered in the 20th century, the dead Tangut the language of the Xi-Xia state (10th–13th centuries); there are monuments of a dead language drink(6th–12th centuries, Burma).

The Sino-Tibetan languages ​​have such a structural characteristic as the use of tone (pitch) distinctions to distinguish usually monosyllabic morphemes; there is no or almost no inflection or any use of affixes at all; syntax relies on phrasal phonology and word order. Some of the Chinese and Tibeto-Burmese languages ​​have been studied on a large scale, but a reconstruction similar to that made for the Indo-European languages ​​has so far been carried out only to a small extent.

For quite a long time, with the Sino-Tibetan languages, specifically with Chinese, the Thai languages ​​and the Miao-Yao languages ​​were also brought together, uniting them into a special Sinitic branch, opposed to the Tibeto-Burmese. At present, this hypothesis has practically no supporters left.

Turkic languages belong to the Altaic language family. Turkic languages: about 30 languages, and with dead languages ​​and local varieties, the status of which as languages ​​is not always indisputable, more than 50; the largest are Turkish, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Kazakh, Uighur, Tatar; the total number of Turkic speakers is about 120 million people. The center of the Turkic range is Central Asia, from where, in the course of historical migrations, they also spread, on the one hand, to southern Russia, the Caucasus and Asia Minor, and on the other, to the northeast, to eastern Siberia up to Yakutia. The comparative historical study of the Altaic languages ​​began as early as the 19th century. Nevertheless, there is no generally accepted reconstruction of the Altaic parent language, one of the reasons is the intensive contacts of the Altaic languages ​​and numerous mutual borrowings, which make it difficult to apply standard comparative methods.

Uralic languages. This macrofamily consists of two families - Finno-Ugric and samoyed. Finno-Ugric family, to which belong, in particular, Finnish, Estonian, Izhorian, Karelian, Vepsian, Votic, Liv, Sami (Baltic-Finnish branch) and Hungarian (Ugric branch, which also includes Khanty and Mansi languages) languages, was described in general terms at the end of the 19th century; at the same time, the reconstruction of the proto-language was carried out; the Finno-Ugric family also includes the Volga (Mordovian (Erzya and Mokshan) and Mari (mountain and meadow dialects) languages) and Perm (Udmurt, Komi-Permyak and Komi-Zyryan languages) branches. Later, a relationship was established with the Finno-Ugric Samoyedic languages ​​\u200b\u200bdistributed in the north of Eurasia. The number of Uralic languages ​​is more than 20 if Sami is considered a single language, and about 40 if the existence of separate Sami languages ​​is recognized, and also dead languages ​​are taken into account, known mainly only by names. The total number of peoples who speak the Uralic languages ​​is about 25 million people (of which more than half are native speakers of the Hungarian language and over 20% of Finnish). The minor Baltic-Finnish languages ​​(except for Vepsian) are on the verge of extinction, and Votic may have already disappeared; three of the four Samoyed languages ​​(except Nenets) also die out.

54. Typology, morphological classification of languages: flexion and agglutination.

Typology is a linguistic discipline that classifies languages ​​according to external grammatical features. Typologists of the 20th century: Sapir, Uspensky, Polivanov, Khrakovsky.

The Romantics were the first to raise the question of the "type of language". Their thought was this: "the spirit of the people" can manifest itself in myths, in art, in literature and in language. Hence the natural conclusion that through the language you can know the "spirit of the people."

Friedrich Schlegel. All languages ​​can be divided into two types - inflectional and affixing. Language is born and remains in the same type.

August Wilhelm Schlegel. Defined 3 types: inflectional, affixing and amorphous. Inflectional languages: synthetic and analytic.

Wilhelm von Humboldt. He proved that the Chinese language is not amorphous, but isolating. In addition to the three types of languages ​​noted by the Schlegel brothers, Humboldt described a fourth type; the most accepted term for this type is incorporating (the sentence is built as a compound word, i.e. unformed word roots are agglutinated into one common whole, which will be both a word and a sentence - Chukchi -ty-atakaa-nmy-rkyn "I am fat deer kill").

August Schleicher. Specifies three types of languages ​​in two possibilities: synthetic and analytic. Isolating, agglutinating, inflectional. Isolating - archaic, agglutinating - transitional, inflectional synthetic - the heyday, inflectional - analytical - the era of decline.

Of particular note is the morphological classification of Fortunatov. He takes as a starting point the structure of the word form and the correlation of its morphological parts. Four types of languages.

The forms of individual words are formed by means of such a selection in the words of the stem and affix, in which the stem either does not represent the so-called inflection (internal inflection) at all, or it does not constitute a necessary accessory of word forms and serves to form forms separate from those formed by affixes . agglutinative languages.

Semitic languages ​​- the stems of words themselves have the necessary forms formed by the inflection of stems, although the relation between stem and affix in Semitic languages ​​is the same as in agglutinative languages. Inflectional-agglutative.

Indo-European languages ​​- there is an inflection of the bases in the formation of the very forms of words that are formed by affixes, as a result of which the parts of words in the forms of words represent here by meaning such a connection between themselves in the forms of words that they do not have in the two above mentioned types. inflectional languages.

Chinese, Siamese, etc. - there are no forms of individual words. These languages ​​in the morphological classification are called root languages. The root is not part of the word, but the word itself.

Comparison of fusion and agglutination:

The root can change in phonemic composition / the root does not change in its composition

Affixes are not unambiguous / unambiguous

Affixes are non-standard/standard

Affixes are attached to a stem that is usually not used without these affixes / affixes are attached to what, in addition to this affix, constitutes a separate independent word

The connection of affixes with roots and stems has the character of a close interlacing or alloy / mechanical attachment

55. Morphological classification of languages: synthetism and analyticism.

August-Wilhelm Schlegel showed two possibilities of grammatical structure in inflectional languages: synthetic and analytical.

Synthetic ways - ways that express grammar within a word (internal inflection, affixation, repetitions, additions, stress, supletivism).

Analytical methods are methods that express grammar outside the word (functional words, word order, intonation).

With the synthetic tendency of grammar, the grammatical meaning is synthesized, combined with lexical meanings within the word, which, given the unity of the word, is a strong indicator of the whole. In the analytic tendency, grammatical meanings are separated from the expression of lexical meanings.

The word of synthetic languages ​​is independent, fully-fledged both lexically and grammatically, and requires, first of all, morphological analysis, from which its syntactic properties arise by themselves.

The word of analytical languages ​​expresses one lexical meaning and, being taken out of a sentence, is limited only by its nominative possibilities, while it acquires a grammatical characteristic only as part of a sentence.

Synthetic languages: Latin, Russian, Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Gothic, Old Church Slavonic, Lithuanian, German.

Analytical: English, Romanesque, Danish, Modern Greek, New Persian, New Indian, Bulgarian.

56. Typology: universals.

Universality in linguistics is one of the most important concepts of typology, a property inherent in all or the vast majority of natural languages. The development of the theory of universals is often associated with the name of Joseph Greenberg, although similar ideas were put forward in linguistics long before him.

Classification of universals is made on several grounds.

· Absolute universals (characteristic of all known languages, for example: every natural language has vowels and consonants) and statistical universals (trends) are opposed. An example of a statistical universal: almost all languages ​​have nasal consonants (however, in some West African languages, nasal consonants are not separate phonemes, but are allophones of oral stops in the context of nasal consonants). Statistical universals are adjoined by the so-called frequentals - phenomena that occur quite often in the languages ​​of the world (with a probability exceeding random).

· Absolute universals are also opposed to implicative (complex), that is, those that assert a connection between two classes of phenomena. For example, if a language has a dual, it also has a plural. A special case of implicative universals are hierarchies, which can be represented as a set of "binomial" implicative universals. Such, for example, is the Keenan-Comrie hierarchy (the accessibility hierarchy of noun phrases, which regulates, among other things, the availability of arguments for relativization:

Subject > Direct Object > Indirect Object > Indirect Object > Possessed > Object of Comparison

According to Keenan and Comrie, the set of elements available for relativization in some way covers a continuous stretch of this hierarchy.

Other examples of hierarchy are the Silverstein hierarchy (the animacy hierarchy), the hierarchy of argument types available for reflection

Implicative universals can be either one-sided (X > Y) or two-sided (X<=>Y). For example, SOV word order is usually associated with the presence of postpositions in the language, and vice versa, most postpositional languages ​​have SOV word order.

· Deductive (obligatory for all languages) and inductive (common for all known languages) universals are also opposed.

Universals are distinguished at all levels of the language. Thus, in phonology a certain number of absolute universals are known (often relating to a set of segments), a number of universal properties are also distinguished in morphology. The study of universals has received the greatest distribution in syntax and semantics.

The study of syntactic universals is primarily associated with the name of Joseph Greenberg, who singled out a number of essential properties associated with word order. In addition, the existence of universals in the framework of many linguistic theories is considered as confirmation of the existence of a universal grammar; the theory of principles and parameters was engaged in the study of universals.

Within the framework of semantic research, the theory of universals has led, in particular, to the creation of various directions based on the concept of a universal semantic metalanguage, primarily in the framework of the works of Anna Vezhbitskaya.

Linguistics also deals with the study of universals within the framework of diachronic studies. So, for example, it is known that the historical transition → is possible, but the reverse is not. Many universal properties associated with the historical development of the semantics of morphological categories have been revealed (in particular, within the framework of the method of semantic maps).

Within the framework of generative grammar, the existence of universals is often considered as proof of the existence of a special universal grammar, but the functional directions connect them rather with the general features of the human cognitive apparatus. For example, in the well-known work of J. Hawkins, the relationship between the so-called "branching parameter" and the characteristics of human perception is shown.

Indo-European family consists of Indian group, Iranian group, Slavic group (divided into eastern subgroup, western, southern), Baltic group, Germanic group (divided into northern or Scandinavian subgroup, western, eastern or east Germanic), Romanesque group, Celtic group, Greek group Indian group, Hindi, Urdu, Gypsy, Bengali (dead - Vedic, Sonskrit, Pali, Prakrit).

Iranian group, Persian (Farsi), Afghan (Pashto), Tajik, Ossetian (dead - Old Persian, Avestan, Khorezmian, Scythian).

Slavic group. Eastern subgroup (Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian). Western subgroup (Polish, Czech, Slovak, Lusatian), dead - Popabian, Pomfian dialects. Southern subgroup (Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian; Macedonian, Slovenian), dead - Old Church Slavonic.

Baltic group. Latvian, Lithuanian (dead - Prussian).

German group. Northern (Scandinavian) subgroup (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Faroese). Western subgroup (English, German, Frisian, Yiddish, Afrikaans). Eastern (East Germanic) subgroup, only the dead - Gothic (divided into Visigothic and Ostrogothic), Burgunian.

Roman group, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Moldavian, Romanian, Macedonian-Romanian, Romansh, Provencal, Sardinian, Galician, Catalan, Dead - Latin, Medieval Vulgar Latin. Celtic group, Irish, Scottish, Welsh (Welsh), Cornish, Breton.

Greek group, only the dead - Ancient Greek, Middle Greek, Modern Greek.

Albanian group- Albanian.

Armenian group- Armenian.

Analytical languages- in their classification of languages, the brothers Friedrich and August Schlegel gave this name to the new Indo-European languages.

In the ancient world, most of the languages ​​were of a strong synthetic nature, for example. lang. Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, etc. From the history of the development of languages, it is clear that all languages ​​tend to acquire an analytical character over time: with each new era, the number of characteristic features of the analytical class increases.

The new Indo-European languages ​​experienced significant simplifications in their grammatical system. Instead of a large number of forms, replete with all sorts of anomalies, simpler and more standard forms appeared.

Comparing the old Indo-European languages ​​with the new ones, O. Jespersen (a Danish linguist) found a number of advantages in the grammatical structure of the latter. Forms have become shorter, requiring less muscular tension and time to pronounce them, there are fewer of them, memory is not overloaded with them, their formation has become more regular, the syntactic use of forms shows fewer anomalies, the more analytical and abstract nature of the forms makes them easier to express, allowing for the possibility of multiple combinations and constructions that were previously impossible, the cumbersome repetition known as agreement has disappeared, a fixed word order provides clarity and unambiguity of understanding.

The so-called synthetic structure characteristic of the ancient Indo-European languages ​​(where grammatical meanings are expressed within the word itself, affixation, internal inflection, stress) in many modern Indo-European languages ​​\u200b\u200bhas been replaced by an analytical system (grammatical meanings are mainly expressed outside the word, about the sentence, the order of the layer in the sentence , service words, intonation). O. Jespersen argued that these processes mean the victory of a higher and more perfect linguistic form. Independent particles, auxiliary words (prepositions, auxiliary verbs), in his opinion, are a higher technical means of expressing thought than the old inflection.

The new languages ​​took on an analytic character; Most of the European languages ​​moved in this direction, the language of English, which left only small remnants of declensions and conjugations. There are almost no declensions in French either, but there are still conjugations that are also quite strongly developed in German, where the declension is preserved on a wider scale than in the Romance languages. However, two groups of new languages ​​differ from all of them: Slavic and Baltic. Synthetic character traits still prevail here.

5. Macrocomparatives. Macrofamilies of world languages ​​(Nostratic, Sino-Caucasian, Amerindian, etc.). Macrocomparative studies * The theory of distant relationship of languages.

At present, discussions on the issue of the distant relationship of languages ​​(macro-comparative studies) are beginning to play an increasingly important role in comparative studies. The successful development and application of the comparative historical method has led to the fact that the vast majority of taxonomic units have already been identified, and attempts to deepen comparisons seem quite natural. The definition of linguistic kinship, in principle, does not depend on the time of the collapse of the proto-language. It is clear, however, that with very small proportions of coincidences (that is, with very distant relationships), it is difficult to establish regular correspondences in comparison.

The scientific stage of the development of the Nostratic theory began in the 60s with a series of articles by our scientists - V.M. Illich-Svitych and A.B. Dolgopolsky. Illich-Svitych established a detailed system of correspondences between the proto-languages ​​of six language families of the Old World - Semitic-Hamitic, Kartvelian, Indo-European, Uralic, Dravidian and Altaic. According to the generally accepted opinion, the main core of the Nostratic family is the Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic languages. The similarity of pronominal systems is especially indicative, as well as a large number of parallels in the basic vocabulary.

Another macrofamily, the existence of which was revealed by S.A. Starostin, - the so-called Sino-Caucasian. The Sino-Caucasian hypothesis suggests the existence of an ancient genetic relationship between rather geographically distant language families: North Caucasian, Yenisei and Sino-Tibetan. A rather complex system of correspondences was also established here and a large number of parallels were found in the basic vocabulary. It is possible that before the speakers of the Nostratic languages ​​settled in the territory of Eurasia, the Sino-Caucasian languages ​​were much more widespread. The Sino-Caucasian hypothesis is still at the beginning of development, but this direction seems to be very promising.

Hypotheses about the existence of other macrofamilies have been developed to an even lesser extent.

The Austrian hypothesis suggests a relationship between the Austronesian, Austroasiatic, Thai, and Miao Yao languages. Between these language families there are a number of parallels in the field of basic vocabulary.

The Khoisan macrofamily includes all the languages ​​of Africa in which there are special clicking sounds (“clixes”) and which, at the same time, do not belong to other language families, i.e. the languages ​​of the Bushmen, Hottentots, and also, possibly, San-Dave, Hadza and the (extinct) Quadi.

There are also a number of assumptions by J. Greenberg (American linguist) regarding the existence of other macrofamilies: Amerindian, Nilo-Saharan, Niger-Kordofanian and Indo-Pacific. However, unlike those hypotheses that I have already mentioned, these assumptions are based mainly on the "mass comparison" method, and therefore are still much more hypothetical.

The Amerindian hypothesis assumes the relationship of all American aboriginal languages, except for the languages ​​of the Dene (Indian languages ​​of North America) and the Eskimo-Aleutian (Arctic belt of North America). This hypothesis does not have a sufficiently rigorous linguistic justification, but it correlates well with anthropological data. In addition, there are some similarities in the field of grammar between the Amerindian languages.

The Niger-Kordofanian family includes the languages ​​of Africa that have conciliatory classes, the Nilo-Saharan family includes other African languages ​​that are not included in either the Afro-Asiatic, or the Khoisan, or the Niger-Kordofanian macrofamily. A hypothesis has been put forward about the special proximity of the Saharan languages ​​\u200b\u200bto Afroasian.

It has been suggested that all the languages ​​of Australia are related (Australian macrofamily). Almost all other languages ​​of the world are united by J. Greenberg into the Indo-Pacific macrofamily (this hypothesis, apparently, is the least substantiated).

The chronological depth of each of these families is about 11 13 thousand years. The proto-language, to which they all go back, dates back to about 13-15 millennia BC. Naki;.,.eno has enough material to get a detailed picture of the formation and settlement of the majority of the ethnic groups of Eurasia and North America.