Language families with examples of ethnic groups. What is a language family

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1. The languages of the Indo-European language family, which are spoken by the peoples of Russia, the CIS, foreign Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, most of the countries of America, Australia and New Zealand, are the most studied.

The eastern branch of the Indo-European language family includes: Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Rajasthani, Gujarams, Utkali, languages of the Iranian group, Pamir languages, Greek and Armenian.

The western branch of the Indo-European family includes: Romance languages, Celtic, Germanic. Romance languages developed from dialects of Latin after the collapse of the Roman Empire. These include: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Sardinian, Romanian, etc.

An intermediate position between the Eastern and Western Indo-European languages is occupied by: Balto-Slavic. Which are divided into Baltic and Slavic. Slavic are divided into: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian), West Slavic (Czech, Slovak, Polish), South Slavic (Bulgarian, Old Church Slavonic, Macedonian, Slovenian).

2. The Afro-Asiatic family has a distribution in northern and northeastern Africa and southwestern Asia. It consists of five groups: Semitic, Egyptian, Berbero-Libyan, Cumit and Chadic.

The Semitic group includes: Hebrew, Arabic, Mehri, Kharsusi.

3. Kartveyskaya - located in the western Transcaucasus. Includes: Georgian, Megrelian, Svan. All of these languages are spoken: Georgians, Mingrelians, Laz, Gvans, who partially survived as sub-ethnic groups.

4. North Caucasian: Abkhaz-Adyghe group (Abkhaz language, Abaza, Adyghe, Kabardino-Circassian, Chechen, Ingush); Dagestan group (about 30 mountain languages of Dagestan).

5. Dravian family. It dominates in southern India and consists of seven groups: southern (the most numerous is the Tapil language), southwestern, southeastern, central, Gondwanal, northeastern and northwestern.

6. The Uralic language family is geographically localized in the north of the European part of Russia, in the Volga region, the Baltic states, Finland, the north of Scandinavia and in central Europe (Hungary). Consists of two groups: Fino-Ugric (Finnish, Karelian, Estonian, Mordovian, Mari, Hungarian, Khanty); Samoyedic group (Nenets, etc.).

7. Eskimo-Aleut family. Distributed in the vast Arctic expanses of North America, including Greenland and northeast Asia (Eskimo, Aleutian).

8. Altai family. Distributed over vast expanses: from Turkey in the west to the northeast and east of Siberia. Groups: Turkic languages (Chuvash, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Tatar, Bashkir, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Uighur, Yakut, Altai, Khakass, Tuva); Mongolian group (Mongolian, Buryat, Kalmyk), Tungus-Manchu group (Manchu, Evenk, Even).

9. The Chukchi-Kamchatka family is localized in the extreme northeast of Russia. Includes: Chukchi, Koryak, Ingelmen.

The population of sub-Saharan Africa speaks languages of three families:

10. Niger-Kordofanian: Bantu languages.

11. Nilo-Saharan family.

12. Khoisan family: the languages of the Bushmen and Gotentoks.

13. Sino-Tibetan family. Localized in East Asia (Chinese and its dialects, Nigbesh, Burmese).

14. Austro-Asian: Vietnamese, Kmer, Miao, Yao, Santal.

15. The Paratsay family is common in Indochina and southern China. Languages: Lao, Juan.

16. Austro-Nesian language family. Distributed: Southeast Asia, Oceania, Madagascar.
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Languages: Javanese, Sund, Malay.

17. Australian family: Australian Aboriginal languages. Poorly studied.

18. Isolated languages not included in any family. Languages: Yukaghir, Korean, Japanese, Nipph, Ket, Basque.

An important part of people's spiritual life is their religious interests, ᴛ.ᴇ. adherence to any religion (confession). Religious affiliation is closely related to ethnicity, often being one of the main signs of an ethnic group. Under the strong influence of religion, the culture of most of the ethnic groups of the Earth was formed.

Confessional (religious) composition of the population- ϶ᴛᴏ distribution of people by religion. At the same time, non-believers and atheists are singled out (not considered) separately, the proportion of which is gradually increasing, but even today they constitute a minority of the Earth's population (according to various estimates, 20-30%). Unbelievers and atheists make up a significant part of the population only in a few surviving socialist countries - China, North Korea, Cuba. In some countries (including modern Russia), the proportion of believers among the population has been increasing in recent years.

The collection of data on the confessional composition is much more difficult compared to other characteristics of the population. Even during general censuses in many countries of the world, questions about religious affiliation are not asked, since it is believed that religion is a personal matter for each person. As a rule, there is no official registration of believers (only religious organizations are registered, and some of them prefer not to declare their existence to state bodies). Data on the number of believers collected by the religious organizations themselves are not accurate and are often incomparable with each other. Some denominations keep records of all their believers, and some - only those who are actively involved in the life of religious organizations. Some denominations do not consider children as their believers, etc. Special studies of the confessional composition of the population are also relatively rare, especially in developing countries.

When characterizing the religious composition of the population, it is customary to distinguish:

world religions;
national religions, distributed mainly in one country or among one people. For example, Judaism - Jews, Shinto - Japan, Hinduism - India.
various directions (churches) and sects within individual religions. For example, among Protestants - Calvinists, sects - Baptists, etc.;
primitive beliefs or tribal cults: animism, fetishism, magic among tribal societies.

The ratio of religious (confessional) and ethnic communities at different stages of historical development was different.

In the primitive communal era or in the early classical society, ethnic and religious boundaries coincided. In the early classical society, each political unit and the ethnos corresponding to it had their own gods, their own system of religious beliefs and rituals. Further, with the development of relations, there are broader than previously religious communities, the same religion is professed by several peoples. In the future, cases are becoming more frequent when one part of the ethnic group continues to adhere to the old religion, while the other accepts the new faith. With the emergence of world religions, ethnic boundaries in most cases ceased to coincide with religious ones. There are few purely national confessions left now: the Armenian-Gregorian Church, etc.
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Throughout the world, ethnic identity prevails over religious. The situation is somewhat different in Muslim countries, where ethnic self-consciousness is still being replaced by religious-communal one. The population of these countries is grouped (statistically) mainly on religious grounds, and groups that do not practice Islam are often included in the number of national minorities. In some Arab countries, it is customary to classify as ethnic minorities not only all non-Muslims, but also those who belong to areas of Islam that are not dominant in a given country.

The belonging of different parts of the same people to several religions contributes to the emergence of cultural differences within it and to the formation of so-called confessional groups. Such groups are the Old Believers as part of the Russian people. Among the Kurds, the Yezidis stood out, among the Arabs of Syria and Lebanon - the Druze.

The total number of religions that exist in the modern world is very difficult to estimate. Among the whole variety of existing religions, three can be distinguished, which are especially widespread among many peoples and in many countries. These are the so-called world religions - Christianity, Islam (Muslim) and Buddhism. All world religions in the process of their historical development have lost their original unity, and today they are divided into branches (currents). All other religions are considered national, since they are found either only in one country, or among one ethnic group. Among some ethnic groups of the Earth, religions have not yet become widespread, and traditional beliefs prevail among their representatives (from the point of view of Christianity - paganism).

Buddhism - It is believed that it arose in the 7th century. BC. in northern India, as ʼʼJainismʼʼ and opposed the strictest norms of the caste system and the dominance of the priests. According to Buddhism, life is a continuous chain of suffering, which can be eliminated only by following the four noble truths, leading to the calming of passions, emotions, desires, etc. Buddhists believe in the transmigration of the soul, in reincarnation, and the ethical position of Buddhism is the requirement not to kill living beings. Principles of right conduct and truthfulness. By the beginning of AD in Buddhism, there have been two basic directions (schools) that are very different from each other.

Theravada (Hinayana) - ᴛ.ᴇ. narrow path. Adherents of this school followed the principles of early Buddhism, considered the Buddha a real historical person and believed that only monks could achieve salvation.
Mahayana is the broad path. A later form of Mahayana is Lamaism. Adherents of this school believed that it was not necessary to be a monk for liberation or salvation, and in Lamaism magic spells began to be of great importance.

Christianity - arose at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. It is believed that it originated in the east of the Roman Empire and southwestern Asia. The main provisions and his creeds - ϶ᴛᴏ the existence of God in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son was martyred in order to atone for the sins of people, in the future to come to Earth for the second time in order to establish the kingdom of heaven on it. The Holy Book is the bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments. One of the main commandments is a call for patience and forgiveness. In 1054ᴦ. This religion split into two directions: Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Οʜᴎ are distinguished by the peculiarities of the cult and organization. All Catholics are organizationally united and subordinate to the Pope of Rome. The Orthodox have autocephalous and independent national churches (Constantinople, Georgian, Jerusalem, etc., 15 in total).

The essential difference between Catholics and Orthodox is the issue of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Catholics believe that comes from God the Father and God the Son. Orthodox, that only from God the Father. Catholics believe that in addition to hell and heaven, there is an intermediate link - purgatory. There are differences in the delivery of services. In Orthodox churches there is only choral singing, in Catholic churches there is also organ music. There are differences in baptism: Catholics pour water on children, Orthodox immerse them in water three times.

The branch of Christianity is Protestantism. In the XVI century. As a result of the so-called Reformation, Protestantism broke away from Catholicism, rejecting the authority of the Pope of Rome and becoming the third main direction of Christianity. Protestantism took shape in the form of several independent currents, the main of which are Anglicanism, Lutheranism, Calvinism.

Consequently, Christianity has three basic directions: Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestantism.

Islam - arose in the 7th century. among the population of the Arabian Peninsula and by the name of its founder Muhammad, Islam is often called Mohammedanism. Arising later than Christianity, Judaism, it absorbed a number of elements of these religions: belief in the afterlife, posthumous retribution, heaven and hell, the only God of Allah, whose messenger is Muhammad. Their holy book is the Quran. Five times a day, Muslims pray, fast in Ramadan, make pilgrimages, etc. Soon after its appearance, the new religion broke up into three directions: Sunnism, Shiism, Kharijism.

The last direction has not received significant distribution. The main difference between Sunnism and Shiism is that the Sunnis, in addition to the Qur'an, fully recognize the sacred giving of the Sunnah. The Shiites accept this giving only partially, recognizing only the sections associated with the name of the son-in-law of Muhammad Ali and his relatives. Harijism is close to the Sunnis, but represents a group of believers who make more severe demands on their followers, condemn luxury, prohibit games, music, etc.

In the II millennium BC. religions begin to emerge that have survived to our time under the name of local religions:

- one of the earliest such beliefs was Judaism, which arose in the 1st millennium BC. among the Jewish population of Palestine. It is distributed almost exclusively among Jews living in different countries of the world. The largest groups are in the USA and Israel. The total number of Jews is 13 million people. Οʜᴎ believe in the one God Yahweh, the coming of the end of the world and the Last Judgment, in the immortality of the soul, the existence of the afterlife. But an essential place in Judaism is occupied by the doctrine that the Jews are the people chosen by God;

- Brahmaism - became widespread in India in the 1st millennium BC. and from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. exists in the form of Hinduism, the main religion of the inhabitants of India. The total number of Hindus is 520 million people. Hinduism regulates the main aspects of the demographic behavior of believers, calling for early marriages, for the birth of a large number of children in the family. At the same time, in the past, Hinduism allowed the killing of newborn girls and encouraged the self-immolation of widows. In the twentieth century the neglect of the health of women and girls is also preserved, which leads to their increased mortality. Marriage is considered an indissoluble union, cases of divorce are rare;

- Confucianism - ϶ᴛᴏ religious and ethical doctrine in China arose in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. and was preserved as a socio-ethical doctrine, expounded by the philosopher Confucius. For many centuries, Confucianism was the dominant philosophy and sought to streamline personal and social relations by regulating them: strict observance of the cult of ancestors, veneration of the old, installation on a large family. The total number of adherents is about 180 million people;

- Taoism - ϶ᴛᴏ the second local religion of China, based on the deification of natural phenomena. Religion has survived only in some parts of China, the number of followers is about 30 million people;

Shinto is the religion of Japan. It is believed that it is a combination of elements of Confucianism, ᴛ.ᴇ. observance of the cult of ancestors, patriarchal foundations; and Taoism - the deification of the forces of nature. After the formation of a centralized state, the cult of Emperor Mikado occupied a prominent place in Shintoism. Shinto calls for marriage, allowing celibacy as an exception. The total number of adherents of Shinto is 90 million people.

language families. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Language families." 2017, 2018.

There are a large number of language families and a wide variety of languages in the world. There are more than 6,000 of the latter on the planet. Most of them belong to the largest language families in the world, which are distinguished by lexical and grammatical composition, kinship of origin and by the common geographical location of their speakers. However, it should be noted that community of residence is not always an integral factor.

In turn, the language families of the world are divided into groups. They are distinguished in a similar way. There are also languages that do not belong to any of the selected families, as well as the so-called isolated languages. It is also customary for scientists to single out macrofamilies, i.e. groups of language families.

Indo-European family

The most fully studied is the Indo-European language family. It has been isolated since ancient times. However, relatively recently, work began on the study of the Proto-Indo-European language.

The Indo-European language family consists of groups of languages whose speakers live in vast areas of Europe and Asia. So, the German group belongs to them. Its main languages are English and German. Also a large group is Romance, which includes French, Spanish, Italian and other languages. In addition, Eastern European peoples who speak languages of the Slavic group also belong to the Indo-European family. This is Belarusian, Ukrainian, Russian, etc.

This language family is not the largest in terms of the number of languages included in it. However, these languages are spoken by almost half of the world's population.

Afro-Asian family

The languages that represent the Afro-Asiatic language family are used by more than a quarter of a million people. It includes Arabic, Egyptian, Hebrew, and many others, including extinct languages.

This family is usually divided into five (six) branches. This includes the Semitic branch, Egyptian, Chadian, Cushite, Berber-Libyan and Omot. In general, the Afro-Asiatic family includes more than 300 languages of the African continent and parts of Asia.

However, this family is not the only one on the continent. In large numbers, especially to the south, there are other languages in Africa that are not related to it. There are at least 500 of them. Almost all of them were not presented in writing until the 20th century. and used only orally. Some of them are still exclusively oral.

Nilo-Saharan family

The language families of Africa also include the Nilo-Saharan family. The Nilo-Saharan languages are represented by six language families. One of them is songhai-zarma. The languages and dialects of another - the Saharan family - are common in Central Sudan. There is also a family of mamba, whose carriers inhabit Chad. Another family, Fur, is also common in Sudan.

The most complex is the Shari-Nile language family. It, in turn, is divided into four branches, which consist of language groups. The last family - coma - is common in Ethiopia and Sudan.

The language families represented by the Nilo-Saharan macrofamily have significant differences among themselves. Accordingly, they present a great challenge for linguistic researchers. The languages of this macrofamily were greatly influenced by the Afro-Asiatic macrofamily.

Sino-Tibetan family

The Sino-Tibetan language family has over a million native speakers of its languages. First of all, this became possible due to the large number of the Chinese population speaking Chinese, which is part of one of the branches of this language family. In addition to it, this branch includes the Dungan language. It is they who form a separate branch (Chinese) in the Sino-Tibetan family.

Another branch includes more than three hundred languages, which are distinguished as the Tibeto-Burmese branch. There are approximately 60 million native speakers of its languages.

Unlike Chinese, Burmese and Tibetan, most of the languages of the Sino-Tibetan family do not have a written tradition and are passed down from generation to generation exclusively orally. Despite the fact that this family has been studied deeply and for a long time, it still remains insufficiently studied and hides many secrets that have not yet been revealed.

North and South American languages

At present, as is known, the vast majority of North and South American languages belong to the Indo-European or Romance families. Settling the New World, European colonists brought with them their own languages. However, the dialects of the indigenous population of the American continent did not disappear altogether. Many monks and missionaries who came from Europe to America recorded and systematized the languages and dialects of the local population.

Thus, the languages of the North American continent north of present-day Mexico were represented in the form of 25 language families. In the future, some experts have revised this division. Unfortunately, South America has not been studied as well in terms of language.

Language families of Russia

All the peoples of Russia speak languages belonging to 14 language families. In total, there are 150 different languages and dialects in Russia. The basis of the country's linguistic wealth is made up of four main language families: Indo-European, North Caucasian, Altai, Ural. At the same time, most of the country's population speaks languages \u200b\u200bthat belong to the Indo-European family. This part makes up 87 percent of the total population of Russia. Moreover, the Slavic group occupies 85 percent. It includes Belarusian, Ukrainian and Russian, which make up the East Slavic group. These languages are very close to each other. Their carriers can almost easily understand each other. This is especially true for the Belarusian and Russian languages.

Altaic language family

The Altaic language family consists of the Turkic, Tungus-Manchurian and Mongolian language groups. The difference in the number of representatives of their carriers in the country is great. For example, Mongolian is represented in Russia exclusively by Buryats and Kalmyks. But the Turkic group includes several dozen languages. Among them are Khakass, Chuvash, Nogai, Bashkir, Azerbaijani, Yakut and many others.

The group of Tungus-Manchurian languages includes Nanai, Udege, Even and others. This group is under the threat of extinction due to the preference of their native peoples to use Russian on the one hand, and Chinese on the other. Despite the extensive and long study of the Altaic language family, it is extremely difficult for specialists to decide on the reproduction of the Altaic parent language. This is due to the large number of borrowings of its speakers from other languages due to close contact with their representatives.

Ural family

The Uralic languages are represented by two large families - Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic. The first of them includes Karelians, Mari, Komi, Udmurts, Mordovians and others. The languages of the second family are spoken by Enets, Nenets, Selkups, Nganasans. The carriers of the Ural macrofamily are to a large extent Hungarians (more than 50 percent) and Finns (20 percent).

The name of this family comes from the name of the Ural Range, where it is believed that the formation of the Ural proto-language took place. The languages of the Uralic family had some influence on their neighboring Slavic and Baltic languages. In total, there are more than twenty languages of the Uralic family both in Russia and abroad.

North Caucasian family

The languages of the peoples of the North Caucasus represent a huge difficulty for linguists in terms of their structuring and study. In itself, the concept of a North Caucasian family is rather arbitrary. The fact is that the languages of the local population are too little studied. However, thanks to the painstaking and deep work of many linguists studying this issue, it became clear how fragmented and complex many of the North Caucasian dialects are.

The difficulties relate not only to the actual grammar, structure and rules of the language, for example, as in the Tabasaran language - one of the most difficult languages on the planet, but also to pronunciation, which is sometimes simply inaccessible to people who do not speak these languages.

A significant obstacle for specialists studying them is the inaccessibility of many mountainous regions of the Caucasus. However, this language family, despite all the contradictions, is usually divided into two groups - Nakh-Dagestan and Abkhaz-Adyghe.

Representatives of the first group inhabit mainly the regions of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia. These include Avars, Lezgins, Laks, Dargins, Chechens, Ingush, etc. The second group consists of representatives of kindred peoples - Kabardians, Circassians, Adyghes, Abkhazians, etc.

Other language families

The language families of the peoples of Russia are by no means always extensive, uniting many languages into one family. Many of them are very small and some are even isolated. Such nationalities primarily live in Siberia and the Far East. So, the Chukchi-Kamchatka family unites the Chukchi, Itelmens, and Koryaks. The Aleuts and Eskimos speak Aleut-Eskimo.

A large number of nationalities scattered over the vast territory of Russia, being extremely few in number (several thousand people or even less), have their own languages, which are not included in any known language family. As, for example, the Nivkhs inhabiting the banks of the Amur and Sakhalin, and the Kets, located near the Yenisei.

However, the problem of linguistic extinction in the country continues to threaten the cultural and linguistic diversity of Russia. Not only individual languages, but also entire language families are under the threat of extinction.

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF UKRAINE

STATE UNIVERSITY

CHAIR OF ENGLISH PHILOLOGY

MAIN LANGUAGE FAMILIES

Performed

5th year student

OKU "Master"

specialty

"Language and Literature

(English)"

Introduction

1. Indo-European languages

1.1. Indo-Aryan languages

1.2. Iranian languages

1.3. Romance languages

1.4. Celtic languages

1.5. Germanic languages

1.6. Baltic languages

1.7. Slavic languages

1.8. Armenian language

1.9. Greek language

2. Sino-Tibetan family

3. Finno-Ugric family

4. Turkic family

5. Semitic-Hamitic (Afrasian) family

List of used literature

Introduction

It should be noted that there are about 20 language families in total. The largest of them is the Indo-European family, whose languages are spoken by about 45% of the world's population. Its distribution area is also the largest. It covers Europe, Southwest and South Asia, North and South America, Australia. The most numerous group within this family is Indo-Aryan, which includes the Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, and other languages. The Romance group, which includes Spanish, Italian, French, and some other languages, is also very large. The same can be said about the German group (English, German and a number of other languages), the Slavic group (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, etc.), the Iranian group (Persian, Tajik, Baloch, etc.).

The second largest speaker is the Sino-Tibetan (Sino-Tibetan) family, whose languages are used by 22% of all inhabitants of the planet. It is clear that such a large share in the world is provided by the Chinese language.

The large ones also include the Niger-Kordofan family (distributed in Africa, south of the Sahara), the Afroasian family (mainly in the Near and Middle East), the Austronesian family (mainly in Southeast Asia and Oceania), the Dravidian family (in South Asia), Altai family (in Asia and Europe).

Currently, there are more than two and a half thousand languages. The exact number of languages has not been established, as this is a very difficult process. Until now, there are territories that are poorly studied linguistically. These include some areas of Australia, Oceania, South America. Therefore, the study and study of the origin of languages is very relevant.

1. Andpre-European languages

Indo-European languages are one of the largest families of Eurasian languages (about 200 languages). They have also spread over the past five centuries to North and South America, Australia, and partly Africa. The most active was the expansion of the languages of English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, which led to the emergence of Indo-European speech on all continents. The top 20 most widely spoken languages (counting both their native speakers and those who use them as a second language in interethnic and international communication) now include English, Hindi and Urdu, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German, French, Punjabi, Italian, Ukrainian.

The Indo-European (according to the tradition adopted among German scientists, Indo-Germanic) family of languages is the most well studied: based on the study of its languages in the 20s. 19th century comparative historical linguistics began to take shape, the research methods and techniques of which were then transferred to other language families. The founders of Indo-European and comparative studies include the Germans Franz Bopp and Jacob Grimm, the Dane Rasmus Christian Rask and the Russian Alexander Khristoforovich Vostokov.

Comparativists aim to establish the nature and degree of similarity (primarily material, but also to some extent typological) of the studied languages, to find out the ways of its emergence (from a common source or due to rapprochement as a result of long-term contacts) and the reasons for the divergence (divergence) and convergence (convergence) between the languages of the same family, to reconstruct the proto-linguistic state (in the form of a set of archetypes as a kind of matrix in which the accumulated knowledge about the internal structure of the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European is recorded) and to trace the directions of subsequent development.

Today, it is most often believed that the area of \u200b\u200bthe initial or rather early distribution of speakers of the Indo-European language extended from Central Europe and the Northern Balkans to the Black Sea region (South Russian steppes). At the same time, some researchers believe that the initial center of irradiation of Indo-European languages and cultures lay in the Middle East, in close proximity to the speakers of Kartvelian, Afroasian and, probably, Dravidian and Ural-Altaic languages. The traces of these contacts give grounds for putting forward the Nostratic hypothesis.

Indo-European linguistic unity could have as its source either a single proto-language, a base language (or, rather, a group of closely related dialects), or a situation of a linguistic union as a result of the development of a number of originally different languages. Both perspectives, in principle, do not contradict each other, one of them usually prevails at a certain period in the development of a linguistic community.

Relations between members of the Indo-European family were constantly changing due to frequent migrations, and therefore the classification of Indo-European languages \u200b\u200bthat is currently accepted must be adjusted when referring to different stages in the history of this linguistic community. For earlier periods, the proximity of the Indo-Aryan and Iranian, Baltic and Slavic languages is characteristic, the proximity of the Italic and Celtic languages is less noticeable. The Baltic, Slavic, Thracian, Albanian and Indo-Iranian languages have many common features, and the Italic and Celtic languages have Germanic, Venetian, and Illyrian languages.

The main features characterizing the relatively ancient state of the Indo-European source language:

a) In phonetics: functioning of [e] and [o] as variants of the same phoneme; the probability of vowels having no phonemic status at an earlier stage; special role [a] in the system; the presence of laryngeal, the disappearance of which led to the opposition of long and short vowels, as well as to the appearance of melodic stress; distinction between stop voiced, voiceless and aspirated; the difference between the three rows of posterior linguals, the tendency to palatalization and labialization of consonants in certain positions;

b) In morphology: heteroclitic declination; probable presence of ergative (active) case; a relatively simple case system and the later appearance of a number of indirect cases from combinations of a name with a postposition, etc.; the proximity of the nominative in -s and the genitive with the same element; the presence of an "indefinite" case; the opposition of the animate and inanimate classes, which gave rise to the three-kind system; the presence of two series of verb forms, which led to the development of thematic and athematic conjugation, transitivity/intransitivity, activity/inactivity; the presence of two series of personal endings of the verb, which caused the differentiation of the present and past tense, mood forms; the presence of forms on -s, which led to the appearance of one of the classes of present stems, the sigmatic aorist, a number of mood forms and derived conjugation;

with) In syntax: interdependence of the places of the members of the proposal; the role of particles and preverbs; the beginning of the transition of a number of full-value words into service elements; some initial features of analytics.

1 .1 Indo-Aryan languages

Indo-Aryan languages (Indian) - a group of related languages, dating back to the ancient Indian language.

The Indo-Aryan (Indian) languages (more than 40) include: the Apabhransha language group, Assami languages, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Vedic, Gujarati, Magahi, Maithili, Maldivian, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Pali, Punjabi, Pahari language group, Sanskrit, Sinhalese, Sindhi, Urdu, Hindi, Romani. Areas of distribution of living Indian languages: northern and central India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Republic of Maldives, Nepal. The total number of speakers is 770 million people.

All of them date back to the ancient Indian language and, together with the Iranian, Dardic and Nuristani languages, belong to the Indo-Iranian linguistic community. The oldest period of development is represented by the Vedic language (the language of worship, from the 12th century BC) and Sanskrit (epic period: 3-2 centuries BC; epigraphic period: the first centuries of our era; classical period: 4- 5th century AD). language Turkic Indo-European grammar

Features of modern Indian languages:

a)ATphonetics: number of phonemes from 30 to 50: preservation of aspirated and cerebral consonant classes; rare opposition of long and short vowels; the absence of an initial combination of consonants;

b)ATmorphology: the loss of the old inflection, the development of analytical forms and the creation of a new inflection;

c)ATsyntax: fixed position of the verb; widespread use of service words;

d)ATvocabulary: the presence of words dating back to Sanskrit and external borrowings (from non-Aryan languages of India, from Arabic, Persian, English); the formation of a number of local language unions (Himalayan, etc.); the presence of numerous alphabets, historically dating back to the Brahmi.

1 .2 Iranian languages

Iranian languages are a group of languages that go back to the reconstructed Old Iranian language, which is part of the Aryan branch of the Indo-European family. Iranian languages are spoken in the Middle East, Central Asia, Pakistan and the Caucasus among the Iranian peoples, whose number is currently estimated at about 150 million people.

Iranian languages (more than 60) include Avestan, Azeri, Alanian, Bactrian, Bashkardi, Balochi, Vanj, Wakhani, Gilan, Dari, Old Persian, Zaza (language/dialect), Ishkashim, Kumzari (language/dialect), Kurdish, Mazanderan, Median, Munjan, Ormuri, Ossetian, Pamir language group, Parachi, Parthian, Persian, Pashto/Pashto, Sangisari language/dialect, Sargulyam, Semnan, Sivendi (language/dialect), Scythian, Sogdian, Middle Persian, Tajik, Tajrish ( language/dialect), Talysh, Tat, Khorezmian, Khotanosak, Shugnano-Rushan group of languages, Yagnob, Yazgulyam, etc.

Features of Iranian languages:

a)in phonetics: preservation in the ancient Iranian languages of the subsequently lost correlation of duration; preservation in consonantism mainly of the proto-language system; the development in later languages of aspiration correlations presented in different languages is not the same.

b)in morphology: at the ancient stage - inflectional shaping and ablaut of the root and suffix; multi-type declension and conjugation; the trinity of the system of number and gender; multi-case inflectional paradigm; the use of inflections, suffixes, augment, different types of stems to build verb forms; the beginnings of analytical constructions; in later languages - the unification of the types of formation; death of the ablaut; binary systems of number and gender (up to the extinction of the gender in a number of languages); the formation of new verbal analytical and secondary inflectional forms based on participles; the variety of indicators of person and number of the verb; new formal indicators of liability, pledge, specific characteristics, time.

c)in syntax: the presence of a safe design; the presence in a number of languages of ergative sentence construction.

The first written monuments from the 6th c. BC. Cuneiform for Old Persian; Middle Persian (and a number of other languages) monuments (from the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD) in a variety of Aramaic writing; a special alphabet based on Middle Persian for Avestan texts.

1 .3 Romance languages

Romance languages are 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 Romance comes from the Latin word Romanus (Roman).

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

Aromanian (Aromunian),

· Galician,

Gascon,

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

Spanish,

Istro-Romanian

Italian,

· Catalan,

Ladino (language of the Jews of Spain)

Megleno-Romanian (Meglenite),

· Moldavian,

Portuguese,

Provençal (Occitan)

· Romansh; they include: Swiss, or Western, Romansh / Graubünden / Curval / Romansh, represented by at least two varieties - Surselv / Obwald and Upper Engadine, sometimes subdivided into more languages;

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

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

Romanian,

Sardinian (Sardinian),

Franco-Provençal

· French.

Literary languages have their own variants: French - in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada; Spanish - in Latin America, Portuguese - in Brazil.

More than 10 creole languages arose on the basis of French, Portuguese, Spanish.

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

Zones of distribution of Romance languages:

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

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

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

The Romance languages are the continuation and development of the vernacular Latin speech in the territories that became part of the Roman Empire. Their history shows trends towards differentiation (divergence) and integration (convergence).

Main features of the Romance languages:

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

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

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

1 .4 Celtic languages

The Celtic group is formed by the languages of Breton, Welsh (Cymric), Gaulish, Gaelic, Irish, Celtiberian, Cornish, Cumbrian, Lepontian, Manx (K)sky, Pictish, Scottish (Aeric). In the 1st millennium BC. Celtic languages were distributed in a significant part of Europe (now it is part of Germany, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, northern Italy), reaching in the east to the Carpathians and through the Balkans to Asia Minor. Later, the zone of their distribution was greatly reduced; the Manx, Cornish, Celtiberian, Lepontian, and Gallic languages became extinct. Living languages are Irish, Gaelic, Welsh and Breton. Irish is one of the official languages in Ireland. Welsh is used in the press and on the radio, Breton and Gaelic are used in everyday communication.

The vocalism of the Neo-Celtic languages is characterized by interaction with neighboring consonants. As a result of this, rounding, palatalization, permutation, narrowing, contact nasalization, etc., have become widespread (in diachrony and synchrony). Some of these phenomena, as the causes that caused them disappear, turn into morphological means for expressing number, case, kind, etc.

Insular languages sharply deviate from the ancient Indo-European type: numerous combinatorial changes (aspiration, palatalization and labialization of consonants); infixation of pronouns in verb forms; "conjugated" prepositions; specific use of verbal names; word order. These and many other features distinguish the Celtic languages from the Indo-European ones. languages (explanations: influence of non-Indo-European substratum; historical innovations). Preservation of a number of archaic features. Changes in living languages: loss of the opposition of personal absolute and conjunctive verb endings in many forms of tenses and moods (Irish).

1.5 Germanic languages

The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European family. Distributed in a number of Western European countries (Great Britain, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein), North. America (USA, Canada), southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia), Asia (India), Australia, New Zealand. The total number of speakers as native is about 550 million people.

Modern Germanic languages are divided into 2 subgroups: West Germanic and North Germanic (Scandinavian).

West Germanic languages include English, Frisian, High German (German), Dutch, Boer, Flemish, and Yiddish.

English language is the native language of the majority of the population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain - England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, USA. In addition, English is spoken as an official language in the Republic of South Africa, the Republic of India and Pakistan.

Frisian distributed among the population of the Friesland Islands in the North Sea. The literary Frisian language developed on the basis of West Frisian dialects.

High German is the native language of the population of Germany, Austria and a significant part of Switzerland, as well as the literary language of the urban population of the northern regions of Germany; the rural population of these areas still speaks a special dialect called Low German or Platdeutsch. In the Middle Ages, Low German was the language of an extensive folk literature that has come down to us in a number of works of art.

Dutch Language is the native language of the Dutch people.

Afrikaans, also called "Afrikaans", it is distributed over a large territory of the Republic of South Africa. The Boer language, which is close to Dutch, is spoken by the Boers or Afrikaners, the descendants of the Dutch colonists who left Holland in the 17th century.

Flemish very close to Dutch. It is spoken by the population of the northern part of Belgium and parts of the Netherlands. Along with French, Flemish is the official language of the Belgian state.

Yiddish- the language of the Jewish population of Eastern Europe, which developed in the 10th - 12th centuries on the basis of Middle High German dialects.

North Germanic languages include: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese.

Swedish- this is the native language of the Swedish people and the population of the coastal strip of Finland, where representatives of the ancient Swedish tribes moved in the distant past. Of the Swedish dialects that exist at the present time, the dialect of the inhabitants of the island of Gotland, the so-called Gutnic dialect, stands out sharply for its features. Modern Swedish is made up of German words written and arranged according to English grammar. The active Swedish dictionary is not very large.

Danish is the native language of the Danish people and was for several centuries the state and literary language of Norway, which was part of the Danish state from the end of the 14th century. until 1814

Swedish and Danish, which were close in the past, but have diverged significantly at the present time, are sometimes combined into a subgroup of East Scandinavian languages.

Norwegian, the native language of the Norwegian people, is spoken throughout Norway. Due to the special historical conditions of the development of the Norwegian people, forced to be under the rule of the Danes for almost 400 years, the development of the Norwegian language was greatly delayed. Currently, Norway is in the process of forming a single national Norwegian language, which in its features occupies an intermediate position between the Swedish and Danish languages.

in Icelandic says the people of Iceland. The ancestors of modern Icelanders were Norwegians who settled here in the 10th century. During almost a thousand years of independent development, the Icelandic language has acquired a number of new features that significantly distinguish it from the Norwegian language, and has also retained many features characteristic of the Old Norse language, while the Norwegian language has lost them. All this has led to the fact that the difference between Norwegian and (New) Icelandic is now very significant.

Faroese, common in the Faroe Islands, which lie north of the Shetland Islands, like Icelandic, retained many features of the Old Norse language, from which it broke away.

The languages Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese are sometimes combined on the basis of their origin into one group called the West Norse language group. However, the facts of the modern Norwegian language show that in its present state it is much closer to Swedish and Danish than to Icelandic and Faroese.

Distinctive features of the Germanic languages:

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

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

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

d)in syntax: tendency to fix word order;

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

1.6 Baltic languages

The Baltic group (the name belongs to G. G. F. Nesselman, 1845) includes the languages Latvian, Lithuanian, Prussian.

Modern Baltic languages are common in the eastern Baltic (Lithuania, Latvia, the north-eastern part of Poland - Suvalkia, partly Belarus).

Modern Baltic languages are represented by Lithuanian and Latvian (sometimes Latgalian is also distinguished). Among the extinct Baltic languages are Prussian (before the 18th century; East Prussia), Yatvingian, or Sudavian (before the 18th century; northeast Poland, southern Lithuania, adjacent regions of Belarus), Curonian (before the middle of the 17th century; on the coast Baltic Sea within modern Lithuania and Latvia), Selonian, or Selian (documents of the 13th-15th centuries; part of eastern Latvia and northeast Lithuania), Galindian, or Golyadsky (in Russian chronicles "golyad"; documents of the 14th century; southern Prussia and, probably, the basin of the Protva River).

Features of the Baltic languages:

a)ATphonetics: essential are the oppositions of palatalized and non-palatalized, simple consonants and affricates, tense and relaxed, long and short vowels; the presence of intonation oppositions; the possibility of clustering up to 3 consonants at the beginning of a syllable; the presence of closed and open syllables;

b)ATmorphology: the use of quantitative and qualitative alternation of vowels in the verb; names have movement of stress, change of intonation; richness of suffix inventory; remnants of the middle gender; 2 numbers; 7 cases, including instrumental, locative and vocative); 3 degrees of gradation; 5 types of stems for nouns; distinction between adjective nominal and pronominal types of declension; moods are indicative, conditional, desirable, imperative, and in Latvian, ascending to the Finno-Ugric substratum, obligatory and paraphrasing; pledges real, reflexive, passive; diverse types of tenses and moods;

c)ATsyntax: precedence of the genitive to other cases in the chain of names;

d)ATvocabulary: most of the words from the original I.-e. vocabulary; practically unified dictionary of the Baltic languages; significant commonality of the Baltic and Slavic vocabulary; borrowings from Finno-Ugric languages, German, Polish, Russian.

1.7 Slavic languages

The Slavic group includes Belarusian, Bulgarian, Upper Lusatian and Lower Lusatian, Macedonian, Polabian, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Slovenian, Old Church Slavonic, Ukrainian, Czech.

Slavic languages are widespread in Europe and Asia (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia, as well as the states of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Germany, Austria). Native speakers of Slavic languages also live in the countries of America, Africa, and Australia. The total number of speakers is about 300 million people.

The Slavic languages, according to the degree of their proximity to each other, form groups: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian), South Slavic (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, or Serbian and Croatian, Slovenian) and West Slavic (Czech, Slovak, Polish with Kashubian, Upper and Lower Lusatian).

general characteristicsSlavic languages

a)Grammar

Grammatically, the Slavic languages, with the exception of Bulgarian and Macedonian, have a highly developed system of noun inflections, up to seven cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, prepositional, and vocative). The verb in the Slavic languages has three simple tenses (past, present and future), but is also characterized by such a complex characteristic as aspect. The verb can be imperfective or perfective, indicating the completion of the action of the species. Participles and gerunds are widely used (one can compare their use with the use of participles and gerunds in English). In all Slavic languages, except for Bulgarian and Macedonian, there is no article. The languages of the Slavic subfamily are more conservative and therefore closer to the Proto-Indo-European language than the languages of the Germanic and Romance groups, as evidenced by the preservation by the Slavic languages of seven of the eight cases for nouns that were characters for the Proto-Indo-European language, as well as the development of the form of the verb.

b)Vocabulary

The vocabulary of the Slavic languages is predominantly of Indo-European origin. There is also an important element of the mutual influence of the Baltic and Slavic languages on each other, which is reflected in the vocabulary. Borrowed words or translations of words go back to the Iranian and Germanic groups, as well as to the Greek, Latin, and Turkic languages. Influenced the vocabulary and languages such as Italian and French. Slavic languages also borrowed words from each other. The borrowing of foreign words tends to be translated and imitated rather than simply absorbed.

c)Writing

Perhaps it is in writing that the most significant differences between the Slavic languages lie. Some Slavic languages (in particular, Czech, Slovak, Slovene and Polish) have a script based on the Latin alphabet, since the speakers of these languages belong predominantly to the Catholic denomination. Other Slavic languages (for example, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian) use adopted Cyrillic variants as a result of the influence of the Orthodox Church. The only language, Serbo-Croatian, uses two alphabets: Cyrillic for Serbian and Latin for Croatian.

1 .8 Armenian language

Armenian is an Indo-European language, usually classified as a separate subgroup, rarely combined with Greek and Phrygian.

It is common in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Syria, Lebanon, USA, Iran, France and other countries. The total number of speakers is over 6 million people.

It is assumed that the basis of the Armenian language is the language of the Hayasa-Armen tribal union within the state of Urartu. The Armenian ethnos was formed in the 7th century. BC. in the Armenian Highlands.

There are 3 stages in the history of the written and literary language: the ancient one (from the beginning of the 5th century, from the time the Armenian alphabet was created, to the 11th century, when the oral ancient Armenian fell into disuse; the written version, grabar, functioned in literature, competing with the new literary language , until the end of the 19th century, and has survived to this day in the cult sphere); middle (from the 12th to 16th centuries; the formation of dialects), new (from the 17th century), characterized by the presence of eastern and western versions of the literary language and the presence of many dialects.

Properties of the Armenian language:

a)in phonetics: at the ancient stage - the Indo-European phonological system with some modifications; removal of opposition by longitude/shortness; the transition of syllabic Indo-European sonants into vowels and non-syllabic sonants into consonants; the emergence of new fricative phonemes; the appearance of affricates; change of plosives by interruption, similar to the German movement of consonants; the presence of three rows - voiced, deaf and aspirated; in the middle period - stunning voiced and voicing of the deaf; monophthongization of diphthongs; in the new period - the divergence between the two options, primarily in consonantism.

b)in morphology: predominantly inflectional-synthetic structure; the appearance of analytical verbal constructions already in the ancient period; preservation of the three-row system of demonstrative pronouns; inheritance from I.-e. the basic principles of the formation of verbal and nominal stems, individual case and verbal inflections, word-building suffixes; the presence of 2 numbers; extinction of the genus category in the eastern version; use of the agglutinative principle of education pl. numbers; distinction of 7 cases and 8 types of declension; preservation of almost all categories of Indo-European pronouns; the verb has 3 voices (real, passive and middle), 3 persons, 2 numbers, 5 moods (indicative, imperative, desirable, conditional, incentive), 3 tenses (present, past, future), 3 types of action (performed, committed and to be committed), 2 types of conjugation, simple and analytical forms (with a predominance of analytical), 7 participles.

1.9 Greek language

The Greek language forms a special group in the Indo-European community. Genetically most closely related to the ancient Macedonian language. Distributed in the south of the Balkan Peninsula and adjacent islands of the Ionian and Aegean Seas, as well as in southern Albania, Egypt, southern Italy, Ukraine, Russia.

Main periods: Ancient Greek (14th century BC-4th century AD), Middle Greek, or Byzantine (5th-15th centuries), Modern Greek (from the 15th century).

The main stages in the development of ancient Greek: archaic ((14-12 centuries BC - 8 century BC), classical (from 8-7 to 4 centuries BC), Hellenistic (time formation of the Koine; 4-1 centuries BC), late Greek (1-4 centuries AD).In ancient Greek, dialectal groups were distinguished: Ionian-Attic, Arcado-Cypriot (South Achaean), with the language of the Cretan-Mycenaean monuments), Dorian.

From the end of the 5th c. BC. Attic superdialect becomes the literary language. In the Hellenistic period, on the basis of the Attic and Ionian dialects, the common Greek koine was formed in literary and colloquial varieties. Later, there was a return to the Attic norm, which led to competition between 2 autonomous language traditions.

Modern Greek Koine was formed on the basis of southern dialects and was widely distributed in the 18th and 19th centuries. The literary modern Greek language exists in two versions: kafarevusa "purified" and dimotika "folk".

In the Greek language, many structural properties are manifested due to the long historical interaction in the course of the formation of the Balkan linguistic union.

Features of the ancient Greek language:

a)in phonetics: 5 vowel phonemes, differing in longitude/shortness; the formation of long vowels or diphthongs from adjacent vowels; mobile musical stress, of three types: acute, obtuse and clothed; 17 consonants, including stop voiced, voiceless and aspirated, nasal, fluent, affricates, spirants; dense and weak aspiration; transition I.-e. syllabic sonants into groups "vowel + consonant" (or "consonant + vowel"); reflection i.-e. labiovelar mainly in the form of anterior lingual or labial;

b)in morphology: 3 genera; the presence of articles; 3 numbers; 5 cases; 3 types of declension; 4 inclinations; 3 pledges; 2 types of conjugation; 2 groups of tenses (main: present, futurum, perfect; historical: aorist, imperfect, pluperfect);

c)in syntax: free word order; developed system of parataxis and hypotaxis; the important role of particles and prepositions;

d)in vocabulary: layers are native Greek, pre-Greek (Pelasgian), borrowed (from Semitic, Persian, Latin languages).

2. Sino-Tibetan family

The Sino-Tibetan languages (Sino-Tibetan languages) are one of the largest language families in the world. Includes over 100, according to other sources, several hundred languages, from tribal to national. The total number of speakers is over 1100 million people.

In modern linguistics, the Sino-Tibetan languages are usually divided into 2 branches, differing in the degree of their internal dissection and in their place on the linguistic map of the world, -- Chinese and Tibeto-Burmese. The first is formed by the Chinese language with its numerous dialects and groups of dialects. It is spoken by more than 1050 million people, including about 700 million - in the dialects of the northern group. The main area of its distribution is the PRC south of the Gobi and east of Tibet.

The rest of the Sino-Tibetan languages, numbering about 60 million speakers, are included in the Tibeto-Burmese branch. The peoples who speak these languages inhabit most of Myanmar (formerly Burma), Nepal, Bhutan, vast areas of southwestern China and northeastern India. The most important Tibeto-Burmese languages or groups of closely related languages are: Burmese (up to 30 million speakers) in Myanmar and (over 5.5 million) in Sichuan and Yunnan (PRC); Tibetan (over 5 million) in Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan (PRC), Kashmir (northern India), Nepal, Bhutan; Karen languages (over 3 million) in Myanmar near the border with Thailand: Hani (1.25 million) in Yunnan; manipuri, or meithei (over 1 million); bodo, or kachari (750 thousand), and garo (up to 700 thousand) in India; jingpo, or kachin (about 600 thousand), in Myanmar and Yunnan; fox (up to 600 thousand) in Yunnan; Tamang (about 550 thousand), Newar (over 450 thousand) and Gurung (about 450 thousand) in Nepal. The disappearing language of the Tujia people (up to 3 million people) in Hunan (PRC) belongs to the Tibeto-Burmese branch, but by now most of the Tujia have switched to Chinese.

The Sino-Tibetan languages are syllabic, isolating, with a greater or lesser tendency to agglutinate. The main phonetic unit is the syllable, and the boundaries of syllables, as a rule, are at the same time the boundaries of morphemes or words. The sounds in the syllable are arranged in a strictly defined order (usually a noisy consonant, sonant, intermediate vowel, main vowel, consonant; all elements except the main vowel may be absent). Combinations of consonants are not found in all languages and are possible only at the beginning of a syllable. The number of consonants occurring at the end of a syllable is much less than the number of possible initial consonants (usually no more than 6-8); in some languages, only open syllables are allowed, or there is only one final nasal consonant. Many languages have a tone. In languages whose history is well known, one can observe the gradual simplification of consonantism and the complication of the system of vowels and tones.

A morpheme usually corresponds to a syllable; the root is usually immutable. However, in many languages these principles are violated. So, in the Burmese language, alternation of consonants in the root is possible; in classical Tibetan there were non-syllabic prefixes and suffixes, expressing, in particular, the grammatical categories of the verb. The predominant method of word formation is the addition of roots. The selection of a word often presents a difficult problem: it is difficult to distinguish a compound word from a phrase, an affix from a functional word. Adjectives in Sino-Tibetan languages are grammatically closer to verbs than to names; sometimes they are included in the verb category as "verbs of quality". The conversion is widespread.

3. FInno-Ugric family

The Finno-Ugric (or Finno-Ugric) family is divided into four groups: Baltic-Finnish (these are Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, Vepsian, Izhorian), Permian (Udmurt, Komi-Zyryan and Komi-Permyak languages), Volga, to which they belong the Mari and Mordovian languages, and the Ugric group, which includes the Hungarian, Mansi and Khanty languages. The separate language of the Saami living in Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula is closest to the Baltic-Finnish languages. The most widespread Finno-Ugric language is Hungarian, and in the countries of the near abroad - Estonian.

All Finno-Ugric languages have common features and a common basic vocabulary. These features originate in a hypothetical Proto-Finno-Ugric language. About 200 basic words of this language have been proposed, including word roots for such concepts as the names of kinship relationships, body parts, and basic numbers. This total vocabulary includes, according to Lyle Campbell, at least 55 words related to fishing, 33 to hunting, 12 to deer, 17 to plants, 31 to technology, 26 to construction, 11 to clothing, 18 - to climate, 4 - to society, 11 - to religion, as well as three words related to trade.

Most of the Finno-Ugric languages are agglutinative, the common features of which are changing words by adding suffixes (instead of prepositions) and syntactic coordination of suffixes. In addition, there is no category of gender in the Finno-Ugric languages. Therefore, there is only one pronoun with the meaning "he", "she" and "it", for example, hän in Finnish, tdmd in Votic, tema in Estonian, x in Hungarian, cij? in the Komi language, Tudo in the Mari language, So in the Udmurt language.

In many Finno-Ugric languages, possessive adjectives and pronouns such as "my" or "your" are rarely used. Possession is expressed by inclination. For this, suffixes are used, sometimes together with a pronoun in the genitive case: "my dog" in Finnish minun koirani (literally "my dog is mine"), from the word koira - dog.

4. Turkic family

The Turkic family unites more than 20 languages, including:

1) Turkish (formerly Ottoman); writing since 1929 based on the Latin alphabet; until then for several centuries - based on the Arabic alphabet.

2) Azerbaijani.

3) Turkmen.

4) Gagauz.

5) Crimean Tatar.

6) Karachay-Balkar.

7) Kumyk - was used as a common language for the Caucasian peoples of Dagestan.

8) Nogai.

9) Karaite.

10) Tatar, with three dialects - middle, western (Mishar) and eastern (Siberian).

11) Bashkir.

12) Altai (Oirot).

13) Shor with Kondom and Mras dialects3.

14) Khakassian (with dialects of Sogai, Beltir, Kachin, Koibal, Kyzyl, Shor).

15) Tuva.

16) Yakut.

17) Dolgansky.

18) Kazakh.

19) Kyrgyz.

20) Uzbek.

21) Karakalpak.

22) Uighur (New Uighur).

23) Chuvash, a descendant of the language of the Kama Bulgars, writing from the very beginning based on the Russian alphabet.

24) Orkhon - according to the Orkhon-Yenisei runic inscriptions, the language (or languages) of a powerful state of the 7th-8th centuries. n. e. in Northern Mongolia on the river. Orkhon. The name is conditional.

25) Pecheneg - the language of the steppe nomads of the IX-XI centuries. AD

26) Polovtsian (Cuman) - according to the Polovtsian-Latin dictionary compiled by Italians, the language of the steppe nomads of the XI-XIV centuries.

27) Ancient Uighur - the language of a huge state in Central Asia in the 9th-11th centuries. n. e. with writing based on a modified Aramaic alphabet.

28) Chagatai - the literary language of the XV-XVI centuries. AD in Central Asia; Arabic graphics.

29) Bulgar - the language of the Bulgar kingdom at the mouth of the Kama; the Bulgar language formed the basis of the Chuvash language, part of the Bulgars moved to the Balkan Peninsula and, having mixed with the Slavs, became an integral element (superstratum) in the Bulgarian language.

30) Khazar - the language of a large state of the 7th-10th centuries. AD, in the area of the lower reaches of the Volga and Don, close to the Bulgar.

5. Semitic-Hamitic(Afrasian) family

Afroasian languages are a macrofamily (superfamily) of languages, which includes six families of languages that have signs of a common origin (the presence of related root and grammatical morphemes).

The Afroasian languages include both living and dead languages. The former are currently distributed over a vast area, occupying the territory of Western Asia (from Mesopotamia to the coast of the Mediterranean and Red Seas) and vast territories of East and North Africa - up to the Atlantic coast. Separate groups of representatives of the Afroasian languages are also found outside the main territory of their distribution.

The total number of speakers currently fluctuates between 270 million and 300 million people, according to various estimates. The Afroasian macrofamily includes the following language families (or branches).

Berber-Libyan languages. The living languages of this family are distributed in North Africa west from Egypt and Libya to Mauritania, as well as in the oases of the Sahara, as far as Nigeria and Senegal. The Berber tribes of the Tuareg (Sahara) use their own script in everyday life, called tifinagh and dating back to the ancient Libyan script. The Libyan script is represented by brief rock inscriptions found in the Sahara and the Libyan desert; the earliest of them date back to the 2nd century BC. e.

ancient egyptian language with its late descendant - the Coptic language is a dead language. It was distributed in the valley of the middle and lower Nile (modern Egypt). The first written monuments of ancient Egyptian date back to the end of the 4th - the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e. It existed as a living and colloquial language until the 5th century AD. e. Monuments of the Coptic language have been known since the 3rd century AD. e.; by the 14th century it fell into disuse, remaining as the cult language of the Coptic Christian Church. In everyday life, the Copts, of which there are about 6 million people according to the data of the end of 1999, use Arabic and are now considered an ethno-confessional group of Egyptian Arabs.

Cushitic languages of which only living ones are known, distributed in Northeast Africa: in the northeast of Sudan, in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, in northern Kenya and in western Tanzania. According to data from the late 1980s, the number of speakers is about 25.7 million.

Omotian languages. Living unwritten languages, common in southwestern Ethiopia. The number of speakers according to the late 1980s is about 1.6 million people. As an independent branch of the Afroasian macrofamily, they began to stand out only recently (G. Fleming, M. Bender, I. M. Dyakonov). Some scientists attribute the Omot languages to the Western Cushitic group, which separated from Proto-Kushit earlier than the rest.

Semitic languages. The most numerous of the Afroasian language families; It is represented by modern living languages (Arabic, Maltese, New Aramaic dialects, Hebrew, Ethio-Semitic - Amharic, Tigre, Tigray, etc.), common in the Arab East, Israel, Ethiopia and North Africa, islands - in other countries of Asia and Africa. The number of speakers according to different sources fluctuates, amounting to approximately 200 million.

Chadic languages alive; more than 150 modern languages and dialect groups belong to this family. Distributed in Central and Western Sudan, in the region of Lake Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon. The Hausa speakers are the most numerous, numbering about 30-40 million people; for most of them, Hausa is not their native language, but the language of interethnic communication.

findings

This paper characterizes the main language families, considers language groups, features of the language structure of languages, including phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary. Of course, languages differ both in prevalence and social functions, as well as in features of the phonetic structure and vocabulary, morphological and syntactic characteristics.

Emphasis should be placed on the huge role played in modern linguistics by various classifications of world languages. This is not only a compact fixation of the many internal connections of the latter discovered by science, but also a certain guideline in their consistent study.

It should be noted that some languages are outside the general classification, they are not included in any of the families, Japanese also belongs to them. Many languages are so poorly studied that they do not fall under any of the classifications. This is explained not only by the large number of languages spoken on the globe, but also by the fact that a linguist studying existing (and existing) languages has to deal with factual data that are very dissimilar and very different in their very essence.

List of used literature

1. Arakin V. D. History of the English language / V. D. Arakin. - M.: Fizmatlit, 2001. - 360 p.

2. Armenian language. Materials from Wikipedia free encyclopedia [Electronic resource]. - Access mode: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_language

3. Baltic languages [Electronic resource]. - Access mode: http://www.languages-study.com/baltic.html

4. Vendina T. I. Introduction to linguistics: textbook. allowance for ped. universities / T.I. Wendina. - M.: Vyssh.shk., 2003. - 288 p.

5. Golovin B.N. Introduction to linguistics / N. B. Golovin. - M.: Higher school, 1973. - 320 p.

6. Dyakonov I. M. Semitic-Hamitic languages / I. M. Dyakonov. - M., 1965. -189 p.

7. Kodukhov V.I. Introduction to linguistics / V.I. Kodukhov. - M.: Enlightenment, 1979. - 351s.

8. Lewis G. Brief comparative grammar of the Celtic languages [Electronic resource] / G. Lewis, H. Pedersen. - Access mode: http://bookre.org/reader?file=629546

9. Melnichuk O. S. Entry to the historical-historical formation of the words "Janian language" / O. S. Melnichuk. -K., 1966. - 596 p.

10. Reformatsky A. A. Introduction to linguistics / ed. V.A. Vinogradov. - M.: Aspect Press, 1998. - 536 p.

11. Edelman D. I. Indo-Iranian languages. Languages of the world: Dardic and Nuristan languages / D. I. Edelman. - M. 1999. - 230 p.

12. Etymological dictionary of Slavic languages. - M.: Nauka, 1980. - T. 7. - 380 p.

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What is a language family

A language family, or rather, language families (since there are many) is association of related languages. And all these large groups of related languages originate from one language ( language - ancestor). The kinship of languages began to be studied in eighteenth century and began with the study of the ancient language of India - Sanskrit. The language family is divided into subfamilies and groups.

The special science of comparative linguistics discovers the historical connections of languages. It is likely that thousands of years ago there was only one language spoken by the people of that time. There is a special map of language families around the world. Linguistic scholars have found about a hundred language families. So, the main ones are:

Indo-European(the largest, from Europe to India, includes about four hundred languages).
Afro-Asian(Afghanistan, Egypt, ).
Altai(Russia, ).
Sino-Tibetan( , Kyrgyzstan).
Ural(Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian).
Austroasiatic( , ).

It is possible that not all families are on this list, but at least the main part of them. Scientists still cannot decide on this issue.

Isolate languages or isolated languages

This is language with unproven belonging to no family. They are also called orphan language. For example, the inhabitants of Spain and France speak Basque. This is a dialect different from all European languages. Linguistic scholars have compared it to every possible language spoken in Europe, America and the Caucasus, but absolutely no connection has been found.

At the end of the answer, I want to talk about the pidgin. This language is also called Creole. It is the result of colonization, when local children begin to talk in two languages at once. In the native language and in the language of the colonizing country. The result is one mixed language.

I think many of us have heard the famous legend about the construction of the Tower of Babel, during which people, with their quarrels and squabbles, so angered God that he divided their single language into a great multitude, so that, not being able to communicate with each other, people could not even swear . This is how we settled all over the world, each nation with its own language, culture and traditions.

According to official figures, there are now between 2,796 and more than 7,000 languages in the world. Such a big difference comes from the fact that scientists cannot decide what exactly is considered a language, and what is a dialect or adverb. Translation agencies often face the nuances of translating from rare languages.

In 2017, there are approximately 240 language groups, or families. The largest and most numerous of them - Indo-European, to which our Russian language belongs. A language family is a set of languages that are united by the sound similarity of the roots of words and similar grammar. The basis of the Indo-European family is English and German, which form the backbone of the Germanic group. In general, this language family unites the peoples occupying the main part of Europe and Asia.

It also includes such common Romance languages as Spanish, French, Italian and others. The Russian language is part of the Slavic group of the Indo-European family along with Ukrainian, Belarusian and others. The Indo-European group is not the largest in terms of the number of languages, but they are spoken by almost half of the world's population, which makes it possible for it to bear the title of "the most numerous".

The next family of languages unites more than 250,000 people - this is afro-asian a family that includes Egyptian, Hebrew, Arabic and many other languages, including extinct ones. This group consists of more than 300 languages of Asia and Africa, and it is divided into Egyptian, Semitic, Cushitic, Omotian, Chadic and Berber-Libyan branches. However, the Afro-Asiatic family of languages does not include about 500 dialects and adverbs used in Africa, often only in oral form.

Next in terms of prevalence and complexity of study - Nilo-Saharan family of languages spoken in Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia. Since the languages of these lands have significant differences between themselves, their study is not only of great interest, but also of great difficulty for linguists.

Over a million native speakers includes Sino-Tibetan group of languages Tibeto-Burmese the branch has more than 300 languages, which are spoken by as many as 60 million people worldwide! Some of the languages of this given family still do not have their own written language and exist only in oral form. This greatly complicates their study and research.

The languages and dialects of the peoples of Russia belong to 14 language families, the main of which are Indo-European, Uralic, North Caucasian and Altaic.

About 87% of the population of Russia belongs to the Indo-European language family, and 85% of it is occupied by the Slavic group of languages (Russians, Belarusians, Poles, Ukrainians), followed by the Iranian group (Tajiks, Kurds, Ossetians), the Romance group (Gypsies, Moldovans) and German group (Yiddish-speaking Jews, Germans).
The Altai language family (approximately 6.8% of the population of Russia) is made up of the Turkic group (Altaians, Yakuts, Tuvans, Shors, Chuvashs, Balkars, Karachays), the Mongolian group (Kalmyks, Buryats), the Tungus-Manchu group (Evenks, Evens, Nanais) and the Paleo-Asiatic group of languages (Koryak, Chukchi). Some of these languages are currently under the threat of extinction, as their speakers are partly switching to Russian, partly to Chinese.
The Uralic language family (2% of the population) is represented by the Finnish group of languages (Komi, Margeians, Karelians, Komi-Permyaks, Mordovians), Ugric (Khanty, Mansi) and Samoyedic groups (Nenets, Selkups). More than 50% of the Uralic language family are Hungarians and about 20% are Finns. This includes the linguistic groups of peoples living in the regions of the Ural Range.

The Caucasian language family (2%) includes the Kartvelian group (Georgians), the Dagestan group (Lezgins, Dargins, Laks, Avars), the Adyghe-Abkhazian (Abkhazians, Adyghes, Kabardians, Circassians) and the Nakh groups (Ingush, Chechens). The study of the languages of the Caucasian family is associated with great difficulties for linguists, and therefore the languages of the local population are still very little studied.

Difficulties are caused not only by grammar or the rules for constructing the language of a given family, but also by pronunciation, which is often simply inaccessible to people who do not know this type of language. Certain difficulties in terms of study are also created by the inaccessibility of some mountainous regions of the North Caucasus.