Principles of language classification. Classification of languages. Principles of classification of languages of the world (genealogical, typological, areal, functional, cultural-historical classifications) What principles of classification of languages do you know

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

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

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

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

The genealogical classification of languages is directly related to the historical fate of languages and peoples, speakers of these languages, and covers primarily lexical and phonetic comparisons, and then grammatical ones; morphological classification is associated with a structural-systemic understanding of language and is based mainly on grammar.

The results of almost two centuries of research into languages using the method of comparative historical linguistics are summarized in a scheme for the genealogical classification of languages.

Families of languages are divided into branches, groups, subgroups, and sub-subgroups of related languages. Each stage of fragmentation unites languages that are closer than the previous, more general one. Thus, East Slavic languages show greater similarity than Slavic languages in general, and Slavic languages show greater similarity than Indo-European languages.

GENEALOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES

I. INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

Indian group

(over 96 living languages in total)

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

Dead: Vedic, Sanskrit.

Iranian group

(more than 10 languages, the greatest affinity is with the Indian group,

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

Persian, Dari, Tajik, Ossetian, etc.

Dead: Old Persian, Avestan, etc.

Slavic group

A. Eastern subgroup

P u s k i y Ukrainian Belarusian

B. Southern subgroup

Bulgarian Macedonian Serbo-Croatian

Slovenian

Dead: Old Church Slavonic.

B. Western subgroup

Czech Slovak Polish etc.

Dead: Pomeranian dialects.

Baltic group

Lithuanian Latvian Latgalian

Dead: Prussky et al.

German group

A. North Germanic (Scandinavian) subgroup

1) Danish 2) Swedish

3) Norwegian 4) Icelandic 5) Faroese

B. West German subgroup

6) English

7) Dutch (Dutch) with Flemish

8) Frisian

9) German; two adverbs; Low German (northern, Niederdeutsch or Plattdeutsch) and High German (southern, Hochdeutsch); The literary language developed on the basis of South German dialects.

B. East German subgroup

Dead: Gothic, Burgundian, Vandal, etc.

Roman group

French, Provençal, Italian, Sardinian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Moldavian, Macedonian-Romanian, etc.

Dead:: Latin.

Celtic group

Irish, Scottish, Breton and others. etc.

Dead: Manx

Greek group

Modern Greek, from the 12th century. Dead: Ancient Greek, 10th century. BC e.

Albanian group

Albanian

Armenian group

Armenian

Hittite-Luwian (Anatolian) group

Dead: Hittite, Carian, etc.

Tocharian group

Dead: Tocharian

P. CAUCASIAN LANGUAGES

A. Western group: Abkhaz-Adyghe languages

Abkhazian, Adyghe, Kabardian, Ubykh, etc.

B. Eastern group: Nakh-Dagestan languages

Chechen, Ingush, Lezgin, Mingrelian, Georgian, etc.

III. OUTSIDE THE BASQUE LANGUAGE

IV. URAL LANGUAGES

FINNO-UGRIAN (FINNIAN-UGRIAN) LANGUAGES

A. Ugric branch

Hungarian, Mansi, Khanty

B. Baltic-Finnish branch

Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, etc.

B. Perm branch

Komi-Zyryan, Komi-Permyak, Udmurt

G. Volga branch

Mari, Mordovian

SAMODYAN LANGUAGES

Nenets, Enets, etc.

V. ALTAI LANGUAGES

TURKIC LANGUAGES

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

MONGOLIAN LANGUAGES

Mongolian, Buryat, Kalmyk.

TUNGU-MANCHU LANGUAGES

Evenki, Manchu, Nanai, etc.

NOT PART OF ANY GROUPS

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

VI. AFRASIAN (SEMITO-HAMITIC) LANGUAGES

Semitic branch

Arabic, Assyrian, etc.

Dead: Hebrew.

Egyptian branch

Dead: Ancient Egyptian, Coptic

Berber-Libyan branch

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

Cushitic branch

(North-East and East Africa) Agave, Somali, Saho, etc.

Chadian branch

(Central Africa and West-Central Sub-Saharan Africa)

Hausa, Gwandara, etc.

VII. NIGERO-CONGO LANGUAGES

(territory of sub-Saharan Africa)

1. Mande languages(bamana, etc.)

2 Atlantic languages(fura, diola, etc.)

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

VIII. NILO-SAHARAN LANGUAGES

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

IX. KHOISAN LANGUAGES

(in South Africa, Namibia, Angola)

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

X. Sino-TIBETAN LANGUAGES

Chinese branch: Chinese, Dungan.

Tibeto-Burman branch: Tibetan, Burmese.

XI. THAI LANGUAGES

Thai, Laotian, etc.

XII. LANGUAGES MIA – YaO

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

XIII. DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGES

(languages of the ancient population of the Indian subcontinent)

Tamil, Telugu, etc.

XIV. OUTSIDE THE FAMILY - THE LANGUAGE OF BURUSHASDI

(mountainous areas of northwestern India)

XV. AUSTROASIATIC LANGUAGES

Nicobar, Vietnamese, etc.

XVI. AUSTRONESIAN (MALAYAN-POLYNESIAN) LANGUAGES

A. Indonesian branch

Indonesian, Madurese, Tagalog (Tagalog).

B. Polynesian branch

Tongan, Maori, Hawaiian, etc.

B. Micronesian branch

Marshallsky, Truk, etc.

XVII. AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGES

Many minor indigenous languages of central and northern Australia, most famously a p an t a.

XVIII. PAPUA LANGUAGES

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

XIX. PALEOASIAN LANGUAGES

Chukotka-Kamchatka languages

Chukotka, Koryak, Eskimo, Aleutian, etc.

XX. INDIAN (AMERINDIAN) LANGUAGES

Language families of North America

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

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

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

Germanic and Romance languages: distribution zones and distinctive features.

Germanic languages

Among the Indo-European languages, Germanic languages rank first in terms of the number of people speaking them (over 400 million people out of 1,600 million speakers of various Indo-European languages). Modern Germanic languages include:

1. English, spoken in the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand. In these countries it is the national language, the language of the vast majority of the population. In Canada, English is one of two official languages, along with French, and English-Canadians make up over 40% of the population. In the Republic of South Africa, English is also one of the official languages, along with Afrikaans (Boer). English was forcibly introduced as the language of colonial rule and was the state language in the former colonies and dominions of England, where along with it there were local languages of the main population of these countries. With their liberation from British rule, the English language lost its dominant position and was gradually replaced by local languages. English is spoken by about 400 million people.

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

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

The Dutch language has some distribution in the USA and the West Indies. Dutch is spoken by more than 19 million people.

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

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

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

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

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

Distinctive features of the Germanic languages:

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

in morphology: widespread use of ablaut in inflection and word formation; formation (next to a strong preterite) of a weak preterite using a dental suffix; distinguishing between strong and weak declensions of adjectives; manifestation of a tendency towards analyticalism;

in word formation: the special role of nominal compounding (stem compounding); the prevalence of suffixation in nominal word production and prefixation in verbal word production; the presence of conversion (especially in English);

in syntax: tendency to fix word order;

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

The presence already in ancient times, in addition to general innovations, phonetic and morphological differences between groups of languages; numerous isoglosses between Scandinavian and Gothic, Scandinavian and West Germanic, Gothic and West Germanic, indicating historical connections in different eras.

Romance languages

The Romance group unites the languages that emerged from Latin:

Aromanian (Aromunian),

Galician,

Gascony,

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

Spanish,

Istro-Romanian,

Italian,

Catalan,

Ladino (language of the Jews of Spain),

Megleno-Romanian (Meglenitic),

Moldavian,

Portuguese,

Provençal (Occitan),

Romansh; they include:

Swiss, or Western, Romansh / Grisons / Courvalian / Romansh, represented by at least two varieties - Surselvsky / Obwaldsky and Upper Engadine languages, sometimes subdivided into a larger number of 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 from French, Portuguese, and Spanish.

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

Areas of distribution of Romance languages:

“Old Romania”: Italy, Portugal, almost all of Spain, France, southern Belgium, western and southern Switzerland, the main territory of Romania, almost all of Moldova, isolated inclusions in northern Greece, southern and northwestern 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 former colonies, where Romance languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese), without displacing local ones, became official - almost all of Africa, small territories in South Asia and Oceania.

The classification of Romance languages encounters difficulties due to the diversity and gradual transitions from language to language. In practice, the geographical principle is often used. Subgroups are distinguished: Ibero-Roman (Portuguese, Galician, Spanish, Catalan), Gallo-Roman (French, Provencal), Italo-Roman (Italian, Sardinian), Rhaeto-Roman, Balkan-Roman (Romanian, Moldavian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian) . A division is also proposed, taking into account some structural features, into the languages of “continuous Romagna” (Italian, Occitan, Catalan, Spanish, Galician, Portuguese), the “internal” language (the most archaic in structure Sardinian), “external” languages, with a large number innovations and those most influenced by foreign languages (French, Romansh, Balkan-Romance). The languages of “continuous Romania” to the greatest extent reflect the general Romance language type.

Main features of Romance languages:

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

in morphology: preservation of inflection with a strong tendency towards analyticism; the name has 2 numbers, 2 genders, no case category (except for Balkan-Roman ones), transfer of object relations by prepositions; variety of article forms; preservation of the case system for pronouns; agreement of adjectives with names in gender and number; forming adverbs from adjectives using a suffix -mente(except for Balkan-Romanian ones); an extensive system of analytical verb forms; the typical Romance verb scheme contains 16 tenses and 4 moods; 2 pledges; peculiar non-personal forms;

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

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The most common and widely known is the genetic or genealogical classification, which is based on the concept of linguistic kinship and the metaphor of the family tree. This metaphor interprets the relationship of languages as their origin from some common proto-language. Externally, linguistic relatedness is manifested materially - in the similarity of sound of significant elements (morphemes, words) with similar meaning (such elements are recognized as etymologically identical, i.e. having a common origin, cm. ETYMOLOGY). The material similarity of closely related languages (for example, Russian and Belarusian) can be so significant that it makes them highly mutually intelligible. However, material similarity alone is not enough to recognize languages as related; it can be explained by intensive borrowing: there are languages in which the number of borrowings exceeds half of the vocabulary. To recognize kinship, it is necessary that the material similarity be of a systematic nature, i.e. differences between etymologically identical elements must be regular and obey phonetic laws. Material similarity is sometimes accompanied by structural similarity, i.e. similarity in the grammatical structure of languages. Thus, the genetically close Russian and Bulgarian languages are very different grammatically, while there may be significant structural similarities between completely unrelated languages. The French linguist E. Benveniste at one time demonstrated the structural similarity between the languages of the Indo-European language family and the Takelma Indian language, widespread in the American state of Oregon and having no material similarity with the Indo-European languages.

The strictly scientific justification of linguistic kinship is recognized using the so-called comparative-historical, or comparative method. It establishes regular correspondences between languages and thereby describes the transition from some initial general state (a reconstructed proto-language) to actually existing languages. In practice, however, genealogical groupings are initially identified on the basis of a superficial intuitive assessment of material similarity, and only then are the foundations laid under hypotheses about genealogical kinship and the search for the proto-language carried out. One of the largest practitioners of genealogical classification, J. Greenberg, attempted a methodological substantiation of this approach, which he called the method of mass or multilateral comparison. However, for many quite generally recognized language groups, comparative historical reconstruction has not been carried out to this day, and not even in all cases there is confidence that it can be carried out in principle (this is especially true for language groups in which there is not a single language with a long written history). tradition). A method that occupies an intermediate place between comparative historical reconstruction and impressionistic comparison is a special type of lexicostatistical method called glottochronological ( cm. GLOTTOCHRONOLOGY) and proposed in the mid-20th century. American linguist M. Swadesh.

When comparing, hierarchical related relationships of languages are established, uniting two or more languages into a certain grouping; they can subsequently be united into larger groups and so on. Terms denoting hierarchically ordered genetic groups are still not used very consistently. The most common hierarchy in Russian nomenclature is: dialect – language – (subgroup) – group – (subfamily/branch) – family – (macrofamily). In foreign terminology, the term “phyla” and its derivatives introduced by Swadesh are sometimes also used; Other terms also appear occasionally. In practice, the same genetic grouping may be called a group by one author, and a family by another (or even the same one in another place). The term “macrofamily” began to be used much later than the other listed designations; its appearance is associated primarily with attempts to deepen linguistic reconstruction, as well as with the awareness of the fact that traditionally identified families vary greatly in the degree of divergence of the languages included in them (and in the estimated time of collapse of the parent language corresponding to a particular family). The time of collapse, for example, of the Afro-Asian proto-language is dated, according to modern estimates, to the 9th–8th millennium BC. or even earlier, Turkic - the end of the 1st millennium BC, and Mongolian even in the 16th–17th centuries. AD In this case, traditionally the Semitic-Hamitic (= Afroasiatic), Turkic and Mongolian language families were meant. Currently, the designation of Afroasiatic languages as a macrofamily has become established, and Mongolian is often defined as a group.

The idea of the development of languages as an exclusively divergent process of the disintegration of a single proto-language into increasingly distant descendant languages, finally established in neogrammatism, has been repeatedly criticized. One of its main positions was to indicate that in the development of languages there are not only divergent (divergence), but also convergent (convergence due to parallel development and especially language contacts) developments, which significantly complicate a simple scheme. However, lists of world languages in reference publications are always ordered in accordance with the genealogical classification, while all other classifications are of an auxiliary nature and are used purely for research, and not for “reference and presentation” purposes.

Typological principle

These include, first of all, classifications that involve combining languages into certain groups based on similarities and differences in their grammatical structure. Such classifications, called (structural-)typological, have been known since the beginning of the 19th century. Since the grammar of a language is complex and multifaceted, many different typological classifications can be constructed. The most well-known classifications are:

– based on the technique used to combine meaningful units in a word (inflectional, agglutinative, isolating and incorporating, or polysynthetic languages are distinguished);

– based on the methods of encoding semantic roles in a sentence and combining them into various hyper-roles (languages of the accusative-nominative, ergative and active structure differ);

– based on whether this connection is marked in the main or dependent element of a syntactically coherent structure (languages with vertex and dependent coding);

– based on patterns of word order, the relationship between syllable and morpheme, etc. Read more about the various typological classifications cm. LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY.

Geographical principle

Languages can also be classified geographically. For example, based on geographical criteria, Caucasian or African languages are distinguished, and in the names of more detailed groups there are often definitions such as “northern”, “western” or “central”. It is obvious that such classifications are external to the linguistic facts themselves. There are language families (for example, Austronesian) and even individual languages (for example, English, Spanish or French) spread over vast and often non-contiguous territories. On the other hand, there are many places in the world where native speakers of languages who are not closely related by language live in compact areas. Such is the Caucasus, where they speak the languages of various branches of the Indo-European family, Kartvelian, Abkhaz-Adyghe, Nakh-Dagestan and Turkic languages, and even the Kalmyk language belonging to the Mongolian family. Such are the east of India, many parts of Africa, and the island of New Guinea.

At the same time, there is linguistically significant content in geographical classifications. Firstly, peoples living in the neighborhood and their languages are still more often than not related by origin. For example, based on data from historical geography and historical ethnology, the kinship of all or almost all Australian languages is assumed, although there is no strict proof of such kinship using linguistic methods. reconstruction does not exist, and it is unknown whether it can be obtained at all; The situation is similar with numerous indigenous languages of America. Secondly, unrelated or, in any case, not closely related languages of peoples living in the neighborhood and in close contact often acquire common features due to convergent development. For example, in some geographic areas, all or many languages exhibit similar phonological systems. Thus, in Europe, most languages make a distinction between the main (primary) stress and one or more secondary stresses, and almost all distinguish between voiceless stops (such as p, t, k) from voiced ones (like b, d, g). In East and Southeast Asia, many languages use pitch, or syllabic tone movement, to differentiate words; In western North America, a fairly large number of geographically adjacent languages have a special class of sounds called glottalized. Neighboring languages often show similar trends in the development of syntax. In western Europe, both Romance and Germanic languages developed verb phrases with auxiliary verbs ( have gone, is done and so on.).

Sociolinguistic principle

About the status of various classifications

Speaking not about the internal content, but about the logical structure of the three main classifications, it is necessary to note at least two important differences between them. This is, firstly, the difference between “natural” classifications (genealogical and areal) and “artificial” typological classifications. The latter are constructed in accordance with criteria chosen by the researcher and are therefore fundamentally multiple; the first two classifications strive to reflect the natural order of things; they are not supposed to be imposed on many languages, but to be “discovered” in a given set. Therefore, the presence of several different genealogical or typological classifications of linguistic material is considered not as a different interpretation of the material based on its heterogeneity, but as evidence of the imperfection of our knowledge.

Secondly, genealogical and typological classifications break down the entire set of languages, while areal classification only identifies individual similarities in it on the basis of linguistic affinity. Of course, with any classification of anything, some “residue” is usually formed, and there are also controversial cases, but in the areal classification, the bulk of the world’s languages fall into such a remainder, and this is not particularly acutely experienced. At the same time, within the framework of genealogical classification, the presence of languages that cannot be classified, forming single-element groups (such as Greek, Armenian and Albanian languages isolated as part of the Indo-European family or not at all falling into any of the sections of the classification of the Basque language or the Burushaski language in Kashmir), and also the large number of highest-ranking taxa (usually called language families) is seen as a challenge to the principle of genealogical classification. As for the typological classification, with the appropriate choice of classification parameters it is quite possible to give it the character of a residue-free division.

Taking into account these two circumstances, in a certain sense, the “main” of the three listed classifications (natural and ideally exhaustive) turns out to be genealogical. Its special status in practice is manifested in the fact that when characterizing any idioethnic language, its genetic affiliation must be indicated, i.e. inclusion in one or another group of related languages. If such information is not available, then this is specifically reported as one of the most important features of a given language.

CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES, the distribution of the languages of the world into certain taxonomic headings or classes in accordance with the principles arising from the general purpose of the study and on the basis of certain characteristics. The problem of classification of languages arises during their comparative study and is sometimes thought of as its ultimate goal, to achieve which it is necessary to comprehensively consider the systems of languages being compared in search of the most essential characteristics that form the basis of classification (language classification parameters) - one-dimensional (by one parameter) or multidimensional (according to several parameters). There are 2 main types of classification of languages - genealogical classification of languages and typological classification of languages; the main difference between them is that the first is based on the concept of linguistic kinship, the second - on the concept of similarity (formal and/or semantic). From the point of view of their goals, they are not reducible to each other, but their principles can overlap: the genealogical classification of languages is often built taking into account typological characteristics, which is inevitable when there is insufficient comparative study of the corresponding languages, when their genealogical classification is preliminary. The independence of the two types of classification of languages is manifested in the possibility of typological classification within already established genealogical groupings.

There is a third type of classification of languages - the areal classification of languages (see Areal linguistics), which occupies an autonomous but intermediate position between the two classifications indicated above. The areal classification of languages is possible both for idioms within the genealogical classification of languages (for example, the Polesie area, covering the Belarusian-Ukrainian dialects), and for languages of different genetic affiliation (for example, the Carpathian area of the Hungarian-Slavic dialects); in it, signs associated with the contact of languages play an important role (see Language contacts). Areal classification is also possible within one language in relation to its dialects; it underlies linguistic geography.

With a genetic approach to the classification of languages, they operate with taxonomic categories: family, branch, group, etc., with a typological approach - type, class, with an areal approach - area, zone (for example, a zone of transitional dialects); A special category of the areal classification of languages is formed by linguistic unions. Only the genealogical classification of languages is absolute (each language belongs to one specific genealogical group and cannot change this affiliation; cases of erroneous assignment of a language to one family or group and subsequent transfer to another family are not taken into account). The typological classification of languages is always multidimensional, relative (the same language can be included in different classes according to different classification criteria) and historically changeable due to the variability of the very structure of the language and its theoretical understanding. The areal classification of languages is more or less stable depending on the nature of the classification parameters. Only for the areal classification of languages is the territorial localization of idioms essential; genealogical and typological classifications of languages are constructed independently of the spatial distribution of languages.

Issues of language classification began to be actively developed from the beginning of the 19th century, one of the first major works in this area is “Mithridates” by I. K. Adelung (1806-17), where all 3 types of language classification are outlined in a syncretic form. Since the mid-20th century, the theoretical principles of various types of language classification have been intensively discussed; many languages have not yet found their final place in the genetic classification of languages (especially in Africa, Oceania, Polynesia), while for some the question of metagenealogical classification is being resolved, based on the possibility of deeper kinship of a number of established families (see, for example, Nostratic languages). In the 2nd half of the 20th century, interest in the problems of areal classification increased, and typological classification was enriched with new ideas and methods.

Lit.: Benveniste E. Classification of languages // New in linguistics. M., 1963. Issue. 3; Theoretical foundations of the classification of world languages. M., 1980-1982. Part 1-2.

Typological principle

– based on the technique used to combine meaningful units in a word (inflectional, agglutinative, isolating and incorporating, or polysynthetic languages are distinguished);

– based on the methods of encoding semantic roles in a sentence and combining them into various hyper-roles (languages of the accusative-nominative, ergative and active structure differ);

– based on whether this connection is marked in the main or dependent element of a syntactically coherent structure (languages with vertex and dependent coding);

– based on patterns of word order, the relationship between syllable and morpheme, etc. Read more about the various typological classifications cm. LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY.

Geographical principle

Sociolinguistic principle

About the status of various classifications

In the Middle Ages, the question of the diversity of languages became obvious, since the “barbarians” destroyed Rome and many “barbarian” languages entered the cultural arena (Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Turkic, etc.), among which not a single one could be considered “the only one.” . However, the interactions of multilingual peoples in this era were limited to either military actions or everyday communication, which, of course, required mastering foreign languages to a certain extent, but did not lead to the systematic study of foreign languages.

Theoretical issues, due to the fact that education was in the hands of the church, were resolved only in accordance with the Bible, where the diversity of languages was explained by the legend of the Tower of Babel, according to which God “mixed” the languages of the people who built this tower in order to prevent people from entering heaven . Belief in this legend survived into the 19th century. However, more sober minds tried to understand the diversity of languages, relying on real data.

The impetus for raising this question in a scientific sense was the practical tasks of the Renaissance, when it was necessary to theoretically comprehend the question of the composition and type of the national language, an exponent of a new culture, and its relationship with the literary languages of the feudal Middle Ages, and thereby re-evaluate the ancient and other ancient heritage.

The search for raw materials and colonial markets pushed representatives of the young bourgeois states to travel around the world. The era of “great travels and discoveries” introduced Europeans to the natives of Asia, Africa, America, Australia and Oceania.

The predatory policy of the first conquistadors towards the natives is replaced by systematic capitalist colonization in order to force the colonial population to work for their conquerors. To do this, it was necessary to communicate with the natives, explain things to them, influence them through religion and other ways of propaganda. All this required mutual understanding and thereby the study and comparison of languages.

Thus, the various practical needs of the new era created the basis for the survey and registration of languages, the compilation of dictionaries, grammars and theoretical research. In relation to colonial languages, this role was assigned to missionary monks who were sent to newly discovered countries; The records of these missionaries were for a long time the only source of knowledge about a wide variety of languages.

As early as 1538, the work of Gwillelm Postellus (1510–1581) “De affmitatae linguarum” (“On the kinship of languages”) appeared.

The first attempt to establish groups of related languages belonged to Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540–1609), the son of the famous Renaissance philologist Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484–1558). In 1610, Scaliger’s work “Diatriba de europeorum linguis” (“Discourse on European languages”, written in 1599) was published in France, where, within the European languages known to the author, 11 “mother languages” are established: four “large” - Greek, Latin (with Romance), Teutonic (Germanic) and Slavic, and seven “minor” ones - Epirotic (Albanian), Irish, Cymric (British) with Breton, Tatar, Finnish with Lapp, Hungarian and Basque. Despite the fact that the comparison was based on matching the word God in different languages and that even the Latin and Greek name for God (deus, theos) did not lead Scaliger to think about the relationship of Greek with the Latin language and he declared all 11 “mothers” “not related to each other by any ties of kinship,” within the Romance and especially Germanic languages, the author was able to draw subtle differences in the degree of kinship, pointing out that only Germanic languages are Water-languages (the mother language itself and the Low German dialect), while others are Wasser-languages (High German dialect), i.e., he outlined the possibility of dividing Germanic languages and German dialects based on the movement of consonants, which was later developed in works TenKate, Rasmus Rask and Jacob Grimm.

At the beginning of the 17th century. E. Guichard in his work “L" Harmonie etymologique des langues” (1606), despite fantastic comparisons of languages and scripts, managed to show the family of Semitic languages, which was further developed by other Hebraists, such as Job Ludolf (1624–1704).

A broader classification, although largely inaccurate, but with explicit recognition of the concept of a family of languages, was given by the famous mathematician and philosopher Gottfried-Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), dividing the languages known to him into two large families with the division of one of them into two more groups:

I. Aramaic (i.e. Semitic).

II. Japhetic:

1. Scythian (Finnish, Turkic, Mongolian and Slavic).

2. Celtic (other European).

If in this classification we move the Slavic languages into the “Celtic” group, and rename the “Scythian” languages to at least “Ural-Altaic”, then we will get what linguists came to in the 19th century.

In the 17th century a native of Croatia, Yuri Krizhanich (1617–1693), who lived for many years in Rus' (mainly in exile), gave the first example of a comparison of Slavic languages; this attempt is striking in its accuracy.

In the 18th century Lambert Ten-Cate (1674–1731) in his book “Aenleiding tot de Kenisse van het verhevende Deel der niederduitsche Sprocke” (“Introduction to the Study of the Noble Part of the Low German Language,” 1723) made a careful comparison of the Germanic languages and established the most important sound correspondences of these related languages .

Of great importance among the predecessors of the comparative historical method are the works of M.V. Lomonosov (1711–1765) “Russian Grammar” (1755), Preface “On the Use of Church Books in the Russian Language” (1757) and the unfinished work “On languages related to Russian and on current dialects”, which gives a completely accurate classification of three groups of Slavic languages indicating the great closeness of the eastern to the southern, the correct etymological correspondences of single-root Slavic and Greek words are shown on a number of words, the question of the degree of closeness of Russian dialects and the disunity of German, the place of the Old Slavic language is explained, and related relationships between the languages of the European part of the Indo-European languages are outlined.

In fulfillment of Leibniz's behests, Peter I sent the Swede Philipp-Johann Stralenberg (1676–1750), captured near Poltava, to Siberia to study the peoples and languages that Stralenberg and

completed. Returning to his homeland, in 1730 he published comparative tables of the languages of Northern Europe, Siberia and the North Caucasus, which laid the foundation for a genealogical classification for many non-Indo-European languages, in particular Turkic.

In the 18th century in Russia, implementing the plans of Peter I, the first “Russian academicians” (Gmelin, Lepekhin, Pallas, etc.) were engaged in a broad and, as it is now commonly called, comprehensive study of the lands and outskirts of the Russian Empire. They studied the geographical and geological structure of the territories, climate, mineral resources, population, and including the languages of the multi-tribal state.

This latter was summarized in a large translation and comparison dictionary, published in the first edition in 1786–1787. This was the first dictionary of this type, published under the title “Comparative dictionaries of all languages and dialects,” where, by translating Russian words into all available languages, a “Language Catalog” was compiled into 200 languages of Europe and Asia. In 1791, the second edition of this dictionary was published with the addition of some languages of Africa and America (272 languages in total).

Materials for translations in these dictionaries were collected by both academicians and other employees of the Russian Academy; the editors were Academician Pallas and Yankovic de Marievo, with the personal participation of Catherine II. Thus, this dictionary was given national significance.

A second similar dictionary was carried out by a Spanish missionary named Lorenzo Hervas y Panduro, whose first (Italian) edition was published in 1784 under the title “Catalogo delle lingue conosciute notizia della loro affunita e diversita” and the second (Spanish) in 1800– 1805 entitled “Catalogo de las lenguas de las naciones concidas”, where over 400 languages were collected in six volumes with some references and information about certain languages.

The last such publication was the work of the Baltic Germans I.X. Adelung and I.S. Vater’s “Mithridates, oder allgemeine Sprachkunde” (“Mithridates, or General Linguistics”), published in 1806–1817, where the correct idea of showing the differences between languages in a coherent text was carried out by translating the prayer “Our Father” into 500 languages; for most languages of the world this is a fantastic artificial translation. In this edition, comments on the translation and grammatical and other information are of great interest, in particular W. Humboldt's note on the Basque language.

All these attempts at “cataloging languages,” no matter how naive they were, still brought great benefits: they introduced real facts about the diversity of languages and the possibilities of similarities and differences between languages within the same words, which promoted interest in the comparative comparison of languages and enriched the actual language awareness.

However, lexical comparisons alone, and even without the presence of any genuine historical theory, could not lead to the necessary scientific results. But the ground was ready for the emergence of comparative linguistics.

All that was needed was some kind of push that would suggest the right ways to compare languages and set the necessary goals for such research.

§ 77. COMPARATIVE HISTORICAL METHOD IN LINGUISTICS

This “push” was the discovery of Sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India. Why could this “discovery” play such a role? The fact is that both in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, India was considered a fabulous country, full of wonders described in the old novel “Alexandria”. The travels to India of Marco Polo (13th century), Afanasy Nikitin (15th century) and the descriptions they left did not dispel the legends about the “land of gold and white elephants”.

The first who noticed the similarity of Indian words with Italian and Latin was Philippe Sassetti, an Italian traveler of the 16th century, which he reported in his “Letters from India”, but no scientific conclusions were drawn from these publications.

The question was correctly posed only in the second half of the 18th century, when the Institute of Oriental Cultures was established in Calcutta and William Jonze (1746–1794), having studied Sanskrit manuscripts and becoming acquainted with modern Indian languages, was able to write:

“The Sanskrit language, whatever its antiquity, has a wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, richer than the Latin, and more beautiful than either of them, but bearing in itself such a close relationship with these two languages as in roots of verbs, as well as in forms of grammar, which could not have been generated by chance, the kinship is so strong that no philologist who would study these three languages can fail to believe that they all originated from one common source, which, perhaps it no longer exists. There is a similar reason, although not so convincing, for supposing that the Gothic and Celtic languages, although mixed with completely different dialects, had the same origin as Sanskrit; Ancient Persian could also be included in the same family of languages, if there was a place for discussing questions about Persian antiquities.”

This marked the beginning of comparative linguistics, and the further development of science confirmed, although declarative, but correct, the statements of V. Jonze.

The main thing in his thoughts:

1) similarity not only in roots, but also in forms of grammar cannot be the result of chance;

2) this is a kinship of languages going back to one common source;

3) this source “perhaps no longer exists”;

4) in addition to Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, the same family of languages includes Germanic, Celtic, and Iranian languages.

At the beginning of the 19th century. Independently of each other, different scientists from different countries began to clarify the related relationships of languages within a particular family and achieved remarkable results.

Franz Bopp (1791–1867) directly followed the statement of W. Jonze and studied the conjugation of main verbs in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Gothic using the comparative method (1816), comparing both roots and inflections, which was methodologically particularly important, since the correspondence roots and words are not enough to establish the relationship of languages; if the material design of inflections provides the same reliable criterion for sound correspondences - which cannot in any way be attributed to borrowing or accident, since the system of grammatical inflections, as a rule, cannot be borrowed - then this serves as a guarantee of a correct understanding of the relationships of related languages. Although Bopp believed at the beginning of his work that the “proto-language” for the Indo-European languages was Sanskrit, and although he later tried to include such alien languages as Malay and Caucasian in the related circle of Indo-European languages, but both with his first work and later, drawing on data Iranian, Slavic, Baltic languages and the Armenian language, Bopp proved the declarative thesis of V. Jonze on a large surveyed material and wrote the first “Comparative Grammar of the Indo-Germanic [Indo-European] Languages” (1833).

The Danish scientist Rasmus-Christian Rask (1787–1832), who was ahead of F. Bopp, followed a different path. Rask emphasized in every possible way that lexical correspondences between languages are not reliable; grammatical correspondences are much more important, since borrowing inflections, and in particular inflections, “never happens.”

Having started his research with the Icelandic language, Rask compared it primarily with other “Atlantic” languages: Greenlandic, Basque, Celtic - and denied them any kinship (regarding the Celtic, Rask later changed his mind). Then Rask compared Icelandic (1st circle) with the closest relative Norwegian and received 2nd circle; he compared this second circle with other Scandinavian (Swedish, Danish) languages (3rd circle), then with other Germanic (4th circle), and finally, he compared the Germanic circle with other similar “circles” in search of “Thracian” "(i.e., Indo-European) circle, comparing Germanic data with the testimony of Greek and Latin languages.

Unfortunately, Rusk was not attracted to Sanskrit even after he visited Russia and India; this narrowed his “circles” and impoverished his conclusions.

However, the involvement of Slavic and especially Baltic languages significantly compensated for these shortcomings.

A. Meillet (1866–1936) characterizes the comparison of the thoughts of F. Bopp and R. Rusk as follows:

“Rask is significantly inferior to Bopp in that he does not appeal to Sanskrit; but he points to the original identity of the languages being brought together, without getting carried away by vain attempts to explain the original forms; he is content, for example, with the statement that “every ending of the Icelandic language can be found in a more or less clear form in Greek and Latin,” and in this respect his book is more scientific and less outdated than the works of Bopp.” It should be pointed out that Rask’s work was published in 1818 in Danish and was only published in German in 1822 in an abbreviated form (translation by I. S. Vater).

The third founder of the comparative method in linguistics was A. Kh. Vostokov (1781–1864).

Vostokov studied only Slavic languages, and primarily the Old Church Slavonic language, the place of which had to be determined in the circle of Slavic languages. By comparing the roots and grammatical forms of the living Slavic languages with the data of the Old Church Slavonic language, Vostokov was able to unravel many previously incomprehensible facts of the Old Church Slavonic written monuments. Thus, Vostokov is credited with solving the “mystery of the Yus,” i.e. letters and And A, which he identified as nasal vowel designations based on a comparison:

Vostokov was the first to point out the need to compare the data contained in the monuments of dead languages with the facts of living languages and dialects, which later became a prerequisite for the work of linguists in comparative historical terms. This was a new word in the formation and development of the comparative historical method.

In addition, Vostokov, using the material of Slavic languages, showed what the sound correspondences of related languages are, such as, for example, the fate of combinations tj, dj in Slavic languages (cf. Old Slavonic svђsha, Bulgarian candle[svasht], Serbo-Croatian cbeha, Czech svice, Polish swieca, Russian candle - from common Slavic *svetja; and Old Slavonic between, Bulgarian between, Serbo-Croatian mea, Czech mez, Polish miedw, Russian boundary - from common Slavic *medza), correspondence to Russian full-vowel forms like city, head(cf. Old Slavonic grad, Bulgarian hail, Serbo-Croatian hail, Czech hrad – castle, kremlin, polish grod - from common Slavic *gordu; and Old Slavonic chapter, Bulgarian chapter, Serbo-Croatian chapter, Czech Hiava, Polish gfowa - from common Slavic *golva etc.), as well as the method of reconstructing archetypes or proto-forms, i.e., original forms not attested by written monuments. Through the works of these scientists, the comparative method in linguistics was not only declared, but also demonstrated in its methodology and technique.

Great achievements in clarifying and strengthening this method on a large comparative material of Indo-European languages belong to August-Friedrich Pott (1802–1887), who gave comparative etymological tables of Indo-European languages and confirmed the importance of analyzing sound correspondences.

At this time, individual scientists describe in a new way the facts of individual related language groups and subgroups.

Such are the works of Johann-Caspar Zeiss (1806–1855) on the Celtic languages, Friedrich Dietz (1794–1876) on the Romance languages, Georg Curtius (1820–1885) on the Greek language, Jacob Grimm (1785–1868) on the Germanic languages, and in in particular in the German language, Theodor Benfey (1818–1881) in Sanskrit, Frantisek Miklosic (1818–1891) in Slavic languages, August Schleicher (1821–1868) in the Baltic languages and in the German language, F.I. Buslaev (1818–1897) in Russian language and others.

The works of the novelistic school of F. Dietz were of particular importance for testing and establishing the comparative historical method. Although the use of the method of comparison and reconstruction of archetypes has become common among comparative linguists, skeptics are rightfully perplexed without seeing the actual testing of the new method. Romance brought this verification with its research. The Romano-Latin archetypes, restored by the school of F. Dietz, were confirmed by written recorded facts in the publications of Vulgar (folk) Latin - the ancestor language of the Romance languages.

Thus, the reconstruction of data obtained by the comparative historical method was proven in fact.

To complete the outline of the development of comparative historical linguistics, we should also cover the second half of the 19th century.

If in the first third of the 19th century. scientists who developed the comparative method, as a rule, proceeded from idealistic romantic premises (brothers Friedrich and August-Wilhelm Schlegel, Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Humboldt), then by the middle of the century natural scientific materialism became the leading direction.

Under the pen of the greatest linguist of the 50–60s. XIX century, naturalist and Darwinist August Schleicher (1821–1868), the allegorical and metaphorical expressions of the romantics: “the organism of language”, “youth, maturity and decline of language”, “family of related languages” - acquire a direct meaning.

According to Schleicher, languages are the same natural organisms as plants and animals, they are born, grow and die, they have the same ancestry and genealogy as all living beings. According to Schleicher, languages do not develop, but rather grow, obeying the laws of nature.

If Bopp had a very unclear idea of the laws in relation to language and said that “one should not look for laws in languages that could provide more persistent resistance than the banks of rivers and seas,” then Schleicher was sure that “the life of linguistic organisms in general occurs according to known laws with regular and gradual changes,” and he believed in the operation of “the same laws on the banks of the Seine and Po and on the banks of the Indus and Ganges.”

Based on the idea that “the life of language does not differ in any significant way from the life of all other living organisms - plants and animals,” Schleicher creates his theory of the “family tree” , where both the common trunk and each branch are always divided in half, and the languages are raised to their original source - the proto-language, the “primary organism”, in which symmetry, regularity should prevail, and all of it should be simple; Therefore, Schleicher reconstructs vocalism on the model of Sanskrit, and consonantism on the model of Greek, unifying declensions and conjugations according to one model, since the variety of sounds and forms, according to Schleicher, is the result of the further growth of languages. As a result of his reconstructions, Schleicher even wrote a fable in the Indo-European proto-language.

Schleicher published the result of his comparative historical research in 1861–1862 in a book entitled “Compendium of Comparative Grammar of Indo-Germanic Languages.”

Later studies by Schleicher's students showed the inconsistency of his approach to language comparison and reconstruction.

Firstly, it turned out that the “simplicity” of the sound composition and forms of the Indo-European languages is the result of later eras, when the former rich vocalism in Sanskrit and the former rich consonantism in the Greek language were reduced. It turned out, on the contrary, that the data of rich Greek vocalism and rich Sanskrit consonantism are more correct paths to the reconstruction of the Indo-European proto-language (research by Collitz and I. Schmidt, Ascoli and Fick, Osthoff, Brugmann, Leskin, and later by F. de Saussure, F.F. Fortunatov, I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, etc.).

Secondly, the initial “uniformity of forms” of the Indo-European proto-language also turned out to be shaken by research in the field of Baltic, Iranian and other Indo-European languages, since more ancient languages could be more diverse and “multiform” than their historical descendants.

The “young grammarians,” as Schleicher’s students called themselves, contrasted themselves with the “old grammarians,” representatives of Schleicher’s generation, and first of all renounced the naturalistic dogma (“language is a natural organism”) professed by their teachers.

The neogrammarians (Paul, Osthoff, Brugmann, Leskin and others) were neither romantics nor naturalists, but relied in their “disbelief in philosophy” on the positivism of Auguste Comte and the associative psychology of Herbart. The “sober” philosophical, or rather, emphatically anti-philosophical position of the neogrammarians does not deserve due respect. But the practical results of linguistic research by this numerous galaxy of scientists from different countries turned out to be very relevant.

This school proclaimed the slogan that phonetic laws (see Chapter VII, § 85) do not operate everywhere and always in the same way (as Schleicher thought), but within a given language (or dialect) and in a certain era.

The works of K. Werner (1846–1896) showed that deviations and exceptions of phonetic laws are themselves due to the action of other phonetic laws. Therefore, as K. Werner said, “there must be, so to speak, a rule for incorrectness, you just need to discover it.”

In addition (in the works of Baudouin de Courtenay, Osthoff and especially in the works of G. Paul), it was shown that analogy is the same pattern in the development of languages as phonetic laws.

Exceptionally subtle works on the reconstruction of archetypes by F. F. Fortunatov and F. de Saussure once again showed the scientific power of the comparative historical method.

All these works were based on comparisons of various morphemes and forms of Indo-European languages. Particular attention was paid to the structure of Indo-European roots, which in Schleicher’s era, in accordance with the Indian theory of “rises,” were considered in three forms: normal, for example video in the first stage of ascent - (guna)ved and in the second stage of ascent (vrddhi)vayd, as a system of complication of a simple primary root. In the light of new discoveries in the field of vocalism and consonantism of Indo-European languages, existing correspondences and divergences in the sound design of the same roots in different groups of Indo-European languages and in individual languages, as well as taking into account stress conditions and possible sound changes, the question of Indo-European roots was posed differently : the most complete type of root was taken as primary, consisting of consonants and a diphthong combination (syllabic vowel plus i,And , n , T,r, l); Thanks to reduction (which is associated with accentology), weakened versions of the root could also arise at the 1st stage: i, and,n, T,r, l without a vowel, and further, on the 2nd level: zero instead i , And or and, t,r, l non-syllabic. However, this did not fully explain some of the phenomena associated with the so-called “schwa indogermanicum”, i.e. with a vague faint sound, which was depicted as ?.

F. de Saussure in his work “Memoire sur Ie systeme primitif des voyelles dans les langues indoeuropeennes”, 1879, examining various correspondences in the alternations of root vowels of Indo-European languages, came to the conclusion that uh could be a non-syllabic element of diphthongs, and in the case of complete reduction of the syllabic element could become syllabic. But since this kind of “sonantic coefficients” was given in various Indo-European languages, then e, That a, That o, it should have been assumed that the “seams” themselves had a different appearance: ? 1 , ? 2 , ? 3. Saussure himself did not draw all the conclusions, but suggested that the “algebraically” expressed “sonantic coefficients” A And ABOUT corresponded to sound elements that were once inaccessible directly from reconstruction, the “arithmetic” explanation of which is still impossible.

After the confirmation of Romanesque reconstructions in the era of F. Dietz by the texts of vulgar Latin, this was the second triumph of the comparative historical method, associated with direct foresight, since after deciphering in the 20th century. Hittite cuneiform monuments turned out to have disappeared by the first millennium BC. e. In the Hittite (Nesitic) language, these “sound elements” were preserved and they are defined as “larynx”, designated h, Moreover, in other Indo-European languages the combination he gave e, ho gave b, a eh > e, oh > o/a, whence we have alternation of long vowels in the roots. In science, this set of ideas is known as the “laryngeal hypothesis.” Different scientists calculate the number of disappeared “laryngeals” in different ways.

F. Engels wrote about the comparative historical method in Anti-Dühring.

“But since Herr Dühring erases all modern historical grammar from his curriculum, then for teaching language he has only old-fashioned technical grammar, prepared in the style of old classical philology, with all its casuistry and arbitrariness, due to the lack of a historical foundation. His hatred of old philology leads him to elevate its worst product to the rank of “the central point of a truly educational study of languages.” It is clear that we are dealing with a philologist who has never heard anything about historical linguistics, which has received such powerful and fruitful development in the last 60 years - and that is why Herr Dühring is looking for “highly modern educational elements” in the study of languages not from Bopp, Grimm and Dietz, and from Heise and Becker of blessed memory." Somewhat earlier in the same work, F. Engels pointed out: “The matter and form of the native language” become understandable only when its emergence and gradual development are traced, and this is impossible if attention is not paid, firstly, to its own dead forms and, secondly, related to living and dead languages."

Of course, these statements do not negate the need for descriptive, rather than historical, grammars, which are needed primarily in school, but it is clear that such grammars could not be built on the basis of “Heise and Becker of blessed memory,” and Engels very precisely pointed out the gap “school grammatical wisdom” of that time and advanced science of that era, developing under the sign of historicism, unknown to the previous generation.

For comparative linguists of the late 19th–early 20th centuries. “proto-language” gradually becomes not the sought-after language, but only a technical means of studying really existing languages, which was clearly formulated by the student of F. de Saussure and the neo-grammarians - Antoine Meillet (1866–1936).

“The comparative grammar of the Indo-European languages is in the same position as the comparative grammar of the Romance languages would have been in if Latin had not been known: the only reality with which it deals is the correspondences between the attested languages”; “Two languages are said to be related when they are both the result of two different evolutions of the same language that was previously in use. The set of related languages constitutes the so-called language family,” “the method of comparative grammar is applicable not to restore the Indo-European language as it was spoken, but only to establish a certain system of correspondences between historically attested languages.” “The totality of these correspondences constitutes what is called the Indo-European language.”

In these reasonings of A. Meillet, despite their sobriety and reasonableness, two features characteristic of the positivism of the late 19th century were reflected: firstly, the fear of broader and bolder constructions, the rejection of attempts at research going back centuries (which is not the teacher A. Meillet was afraid of - F. de Saussure, who brilliantly outlined the “laryngeal hypothesis”), and, secondly, anti-historicism. If we do not recognize the real existence of the base language as the source of the existence of related languages that continue it in the future, then we should generally abandon the entire concept of the comparative historical method; if we recognize, as Meillet says, that “two languages are called related when they are both the result of two different evolutions of the same language that was previously in use,” then we must try to investigate this “previously in use source language” , using the data of living languages and dialects, and the testimony of ancient written monuments and using all the possibilities of correct reconstructions, taking into account the data of the development of the people who bear these linguistic facts.

If it is impossible to reconstruct the base language completely, then it is possible to achieve a reconstruction of its grammatical and phonetic structure and, to some extent, the basic fund of its vocabulary.

What is the attitude of Soviet linguistics to the comparative historical method and to the genealogical classification of languages as a conclusion from comparative historical studies of languages?

1) The related community of languages follows from the fact that such languages originate from one base language (or group proto-language) through its disintegration due to the fragmentation of the carrier community. However, this is a long and contradictory process, and not a consequence of the “splitting of a branch in two” of a given language, as A. Schleicher thought. Thus, the study of the historical development of a given language or group of given languages is possible only against the background of the historical fate of the population that was the speaker of a given language or dialect.

2) Language is the basis not only of “a set of... correspondences” (Meye), but of a real, historically existing language that cannot be completely restored, but the basic data of its phonetics, grammar and vocabulary (to the least extent) can be restored, which was brilliantly confirmed by the data the Hittite language in relation to the algebraic reconstruction of F. de Saussure; behind the totality of correspondences, the position of the reconstructive model should be preserved.

3) What and how can and should be compared in the comparative historical study of languages?

a) It is necessary to compare words, but not only words and not all words, and not by their random consonances.

The “coincidence” of words in different languages with the same or similar sound and meaning cannot prove anything, since, firstly, this may be a consequence of borrowing (for example, the presence of the word factory as fabrique, Fabrik, fabriq, factories, fabrika etc. in a variety of languages) or the result of a random coincidence: “so, in English and New Persian the same combination of articulations bad means “bad,” and yet the Persian word has nothing in common with the English: it is a pure “play of nature.” “A cumulative examination of English vocabulary and New Persian vocabulary shows that no conclusions can be drawn from this fact.”

b) You can and should take words from the languages being compared, but only those that historically can relate to the era of the “base language”. Since the existence of a language-base should be assumed in a communal-tribal system, it is clear that the artificially created word of the era of capitalism factory not suitable for this. What words are suitable for such a comparison? First of all, the names of kinship, these words in that distant era were the most important for determining the structure of society, some of them have survived to this day as elements of the main vocabulary of related languages (mother, brother, sister), some of them have already been “circulated”, i.e. they have passed into the passive dictionary (brother-in-law, daughter-in-law, yatras), but for comparative analysis both words are suitable; For example, yatras, or yatrov, -“brother-in-law’s wife” is a word that has parallels in Old Church Slavonic, Serbian, Slovenian, Czech and Polish, where jetrew and earlier jetry show a nasal vowel, which connects this root with words womb, entrails, internal[ness] , with French entrailles and so on.

Numerals (up to ten), some native pronouns, words denoting parts of the body, and then the names of some animals, plants, and tools are also suitable for comparison, but here there may be significant differences between languages, since during migrations and communication with other peoples, only words could be lost, others could be replaced by strangers (for example, horse instead of horse), still others - simply borrow.

The table placed on p. 406, shows lexical and phonetic correspondences in various Indo-European languages under the headings of the specified words.

4) “Coincidences” of the roots of words or even words alone are not enough to determine the relationship of languages; as already in the 18th century. wrote V. Jonze, “coincidences” are also necessary in the grammatical design of words. We are talking specifically about grammatical design, and not about the presence of the same or similar grammatical categories in languages. Thus, the category of verbal aspect is clearly expressed in Slavic languages and in some African languages; however, this is expressed materially (in the sense of grammatical methods and sound design) in completely different ways. Therefore, based on this “coincidence” between these languages, there can be no talk of kinship.

But if the same grammatical meanings are expressed in languages in the same way and in the corresponding sound design, then this indicates more than anything about the relationship of these languages, for example:

Russian language	Old Russian language	Sanskrit	Greek (Doric) language	Latin language	Gothic language
take	kerzht	bharanti	pheronti	ferunt	bairand

where not only roots, but also grammatical inflections – ut - live , - anti, - onti, - unt, - and exactly correspond to each other and go back to one common source [although the meaning of this word in other languages differs from Slavic - “to carry”].

The importance of the criterion of grammatical correspondence lies in the fact that if words can be borrowed (which happens most often), sometimes grammatical models of words (associated with certain derivational affixes), then inflectional forms, as a rule, cannot be borrowed. Therefore, a comparative comparison of case and verbal-personal inflections most likely leads to the desired result.

5) When comparing languages, the sound design of the one being compared plays a very important role. Without comparative phonetics there can be no comparative linguistics. As already stated above, the complete sound coincidence of the forms of words in different languages cannot show or prove anything. On the contrary, partial coincidence of sounds and partial divergence, provided there are regular sound correspondences, may be the most reliable criterion for the relationship of languages. When matching the Latin form ferunt and Russian take at first glance it is difficult to detect commonalities. But if we are convinced that the initial Slavic b in Latin regularly corresponds f (brother – frater, bob – faba, take –ferunt etc.), then the sound correspondence of the initial Latin f Slavic b becomes clear. As for inflections, the correspondence of Russian has already been indicated above at before the consonant of Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian and (i.e. nasal O ) in the presence of combinations vowel + nasal consonant + consonant (or at the end of a word) in other Indo-European languages, since such combinations in these languages did not produce nasal vowels, but were preserved in the form – unt, - ont(i), - and and so on.

The establishment of regular “sound correspondences” is one of the first rules of the comparative historical methodology for studying related languages.

6) As for the meanings of the words being compared, they also do not necessarily have to coincide completely, but can diverge according to the laws of polysemy.

So, in Slavic languages city, city, grod etc. mean “a settlement of a certain type”, and shore, bridge, bryag, brzeg, breg etc. mean “shore”, but the words corresponding to them in other related languages Garten And Berg(in German) mean "garden" and "mountain". It's not hard to guess how *gord – originally “enclosed place” could take on the meaning “garden”, and *berg could take on the meaning of any “shore” with or without a mountain, or, conversely, the meaning of any “mountain” near water or without it. It happens that the meaning of the same words does not change when related languages diverge (cf. Russian beard and corresponding German Bart"beard" or Russian head and corresponding Lithuanian galva“head”, etc.).

7) When establishing sound correspondences, it is necessary to take into account historical sound changes, which, due to the internal laws of development of each language, manifest themselves in the latter in the form of “phonetic laws” (see Chapter VII, § 85).

So, it is very tempting to compare the Russian word go away and Norwegian gate –"Street". However, this comparison does not give anything, as B. A. Serebrennikov correctly notes, since in Germanic languages (to which Norwegian belongs) voiced plosives (b,d, g) cannot be primary due to the “movement of consonants,” i.e., the historically valid phonetic law. On the contrary, at first glance, such difficultly comparable words as Russian wife and Norwegian kona, can be easily brought into conformity if you know that in the Scandinavian Germanic languages [k] comes from [g], and in the Slavic [g] in the position before the front vowels changed into [zh], thereby the Norwegian kona and Russian wife go back to the same word; Wed Greek gyne“woman”, where there was no movement of consonants, as in Germanic, or “palatalization” of [g] in [zh] before front vowels, as in Slavic.

If we know the phonetic laws of development of these languages, then we cannot be “scared” by such comparisons as Russian I and Scandinavian ik or Russian one hundred and Greek hekaton.

8) How is the reconstruction of the archetype, or primordial form, carried out in the comparative historical analysis of languages?

To do this you need:

a) Compare both root and affix elements of words.

b) Compare data from written monuments of dead languages with data from living languages and dialects (testament of A. Kh. Vostokov).

c) Make comparisons using the “expanding circles” method, i.e., going from comparing the closest related languages to the kinship of groups and families (for example, compare Russian with Ukrainian, East Slavic languages with other Slavic groups, Slavic with Baltic, Balto-Slavic – with other Indo-European ones (testament of R. Rusk).

d) If we observe in closely related languages, for example, such a correspondence as Russian - head, Bulgarian – chapter, Polish – glowa(which is supported by other similar cases like gold, gold, zloto, and crow, corvid, wrona, and other regular correspondences), then the question arises: what form did the archetype (protoform) of these words of related languages have? Hardly any of the above: these phenomena are parallel, and not ascending to each other. The key to solving this issue lies, firstly, in comparison with other “circles” of related languages, for example with Lithuanian galvd –"head", with German gold –“golden” or again with Lithuanian arn - “crow”, and secondly, in summing up this sound change (the fate of the groups *tolt, tort in Slavic languages) under a more general law, in this case under the “law of open syllables”, according to which in Slavic languages sound groups O , e before [l], [r] between consonants they had to give either “full consonance” (two vowels around or [r], as in Russian), or metathesis (as in Polish), or metathesis with vowel lengthening (from where O > A, as in Bulgarian).

9) In the comparative historical study of languages, it is necessary to highlight borrowings. On the one hand, they do not give anything comparative (see above about the word factory); on the other hand, borrowings, while remaining in an unchanged phonetic form in the borrowing language, can preserve the archetype or generally more ancient appearance of these roots and words, since the borrowing language did not undergo those phonetic changes that are characteristic of the language from which the borrowing occurred. So, for example, the full-voiced Russian word oatmeal and a word that reflects the result of the disappearance of former nasal vowels, tow available in the form of ancient borrowing talkkuna And kuontalo in the Finnish language, where the form of these words is preserved, which is closer to archetypes. Hungarian szalma –“straw” indicates ancient connections between the Ugrians (Hungarians) and the Eastern Slavs in the era before the formation of full-vowel combinations in the East Slavic languages and confirms the reconstruction of the Russian word straw in common Slavic in the form *solma .

10) Without the correct reconstruction technique, it is impossible to establish reliable etymologies. On the difficulties of establishing correct etymologies and the role of comparative historical study of languages and reconstruction, in particular in etymological studies, see the analysis of the etymology of the word millet in the course “Introduction to Linguistics” by L. A. Bulakhovsky (1953, p. 166).

The results of almost two centuries of research into languages using the method of comparative historical linguistics are summarized in a scheme for the genealogical classification of languages.

It has already been said above about the unevenness of knowledge about the languages of different families. Therefore, some families, more studied, are presented in more detail, while other families, less known, are given in the form of drier lists.

Families of languages are divided into branches, groups, subgroups, sub-subgroups of related languages. Each stage of fragmentation unites languages that are closer than the previous, more general one. Thus, East Slavic languages show greater closeness than Slavic languages in general, and Slavic languages show greater closeness than Indo-European languages.

When listing languages within a group and groups within a family, the living languages are listed first, and then the dead.

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

§ 78. GENEALOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES

I. INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

(over 96 living languages in total)

1) Hindi and Urdu (sometimes united under the common name Hindustani) are two varieties of one modern Indian literary language; Urdu is the official language of Pakistan, written in the Arabic alphabet; Hindi (the official language of India) is based on the Old Indian Devanagari script.

2) Bengali.

3) Punjabi.

4) Lahnda(lendi).

5) Sindhi.

6) Rajasthani

7) Gujarati.

8) Marathi.

9) Sinhala.

10) Nepali (eastern Pahari, in Nepal).

11) B ihari.

12) Oriya (otherwise: audri, utkali, in eastern India).

13) Assamese.

14) Gypsy, which emerged as a result of resettlement and migration in the 5th – 10th centuries. n. e.

15) Kashmiri and other Dardic languages.

16) Vedic is the language of the most ancient sacred books of the Indians - the Vedas, which were formed in the first half of the second millennium BC. e. (recorded later).

17) Sanskrit. “Classical” literary language of the ancient Indians from the 3rd century. BC e. to the 7th century n. e. (literally Sanskrit samskrta means “processed”, as opposed to prakrta – “not normalized” spoken language); There remains a rich literature in Sanskrit, religious and secular (epic, drama); The first Sanskrit grammar of the 4th century. BC e. Panini, reworked in the 13th century. n. e. Vopadeva.

18) Pali is a Central Indian literary and religious language of the medieval era.

19) Prakrits - various colloquial Central Indian dialects, from which modern Indian languages originated; replicas of minor persons in Sanskrit drama are written in Prakrits.

(more than 10 languages; finds greatest affinity with the Indian group, with which it unites into a common Indo-Iranian, or Aryan, group;

ar ya - a tribal self-name in the most ancient monuments, from it both ran, and Alan - the self-name of the Scythians)

1) Persian (Farsi) - writing based on the Arabic alphabet; for Old Persian and Middle Persian, see below.

2) Dari (Farsi-Kabuli) is the literary language of Afghanistan, along with Pashto.

3) Pashto (Pashto, Afghan) - a literary language, since the 30s. the official language of Afghanistan.

4) Baluchi (Baluchi).

5) Tajik.

6) Kurdish.

7) Ossetian; dialects: Iron (eastern) and Digor (western). Ossetians are descendants of the Alans-Scythians.

8) Tat – Tats are divided into Tat-Muslims and “Mountain Jews”.

9) Talysh.

10) Caspian (Gilan, Mazanderan) dialects.

11) Pamir languages (Shugnan, Rushan, Bartang, Capykol, Khuf, Oroshor, Yazgulyam, Ishkashim, Wakhan) are the unwritten languages of the Pamirs.

12) Yagnobsky.

13) Old Persian - the language of cuneiform inscriptions from the Achaemenid era (Darius, Xerxes, etc.) VI - IV centuries. BC e.

14) Avestan is another ancient Iranian language that came down in the Middle Persian copies of the sacred book “Avesta”, which contains religious texts of the cult of the Zoroastrians, followers of Zoroaster (in Greek: Zoroaster).

15) Pahlavi – Middle Persian language III – IX centuries. n. e., preserved in the translation of the Avesta (this translation is called “Zend”, from which for a long time the Avestan language itself was incorrectly called Zend).

16) Median - a genus of northwestern Iranian dialects; no written monuments have survived.

17) Parthian is one of the Middle Persian languages of the 3rd century. BC e. – III century n. e., distributed in Parthia to the southeast of the Caspian Sea.

18) Sogdian - the language of Sogdiana in the Zeravshan valley, first millennium AD. e.; ancestor of the Yaghnobi language.

19) Khorezm - the language of Khorezm along the lower reaches of the Amu Darya; the first – the beginning of the second millennium AD. e.

20) Scythian - the language of the Scythians (Alans), who lived in the steppes along the northern shore of the Black Sea and east to the borders of China in the first millennium BC. e. and the first millennium AD e.; preserved in proper names in Greek transmission; ancestor of the Ossetian language.

21) Bactrian (Kushan) - the language of ancient Bactria along the upper reaches of the Amu Darya, as well as the language of the Kushan Kingdom; beginning of the first millennium AD

22) Sak (Khotan) – in Central Asia and Chinese Turkestan; from V – X centuries. n. e. texts written in the Indian Brahmi script remained.

Note. Most modern Iranian scholars divide the living and dead Iranian languages into the following groups:

A. Western

1) Southwestern: ancient and middle Persian, modern Persian, Tajik, Tat and some others.

2) Northwestern: Median, Parthian, Baluchi (Baluchi), Kurdish, Talysh and other Caspian.

B. Eastern

1) Southeast: Saka (Khotan), Pashto (Pashto), Pamir.

2) Northeastern: Scythian, Sogdian, Khorezmian, Ossetian, Yaghnobi.

3. Slavic group

A. Eastern subgroup

1) Russian; adverbs: northern (Veliko) Russian - “okayushchee” and southern (Veliko) Russian - “akayuschie”; The Russian literary language developed on the basis of the transitional dialects of Moscow and its environs, where from the south and southeast the Tula, Kursk, Oryol and Ryazan dialects spread features that were alien to the northern dialects, which were the dialectal basis of the Moscow dialect, and supplanted some features of the latter, as well as by mastering elements of the Church Slavonic literary language; in addition, into the Russian literary language in the 16th–18th centuries. various foreign language elements were included; writing based on the Russian alphabet, processed from the Slavic - “Cyrillic” under Peter the Great; the most ancient monuments of the 11th century. (they also apply to the Ukrainian and Belarusian languages); the state language of the Russian Federation, an interethnic language for communication between the peoples of the Russian Federation and adjacent territories of the former USSR, one of the world languages.

2) Ukrainian (or Ukrainian; before the revolution of 1917 - Little Russian or Little Russian; three main dialects: northern, south-eastern, south-western; the literary language begins to take shape from the 14th century, the modern literary language exists from the end of the 18th century to base of the Dnieper dialects of the south-eastern dialect; writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet in its post-Petrine variety.

3) Belarusian; writing since the 14th century. based on the Cyrillic alphabet. Dialects are northeastern and southwestern; literary language - based on Central Belarusian dialects. B. Southern subgroup

4) Bulgarian - formed in the process of contact of Slavic dialects with the language of the Kama Bulgars, from which it received its name; writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet; the most ancient monuments from the 10th century. n. e.

5) Macedonian.

6) Serbo-Croatian; Serbs have a letter based on the Cyrillic alphabet, Croats have a letter based on Latin; the most ancient monuments from the 12th century.

7) Slovenian; writing based on the Latin alphabet; the most ancient monuments from the 10th–11th centuries.

8) Old Church Slavonic (or Old Church Slavic) - the common literary language of the Slavs of the medieval period, which arose on the basis of Thessalonica dialects of the Old Bulgarian language in connection with the introduction of writing for the Slavs (two alphabets: Glagolitic and Cyrillic) and the translation of church books to promote Christianity among the Slavs in the 9th century –X centuries n. e., was replaced by Latin among the Western Slavs due to Western influence and the transition to Catholicism; in the form of Church Slavonic - an integral element of the Russian literary language.

B. Western subgroup

9) Czech; writing based on the Latin alphabet; the most ancient monuments from the 13th century.

10) Slovak; writing based on the Latin alphabet.

11) Polish; writing based on the Latin alphabet; the most ancient monuments from the 14th century.

12) Kashubian; lost its independence and became a dialect of the Polish language.

13) Lusatian (abroad: Sorabian, Vendian); two variants: Upper Sorbian (or eastern and Lower Sorbian (or western); writing based on the Latin alphabet.

14) Polabsky - became extinct in the 18th century, was distributed on both banks of the river. Labs (Elbe) in Germany.

15) Pomeranian dialects - died out in the medieval period due to forced Germanization; were distributed along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in Pomerania (Pomerania).

4. Baltic group

1) Lithuanian; writing based on the Latin alphabet; monuments from the 14th century

2) Latvian; writing based on the Latin alphabet; monuments from the 14th century

4) Prussian – died out in the 17th century. in connection with forced Germanization; territory of former East Prussia; monuments of the XIV–XVII centuries.

5) Yatvingian, Curonian and other languages in the territory of Lithuania and Latvia, extinct by the 17th–18th centuries.

5. German group

A. North Germanic (Scandinavian) subgroup

1) Danish; writing based on the Latin alphabet; served as a literary language for Norway until the end of the 19th century.

2) Swedish; writing based on the Latin alphabet.

3) Norwegian; writing based on the Latin alphabet, originally Danish, since the literary language of the Norwegians until the end of the 19th century. was Danish. In modern Norway there are two forms of the literary language: Riksmål (otherwise: Bokmål) - bookish, closer to Danish, Ilansmål (otherwise: Nynorsk), closer to the Norwegian dialects.

4) Icelandic; writing based on the Latin alphabet; written monuments from the 13th century. (“sagas”)

5) Faroese.

B. West German subgroup

6) English; literary English developed in the 16th century. n. e. based on the London dialect; V–XI centuries – Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), XI–XVI centuries. - Middle English and from the 16th century. – New England; writing based on the Latin alphabet (unchanged); written monuments from the 7th century; language of international significance.

7) Dutch (Dutch) with Flemish; writing on a Latin basis; In the Republic of South Africa live the Boers, immigrants from Holland, who speak a variety of the Dutch language, the Boer language (otherwise: Afrikaans).

8) Frisian; monuments from the 14th century

9) German; two adverbs; Low German (northern, Niederdeutsch or Plattdeutsch) and High German (southern, Hochdeutsch); the literary language was formed on the basis of southern German dialects, but with many northern features (especially in pronunciation), but still does not represent unity; in the VIII–XI centuries. – Old High German, in the XII–XV centuries. – Middle High German, from the 16th century. – New High German, developed in the Saxon offices and translations of Luther and his associates; writing based on the Latin alphabet in two varieties: Gothic and Antiqua; one of the largest languages in the world.

10) Yidish (or Yiddish, New Hebrew) – various High German dialects mixed with elements of Hebrew, Slavic and other languages.

B. East German subgroup

11) Gothic, which existed in two dialects. Visigothic - served the medieval Gothic state in Spain and Northern Italy; had a writing system based on the Gothic alphabet, compiled by Bishop Wulfila in the 4th century. n. e. for the translation of the Gospel, which is the most ancient monument of the Germanic languages. Ostrogothic is the language of the eastern Goths, who lived in the early Middle Ages on the Black Sea coast and in the southern Dnieper region; existed until the 16th century. in Crimea, thanks to which a small dictionary compiled by the Dutch traveler Busbeck has been preserved.

12) Burgundian, Vandal, Gepid, Herulian - the languages of the ancient Germanic tribes in East Germany.

6. Roman group

(before the collapse of the Roman Empire and the formation of Romance languages - Italic)

1) French; the literary language had developed by the 16th century. based on the Ile-de-France dialect centered in Paris; French dialects developed at the beginning of the Middle Ages as a result of crossing the folk (vulgar) Latin of the conquerors of the Romans and the language of the conquered natives—the Gauls—Gallic; writing based on the Latin alphabet; the most ancient monuments from the 9th century. n. e.; Middle French period from the 9th to the 15th centuries, New French - from the 16th century. The French language acquired international significance before other European languages.

2) Provençal (Occitan); minority language of southeastern France (Provence); as a literary one existed in the Middle Ages (lyrics of the troubadours) and survived until the end of the 19th century.

3) Italian; the literary language developed on the basis of Tuscan dialects, and in particular the dialect of Florence, which arose due to the crossing of vulgar Latin with the languages of the mixed population of medieval Italy; written in the Latin alphabet, historically the first national language in Europe.

4) Sardinian (or Sardinian).

5) Spanish; developed in Europe as a result of crossing folk (vulgar) Latin with the languages of the native population of the Roman province of Iberia; writing based on the Latin alphabet (the same applies to Catalan and Portuguese).

6) Galician.

7) Catalan.

8) Portuguese.

9) Romanian; developed as a result of crossing folk (vulgar) Latin and the languages of the natives of the Roman province of Dacia; writing based on the Latin alphabet.

10) Moldavian (a variety of Romanian); writing based on the Russian alphabet.

11) Macedonian-Romanian (Aromanian).

12) Romansh is a language of a national minority; Since 1938 it has been recognized as one of the four official languages of Switzerland.

13) Creole languages - crossed Romance languages with local languages (Haitian, Mauritian, Seychelles, Senegalese, Papiamento, etc.).

Dead (Italian):

14) Latin - the literary state language of Rome in the republican and imperial era (III century BC - first centuries of the Middle Ages); the language of rich literary monuments, epic, lyrical and dramatic, historical prose , legal documents and oratory; the most ancient monuments from the 6th century. BC e.; The first description of the Latin language is by Varro, 1st century. BC e.; classical grammar of Donatus - 4th century. n. e.; the literary language of the Western European Middle Ages and the language of the Catholic Church; along with ancient Greek, it is a source of international terminology.

15) Medieval Vulgar Latin - folk Latin dialects of the early Middle Ages, which, when crossed with the native languages of the Roman provinces of Gaul and Iberia , Dacia, etc. gave rise to the Romance languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, etc.

16) Oscan, Umbrian, Sabelian and other Italic dialects were preserved in fragmentary written monuments of the last centuries BC. e.

7. Celtic group

A. Goidelic subgroup

1) Irish; written monuments from the 4th century. n. e. (Oghamic letter) and from the 7th century. (Latin based); is still literary today.

2) Scottish (Gaelic).

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

B. Brythonic subgroup

4) Breton; Bretons (formerly Britons) moved after the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons from the British Isles to the continent of Europe.

5) Welsh (Welsh).

6) Cornish; in Cornwall, a peninsula in southwest England.

B. Gallic subgroup

7) Gallic; extinct since the formation of the French language; was widespread in Gaul, Northern Italy, the Balkans and even Asia Minor.

8. Greek group

1) Modern Greek, from the 12th century.

2) Ancient Greek, X century. BC e. – V century n. e.; Ionic–Attic dialects from the 7th–6th centuries. BC e.; Achaean (Arcado-Cypriot) dialects from the 5th century. BC e., northeastern (Boeotian, Thessalian, Lesbian, Aeolian) dialects from the 7th century. BC e. and Western (Dorian, Epirus, Cretan) dialects; the most ancient monuments from the 9th century. BC e. (Homer's poems, epigraphy); from the 4th century BC e. a common literary language, Koine, based on the Attic dialect, centered in Athens; the language of rich literary monuments, epic, lyrical and dramatic, philosophical and historical prose; from III–II centuries. BC e. works of Alexandrian grammarians; along with Latin, it is a source of international terminology.

3) Middle Greek, or Byzantine, is the state literary language of Byzantium from the first centuries AD. e. until the 15th century; the language of monuments – historical, religious and artistic.

9. Albanian group

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

10. Armenian group

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

11. Hittite-Luwian (Anatolian) group

1) Hittite (Hittite-Nesite, known from cuneiform monuments of the 18th–13th centuries BC; the language of the Hittite state in Asia Minor.

2) Luwian in Asia Minor (XIV–XIII centuries BC).

3) Palaysky

4) Carian

5) Lydian - Anatolian languages of ancient times.

6)Lycian

12. Tocharian group

1) Tocharian A (Turfan, Karashar) - in Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang).

2) Tocharian B (Kuchansky) – in the same place; in Kucha until the 7th century. n. e.

Known from manuscripts around the 5th–8th centuries. n. e. based on the Indian Brahmi script discovered during excavations in the 20th century.

Note 1. For a number of reasons, the following groups of Indo-European languages are closer together: Indo-Iranian (Aryan), Slavic-Baltic and Italo-Celtic.

Note 2. Indo-Iranian and Slavic-Baltic languages can be combined into the section of sat?m-languages, as opposed to others belonging to kentom-languages; this division is carried out according to the fate of the Indo-European *g And *k mid-palatal, which in the first place gave anterior lingual fricatives (catam, simtas, sto - “one hundred”), and in the second remained posterior lingual plosives; in Germanic due to the movement of consonants - fricatives (hekaton, kentom(later centum), hundert etc. – “one hundred”).

Note 3. The question of whether Venetian, Messapian, obviously, the Illyrian group (in Italy), Phrygian, Thracian (in the Balkans) belongs to the Indo-European languages can generally be considered resolved; the languages Pelasgian (Peloponnese before the Greeks), Etruscan (in Italy before the Romans), Ligurian (in Gaul) have not yet been clarified in their relationship to the Indo-European languages.

A. Western group: Abkhazian-Adyghe languages

1. Abkhaz subgroup

1) Abkhazian; dialects: Bzyb - northern and Abzhuy (or Kadorsky) - southern; writing until 1954 was based on the Georgian alphabet, now it is based on the Russian alphabet.

2) Abaza; writing based on the Russian alphabet.

2 . Circassian subgroup

1) Adyghe.

2) Kabardian (Kabardino-Circassian).

3) Ubykh (Ubykhs emigrated to Turkey under tsarism).

B. Eastern group: Nakh-Dagestan languages

1. Nakh subgroup

1) Chechen have a written language based on Russian.

2) Ingush

3) Batsbiysky (Tsova-Tushinsky).

2. Dagestan subgroup

1) Avar.

2) Darginsky.

3) Laksky.

4) Lezginsky.

5) Tabasaran.

These five languages are written on Russian basis. The remaining languages are unwritten:

6) Andean.

7) Karatinsky.

8) Tindinsky.

9) Chamalinsky.

10) Bagvalinsky.

11) Akhvakhsky.

12) Botlikhsky.

13) Godoberinsky.

14) Tsezsky.

15) Bezhtinsky.

16) Khvarshinsky.

17) Gunzibsky.

18) Ginukhsky.

19) Tsakhursky.

20) Rutulsky.

21) Agulsky.

22) Archinsky.

23) Budukhsky.

24) Kryzsky.

25) Udinsky.

26) Khinalugsky.

3. Southern group: Kartvelian (Iberian) languages

1) Megrelian.

2) Lazsky (Chansky).

3) Georgian: writing in the Georgian alphabet from the 5th century. n. e., rich literary monuments of the Middle Ages; dialects: Khevsur, Kartli, Imeretian, Gurian, Kakheti, Adjarian, etc.

4) Svansky.

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

III. OUT OF GROUP – BASQUE LANGUAGE

IV. URAL LANGUAGES

1. FINNO-UGRIAN (UGRO-FINNISH) LANGUAGES

A. Ugric branch

1) Hungarian, written on a Latin basis.

2) Mansi (Vogul); writing on a Russian basis (from the 30s of the XX century).

3) Khanty (Ostyak); writing on a Russian basis (from the 30s of the XX century).

B. Baltic-Finnish branch

1) Finnish (Suomi); writing based on the Latin alphabet.

2) Estonian; writing based on the Latin alphabet.

3) Izhora.

4) Karelian.

5) Vepsian.

6) Vodsky.

7) Livsky.

8) Sami (Sami, Lapp).

B. Perm branch

1) Komi-Zyryansky.

2) Komi-Permyak.

3) Udmurt.

G. Volga branch

1) Mari (Mari, Cheremissky), dialects: Nagornoye on the right bank of the Volga and Meadow on the left.

2) Mordovian: two independent languages: Erzya and Moksha.

Note. Finnish and Estonian languages are written using the Latin alphabet; among the Mari and Mordovians, it has long been based on the Russian alphabet; in Komi-Zyryan, Udmurt and Komi-Permyak - on a Russian basis (since the 30s of the 20th century).

2. SAMODYAN LANGUAGES

1) Nenets (Yurako-Samoyed).

2) Nganasan (Tavgian).

3) Enets (Yenisei - Samoyed).

4) Selkup (Ostyak-Samoyed).

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

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 - used as a common language for the Caucasian peoples of Dagestan.

8) Nogai.

9) Karaite.

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

11) Bashkir.

12) Altai (Oirot).

13) Shorsky with the Kondoma and Mrassky dialects.

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

15) Tuvan.

16) Yakut.

17) Dolgansky.

18) Kazakh.

19) Kyrgyz.

20) Uzbek.

21) Karakalpak.

22) Uyghur (new Uyghur).

23) Chuvash, a descendant of the language of the Kama Bulgars, written 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) Pechenezh - the language of the steppe nomads of the 9th–11th centuries. n. e.

26) Polovtsian (Cuman) – according to the Polovtsian-Latin dictionary compiled by Italians, the language of the steppe nomads of the 11th–14th centuries.

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

28) Chagatai – literary language of the 15th–16th centuries. n. e. 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, mixing with the Slavs, became a component (superstrate) of the Bulgarian language.

30) Khazar - the language of a large state of the 7th–10th centuries. n. e., in the region of the lower reaches of the Volga and Don, close to the Bulgarian.

Note 1: All living Turkic languages except Turkish have been written since 1938–1939. based on the Russian alphabet, until then for several years - on the basis of Latin, and many even earlier - on the basis of Arabic (Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar, Tatar and all Central Asian, and foreign Uyghurs to this day). In sovereign Azerbaijan, the question of switching to the Latin alphabet has been raised again.

Note 2. The question of the grouping of Turkic-Tatar languages has not yet been finally resolved by science; according to F.E. Korsh, three groups: Northern, Southeastern and Southwestern; according to V. A. Bogoroditsky, eight groups: North-Eastern, Abakan, Altai, West Siberian, Volga-Ural, Central Asian, South-Western (Turkish) and Chuvash; according to V. Schmidt, three groups: Southern, Western, Eastern, while V. Schmidt classifies the Yakut as Mongolian. Other classifications were also proposed - by V.V. Radlov, A.N. Samoilovich, G.J. Ramstedt, S.E. Malov, M. Ryasyanen and others.

In 1952, N.A. Baskakov proposed a new classification scheme for Turkic languages, which the author thinks of as “periodization of the history of the development of peoples and Turkic languages” (see: “Izvestia of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Department of Literature and Language,” vol. XI, no. 2), where ancient divisions intersect with new ones and historical ones with geographical ones (see also: Baskakov N.A. Introduction to the study of Turkic languages. M., 1962; 2nd ed. - M., 1969).

2. MONGOLIAN LANGUAGES

1) Mongolian; the writing was based on the Mongolian alphabet, derived from the ancient Uyghurs; since 1945 based on the Russian alphabet.

2) Buryat; from the 30s XX century writing based on the Russian alphabet.

3) Kalmyk.

Note. There are a number of smaller languages (Dagur, Dongxiang, Mongolian, etc.), mainly in China (about 1.5 million), Manchuria and Afghanistan; No. 2 and 3 have been in use since the 30s. XX century writing based on the Russian alphabet, and until then, for several years - based on the Latin alphabet.

3. TUNGU-MANCHUR LANGUAGES

A. Siberian group

1) Evenki (Tungus), with Negidal and Solon.

2) Evensky (Lamutsky).

B. Manchu group

1) Manchu, dying out, had rich monuments of medieval writing in the Manchu alphabet.

2) Jurchen is a dead language, known from monuments of the 12th–16th centuries. (hieroglyphic writing modeled on Chinese)

V. Amur group

1) Nanai (Goldian), with Ulch.

2) Udean (Udege), with Oroch.

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

4. SEPARATE LANGUAGES OF THE FAR EAST, NOT PART OF ANY GROUPS

(presumably close to Altai)

1) Japanese; writing based on Chinese characters in the 8th century. n. e.; new phonetic-syllabic writing - katakana and hiragana.

2) Ryukyu is obviously related to Japanese.

3) Korean; the first monuments based on Chinese hieroglyphs from the 4th century. n. e., modified in the 7th century. n. e.; from the 15th century – Korean folk script “onmun” – alpha-syllabic system of graphics.

4) Ainsky, mainly on the Japanese islands, also on Sakhalin Island; has now fallen out of use and been replaced by Japanese.

VI. AFRASIAN (Semitic-Hamitic) LANGUAGES

1. Semitic branch

1) Arabic; international cult language of Islam; There are, in addition to classical Arabic, regional varieties (Sudanese, Egyptian, Syrian, etc.); writing in the Arabic alphabet (on the island of Malta - based on the Latin alphabet).

2) Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia.

3) Tigre, Tigrai, Gurage, Harari and other languages of Ethiopia.

4) Assyrian (Isorian), the language of isolated ethnic groups in the countries of the Middle East and some others.

5) Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian); known from cuneiform monuments of the ancient East.

6) Ugaritic.

7) Hebrew – the language of the most ancient parts of the Bible, the cult language of the Jewish church; existed as a colloquial language until the beginning of the century. e.; from the 19th century on its basis, Hebrew was developed, now the official language of the state of Israel (along with Arabic); writing based on the Hebrew alphabet.

8) Aramaic - the language of the later books of the Bible and the common language of the Near East in the era of the 3rd century. BC e. – IV century n. e.

9) Phoenician - the language of Phenicia, Carthage (Punic); dead bc e.; writing in the Phoenician alphabet, from which subsequent types of alphabetic writing originated.

10) Gez – the former literary language of Abyssinia in the 4th–15th centuries. n. e.; is now an iconic language in Ethiopia.

2. Egyptian branch

1) Ancient Egyptian is the language of ancient Egypt, known from hieroglyphic monuments and documents of demotic writing (from the end of the 4th millennium BC to the 5th century AD).

2) Coptic – a descendant of the ancient Egyptian language in the medieval period from the 3rd to the 17th centuries. n. e.; the cult language of the Orthodox Church in Egypt; Coptic writing, alphabet based on the Greek alphabet.

3. Berbero-Libyan branch

(Northern Africa and West-Central Africa)

1) Ghadames, Siua.

2) Tuareg (tamahak, ghat, taneslemt, etc.).

4) Kabyle.

5) Tashelhit.

6) Zenetian (reef, shauya, etc.).

7) Tamazight.

8) Western - Numidian.

9) Eastern Numidian (Libyan).

10) Guanches, which existed before the 18th century. languages (dialects?) of the aborigines of the Canary Islands.

4. Kushitic branch

(Northeast and East Africa)

1) Bedauye (beja).

2) Agavians (aungi, bilin, etc.).

3) Somalia.

4) Sidamo.

5) Afarsakho.

6) Opomo (galla).

7) Irakw, Ngomvia, etc.

5. Chadian branch

(Central Africa and West-Central Sub-Saharan Africa)

1) Hausa (belongs to the Western Chadic group) is the largest language of the branch.

2) Other Western Chadic: gwandara, ngizim, boleva, karekare, angas, sura, etc.

3) Central Chadian: tera, margi, mandara, kotoko, etc.

4) Eastern Chadians: m u b i, sokoro, etc.

VII. NIGERO-CONGO LANGUAGES

(territory of sub-Saharan Africa)

1. Mande languages

1) Bamana (bambara).

2) Soninka.

3) Soso (susu).

4) Maninka.

5) Kpelle, loma, mende, etc.

2. Atlantic languages

1) Fula (fulfulde).

5) Cognac.

6) Gola, dark, bull, etc.

3. Idjoid languages

Represented by the isolated Ijaw language (Nigeria).

4. Kru languages

6) Wobe et al.

5. Kwa languages

4) Adangme.

6) Background etc.

6. Dogon language

7. Gur languages

1) Bariba.

2) Senari.

3) Suppire.

4) Gurenne.

6) Kasem, kabre, kirma, etc.

8. Adamauan–Ubanyan languages

1) Longuda.

7) Ngbaka.

8) Sere, mundu, zande, etc.

9. Benue-Congo languages

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

2) Yoruba.

5) Jukun.

6) Efik, ibibio.

7) Kambari, birom.

9) Bamilex.

10) Com, lamnso, tikar.

11) Bantu (Duala, Ewondo, Teke, Bobangi, Lingala, Kikuyu, Nyamwezi, Gogo, Swahili, Congo, Luganda, Kinyarwanda, Chokwe, Luba, Nyakyusa, Nyanja, Yao, Mbundu, Herero, Shona, Sotho, Zulu, etc. ).

10. Kordofanian languages

1) Kanga, miri, tumtum.

6) Tegali, tagoy, etc.

VIII. Nilo-Saharan languages

(Central Africa, zone of geographical Sudan)

1) Songhai.

2) Saharan: kanuri, tuba, zaghava.

4) Mimi, mabang.

5) Eastern Sudanese: wilds, mahas, bale, suri, nera, ronge, tama, etc.

6) Nilotic: Shilluk, Luo, Alur, Acholi, Nuer, Bari, Teso, Naidi, Pakot, etc.

7) Central Sudanese: kresh, sinyar, capa, bagirmi, moru, madi, logbara, mangbetu.

8) Kunama.

10) Kuama, Como, etc.

IX. KHOISAN LANGUAGES

(in South Africa, Namibia, Angola)

1) Bushman languages (Kungauni, Hadza, etc.).

2) Hottentot languages (Nama, Koran, Sandawe, etc.).

X. CHINESE–TIBETAN LANGUAGES

A. Chinese branch

1) Chinese is the first most spoken language in the world. Folk Chinese speech is divided into a number of dialect groups, which differ greatly, primarily phonetically; Chinese dialects are usually defined geographically. A literary language based on the northern (Mandarin) dialect, which is also a dialect of the capital of China - Beijing. For thousands of years, the literary language of China was Wenyan, which was formed in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. and existed as a developing, but inaudibly incomprehensible bookish language until the 20th century, along with the literary language of Baihua, which is closer to the colloquial language. The latter became the basis of the modern unified literary Chinese language - Putonghua (based on Northern Baihua). The Chinese language is rich in written monuments from the 15th century. BC e., but their hieroglyphic nature makes it difficult to study the history of the Chinese language. Since 1913, along with hieroglyphic writing, a special syllabic-phonetic letter “Zhuan Zimu” was used on a national graphic basis for pronunciation identification of reading hieroglyphs by dialect. Later, over 100 different projects for the reform of Chinese writing were developed, of which the project of phonetic writing on a Latin graphic basis has the greatest promise.

2) Dungan; The Dungans of the People's Republic of China have Arabic writing, the Dungans of Central Asia and Kazakhstan initially have Chinese (hieroglyphic), and later Arabic; from 1927 - on a Latin basis, and from 1950 - on a Russian basis.

B. Tibeto-Burman branch

1) Tibetan.

2) Burmese.

XI. THAI LANGUAGES

1) Thai is the official language of Thailand (until 1939, the Siamese language of the state of Siam).

2) Laotian.

3) Zhuangsky.

4) Kadai (Li, Lakua, Lati, Gelao) - a group within the Thai or an independent link between the Thai and Austro-Nesian.

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

XII. MIA–YAO LANGUAGES

1) Miao, with dialects Hmong, Khmu, etc.

2) Yao, with dialects Mien, Kimmun, etc.

Note. These little-studied languages of Central and Southern China were previously included in the Sino-Tibetan family without sufficient grounds.

XIII. DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGES

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

1) Tamil.

2) Telugu.

3) Malayalam.

4) Kannada.

For all four there is a script based on (or type of) the Indian Brahmi script.

7) Brahui et al.

XIV. OUTSIDE THE FAMILY - BURUSHASKI LANGUAGE (VERSHIKI)

(mountainous regions of North-West India)

XV. AUSTROASIATIC LANGUAGES

1) Munda languages: Santali, Mundari, Ho, Birkhor, Juang, Sora, etc.

2) Khmer.

3) Palaung (rumai), etc.

4) Nicobar.

5) Vietnamese.

7) Malacca group (Semang, Semai, Sakai, etc.).

8) Nagali.

XVI. AUSTRONESIAN (MALAYAN-POLYNESIAN) LANGUAGES

A. Indonesian branch

1. Western group

1) Indonesian, got its name from the 30s. XX century, currently the official language of Indonesia.

2) Batak.

3) Cham (Cham, Jarai, etc.).

2. Javanese group

1) Javanese.

2) Sundanese.

3) Madurese.

4) Balinese.

3. Dayak or Kalimantan group

Dayaksky et al.

4. South Sulawesi group

1)Saddansky.

2) Buginese.

3) Makassarsky et al.

5. Filipino group

1) Tagalog (Tagalog).

2) Ilocano.

3)Bikolsky et al.

6. Madagascar group

Malagasy (formerly Malagasy).

Kawi is an ancient Javanese literary language; monuments from the 9th century n. e.; By origin, the Javanese language of the Indonesian branch was formed under the influence of the languages of India (Sanskrit).

B. Polynesian branch

1) Tonga and Niue.

2) Maori, Hawaiian, Tahitian, etc.

3) Samoa, uvea, etc.

B. Micronesian branch

2) Marshall.

3) Ponape.

4) Truk et al.

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

XVII. AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGES

Many minor indigenous languages of Central and Northern Australia, the most famous being Arantha. Apparently, the Tasmanian languages on the island form a separate family. Tasmania.

XVIII. PAPUA LANGUAGES

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

XIX. PALEOASIAN LANGUAGES

A. Chukotka-Kamchatka languages

1) Chukotka (Luoravetlansky).

2) Koryak (Nymylan).

3) Itelmen (Kamchadal).

4) Alyutorsky.

5) Kereksky.

B. Eskimo-Aleut languages

1) Eskimo (Yuit).

2) Aleutian (Unangan).

B. Yenisei languages

1) Ket. This language shows similarities with the Nakh-Dagestan and Tibetan-Chinese languages. Its bearers were not natives of the Yenisei, but came from the south and were assimilated by the surrounding people.

2) Kott, Aryan, Pumpokol and other extinct languages.

G. Nivkh (Gilyak) language

D. Yukagir-Chuvan languages

Extinct languages (dialects?): Yukaghir (formerly Odul), Chuvan, Omok. Two dialects have been preserved: Tundra and Kolyma (Sakha-Yakutia, Magadan region).

XX. INDIAN (AMERINDIAN) LANGUAGES

A. Language families of North America

1)Algonquian(Menbmini, Delaware, Yurok, Mi'kmaq, Fox, Cree, Ojibwa, Potawatomi, Illinois, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, Arapah, etc., as well as the extinct Massachusetts, Mohican, etc.).

2)Iroquois(Cherokee, Tuscarora, Seneca, Oneida, Huron, etc.).

3)Sioux(Crow, Hidatsa, Dakota, etc., along with several extinct ones - Ofo, Biloxi, Tutelo, Katavoa).

4)Gulf(Natchez, Tunica, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muskogee, etc.).

5)Na-Den(Haida, Tlingit, E I K; Athapaskan: Navajo, Tanana, Tolowa, Hupa, Mattole, etc.).

6)Mosanskie, including Wakashian(kwakiutl, nootka) and Salish(chehalis, skomish, kalispell, bellacula).

7)Penutian(Tsimshian, Chinook, Takelma, Klamath, Miuok, Zuni, etc., as well as many extinct ones).

8)Jocaltec(Karok, Shasta, Yana, Chimariko, Pomo, Salina, etc.).

B. Language families of Central America

1)Uto-Aztecan(Nahuatl, Shoshone, Hopi, Luiseño, Papago, Cora, etc.). This family is sometimes combined with languages Kiowa - Tano(Kiowa, Piro, Tewa, etc.) within the Tano-Aztec phylum.

2)Maya-Kiche(Mam, Qeqchi, Quiché, Yucatecan Maya, Ixil, Tzeltal, Tojolabal, Chol, Huastec, etc.). Before the arrival of Europeans, the Mayans reached a high level of culture and had their own hieroglyphic writing, partially deciphered.

3)Otomanga(Pame, Otomi, Popoloc, Mixtec, Trik, Zapotec, etc.).

4)Miskito - Matagalpa(Miskito, Sumo, Matagalpa, etc.). These languages are sometimes included in Chibchan–s k and e.

5)Chibchansky(caraque, frame, getar, guaimi, chiocha, etc.). Chibchan languages are also common in South America.

B. Language families of South America

1)Tupi-Guarani(Tupi, Guarani, Yuruna, Tupari, etc.).

2)Kechumara(Quechua is the language of the ancient Inca state in Peru, currently in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador; Aymara).

3)Arawak(chamikuro, chipaya, itene, huanyam, guana, etc.).

4)Araucanian(Mapuche, Picunche, Pehueich, etc.).

5)Pano–takana(Chacobo, Kashibo, Pano, Takana, Chama, etc.).

6)Same(canela, suya, xavante, kaingang, botocuda, etc.).

7)Caribbean(wayana, pemon, chaima, yaruma, etc.).

8) Alakaluf language and other isolated languages.

APPLICATION

NUMBER OF PEOPLES OF THE WORLD BY LANGUAGE FAMILIES AND GROUPS

(in thousand people, as of 1985)

I. Indo-European family 2,171,705

Indian group 761 075

Iranian group 80,415

Slavic group 290 475

Baltic group 4 850

German group 425 460

Roman group 576 230

Celtic group 9 505

Greek group 12,285

Albanian group 5 020

Armenian group 6 390

II. Caucasian languages 7,455

Abkhazian-Adyghe group 875

Nakh-Dagestan group 2 630

Kartvel group 3 950

III. Basque 1090

IV. Uralic languages 24,070

1. Finno-Ugric family 24,035

Ugric group 13 638

Finnish group 10,397

2. Samoyed family 35

V. Altai languages 297 550

1. Turkic family 109,965

2. Mongolian family 6,465

3. Tungus-Manchu family 4,700

4. Individual peoples of the Far East, not included in any groups

Japanese 121510

Koreans 64890

VI. Afroasiatic (Semitic-Hamitic) family 261,835

Semitic branch 193 225

Cushite branch 29,310

Berbero-Libyan branch 10,560

Chad branch 28,740

VII. Niger-Congo family 305,680

Mande 13,680

Atlantic 26780

Kru and kva 67430

Adamada–Ubangi 7320

Benue-Congolese 174,580

Kordofan 570

VIII. Nilo-Saharan family 31,340

Saharan 5 110

Eastern Sudanese and Nilotic 19,000

Songhai 2,290

Central Sudanese 3,910

Other 1,030

IX. Khoisan family 345

X. Chinese-Tibetan family 1,086,530

Chinese branch 1,024,170

Tibeto-Burman branch 62,360

XI. Thai family 66510

XII. Miao-Yao 8 410

XIII. Dravidian family 188,295

XIV. Burishi (burushaski) 50

XV. Austroasiatic family 74,295

XVI. Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian family) 237 105

XVII. Aboriginal Australians 160

XVIII. Papuan peoples 4,610

XIX. Paleo-Asian peoples 140

Chukotka-Kamchatka group 23

Eskimo-Aleut group 112

Yukaghirs 1

XX. Native American peoples 36,400

§ 79. TYPOLOGICAL (MORPHOLOGICAL) CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES

The typological classification of languages arose later than attempts at genealogical classification and was based on different premises.

The question of the “type of language” first arose among the romantics.

Romanticism was the ideological direction that, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. was supposed to formulate the ideological achievements of bourgeois nations; For the romantics, the main issue was the definition of national identity.

Romanticism is not only a literary movement, but also a worldview that was characteristic of representatives of the “new” culture and which replaced the feudal worldview.

Romanticism as a cultural and ideological movement was very contradictory. Along with the fact that it was romanticism that put forward the idea of nationality and the idea of historicism, this same direction, represented by other representatives, called for a return back to the outdated Middle Ages and admiration of the “old times.”

It was the romantics who first raised the question of the “type of language.” Their idea was this: the “spirit of the people” can manifest itself in myths, in art, in literature and in language. Hence the natural conclusion is that through language one can know the “spirit of the people.”

This is how a remarkable book of its kind, by the leader of the German romantics Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829), “On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians” (1809) arose.

Based on a comparison of languages made by W. Jonze, Friedrich Schlegel compared Sanskrit with Greek, Latin, as well as the Turkic languages and came to the conclusion: 1) that all languages can be divided into two types: inflectional and affixing, 2) that any language is born and remains in the same type and 3) that inflectional languages are characterized by “richness, strength and durability”, and affixative ones “from the very beginning lack living development”, they are characterized by “poverty, scarcity and artificiality”.

F. Schlegel divided languages into inflectional and affixing based on the presence or absence of root changes. He wrote: “In the Indian or Greek languages, every root is what its name says, and is like a living sprout; due to the fact that the concepts of relationships are expressed through internal change, a free field for development is given... However, everything that has come in this way from a simple root retains the imprint of kinship, is mutually connected and therefore preserved. Hence, on the one hand, the wealth, and on the other, the strength and durability of these languages.”

“...In languages that have affixation instead of inflection, the roots are not like that at all; they can be compared not with a fertile seed, but only with a pile of atoms... their connection is often mechanical - by external attachment. From their very origins, these languages lack the germ of living development... and these languages, no matter whether wild or cultivated, are always difficult, confused and often especially distinguished by their capricious, arbitrary, subjectively strange and vicious character.”

F. Schlegel had difficulty recognizing the presence of affixes in inflectional languages, and interpreted the formation of grammatical forms in these languages as internal inflection, thereby wanting to bring this “ideal type of language” under the Romantic formula: “unity in diversity.”

Already for F. Schlegel’s contemporaries it became clear that it was impossible to classify all the languages of the world into two types. Where should we include, for example, the Chinese language, where there is neither internal inflection nor regular affixation?

F. Schlegel’s brother, August-Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845), taking into account the objections of F. Bopp and other linguists, reworked the typological classification of his brother’s languages (“Notes on the Provençal language and literature”, 1818) and identified three types: 1 ) inflectional, 2) affixing, 3) amorphous (which is characteristic of the Chinese language), and in inflectional languages it showed two possibilities of grammatical structure: synthetic and analytical.

What were the Schlegel brothers right about and what were they wrong about? They were certainly right that the type of language should be deduced from its grammatical structure, and not from its vocabulary. Within the languages available to them, the Schlegel brothers correctly noted the difference between inflectional, agglutinating and isolating languages. However, the explanation of the structure of these languages and their evaluation cannot in any way be accepted. Firstly, in inflectional languages, not all grammar is reduced to internal inflection; in many inflected languages, affixation is the basis of grammar, and internal inflection plays a minor role; secondly, languages like Chinese cannot be called amorphous, since there can be no language without form, but form manifests itself in language in different ways (see Chapter IV, § 43); thirdly, the assessment of languages by the Schlegel brothers leads to incorrect discrimination of some languages at the expense of glorification of others; the romantics were not racists, but some of their discussions about languages and peoples were later used by racists.

Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) approached the question of types of languages much more deeply. Humboldt was a romantic idealist; in philology he was the same as his contemporary Hegel was in philosophy. Not all of Humboldt’s positions can be accepted, but his penetrating mind and exceptional erudition in languages force us to most carefully evaluate this major linguist philosopher of the 19th century.

W. Humboldt's basic premises about language can be reduced to the following provisions:

“A person is a person only thanks to language”; “there are no thoughts without language, human thinking becomes possible only thanks to language”; language is “the connecting link between one individual and another, between an individual and a nation, between the present and the past”; “languages cannot be considered as aggregates of words, each of them is a certain kind of system by which sound is connected with thought,” and “each of its individual elements exists only thanks to the other, and the whole owes its existence to a single all-pervading force.” Humboldt paid special attention to the issue of form in language: form is “constant and uniform in the activity of the spirit, transforming organic sound into the expression of thought”, “... there can be absolutely no formless matter in language”, form is “synthesis in spiritual unity individual linguistic elements, in contrast to it, considered as material content.” Humboldt distinguishes between the external form in language (these are sound, grammatical and etymological forms) and the internal form, as a single all-pervading force, that is, the expression of the “spirit of the people.”

As the main criterion for determining the type of language, Humboldt takes the thesis of “the mutual correct and energetic penetration of sound and ideological form into each other.”

Humboldt saw particular criteria for defining languages: 1) in expression in the language of relations (transfer of relational meanings; this was the main criterion for the Schlegels); 2) in the ways of sentence formation (which showed a special type of incorporating languages) and 3) in sound form.

In inflected languages, Humboldt saw not only “internal changes” of the “wonderful root”, but also “adding from the outside” (Anleitung), i.e., affixation, which is carried out differently than in agglutinating languages (a century later, this difference was formulated by E. Sapir, see above, Chapter IV, § 46). Humboldt explained that the Chinese language is not amorphous, but isolating, that is, the grammatical form in it is manifested differently than in inflectional and agglutinating languages: not by changing words, but by word order and intonation, thus this type is a typically analytical language.

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 incorporative.

The peculiarity of this type of languages (Indian in America, Paleo-Asian in Asia) is that the sentence is constructed as a complex word, that is, unformed root words are agglutinated into one common whole, which will be both a word and a sentence. Parts of this whole are both elements of a word and members of a sentence. The whole is a word-sentence, where the beginning is the subject, the end is the predicate, and additions with their definitions and circumstances are incorporated (inserted) into the middle. Humboldt explained this using a Mexican example: ninakakwa, Where ni –"I", naka –“ed-” (i.e. “eat”), a kwa – object "meat-". In Russian there are three grammatically formed words I eat meat and, conversely, such a fully formed combination as ant-eater, does not make a proposal. In order to show how it is possible to “incorporate” in this type of language, we give another example from the Chukchi language: you-ata-kaa-nmy-rkyn –“I kill fat deer”, literally: “I-fat-deer-killing-do”, where is the skeleton of the “body”: you-n-we-ryn, into which it is incorporated kaa –"deer" and its definition ata –"fat"; The Chukchi language does not tolerate any other arrangement, and the whole is a word-sentence, where the above order of elements is observed.

Attention to this type of language was later lost. Thus, the largest linguist of the mid-19th century. August Schleicher returned to the typological classification of the Schlegels, only with a new justification.

Schleicher was a student of Hegel and believed that everything that happens in life goes through three stages - thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Therefore, three types of languages can be outlined in three periods. Schleicher combined this dogmatic and formal interpretation of Hegel with the ideas of naturalism, which he gleaned from Darwin, and believed that language, like any organism, is born, grows and dies. Schleicher's typological classification does not provide for incorporating languages, but indicates three types in two possibilities: synthetic and analytical.

Schleicher's classification can be presented as follows:

1. Isolating languages

1) R – pure root (for example, Chinese).

2) R + r – root plus function word (e.g. Burmese).

2. Agglutinating tongues

Synthetic type:

1) Ra – suffixed type (for example, Turkic and Finnish

2) aR – prefixed type (for example, Bantu languages).

3) R– infused type (for example, Batsbi language).

Analytical type:

4) Ra (aR) + r – affiliated root plus function word (for example, Tibetan).

3. Inflected languages

Synthetic type:

1) Ra – pure internal inflection (for example, Semitic languages).

2) aR a (R a a) – internal and external inflection (for example, Indo-European, especially ancient languages).

Analytical type:

3) аR a (R a a) + r – inflected and affiliated root plus a function word (for example, Romance languages, English).

Schleicher considered isolating or amorphous languages to be archaic, agglutinating languages to be transitional, ancient inflectional languages to be an era of prosperity, and new inflectional (analytical) languages to be an era of decline.

Despite the captivating logic and clarity, Schleicher’s language typology scheme as a whole is a step back compared to Humboldt. The main drawback of this scheme is its “closedness,” which forces the variety of languages to be artificially forced into this Procrustean bed. However, due to its simplicity, this scheme has survived to this day and was once used by N. Ya. Marr.

Simultaneously with Schleicher, X. Steinthal (1821–1899) proposed his own classification of language types. He proceeded from the basic principles of V. Humboldt, but rethought his ideas in psychological terms. Steinthal divided all languages into languages with form and languages without form, and by form one should understand both the form of a word and the form of a sentence. Steinthal called languages without inflection "additive" languages: without form - the languages of Indochina, with form - Chinese. Steinthal defined languages with inflection as modifying, without form: 1) through repetition and prefixes - Polynesian, 2) through suffixes - Turkic, Mongolian, Finno-Ugric, 3) through incorporation - Indian; and modifying, with form: 1) through the addition of elements - the Egyptian language, 2) through internal inflection - Semitic languages and 3) through “true suffixes” - Indo-European languages.

This classification, like some subsequent ones, details the underlying Humboldt classification, but the understanding of “form” clearly contradicts its original provisions.

In the 90s XIX century Steinthal's classification was revised by F. Misteli (1893), who pursued the same idea of dividing languages into formal and formless, but introduced a new feature of language: wordless (Egyptian and Bantu languages), pseudo-word (Turkic, Mongolian, Finno-Ugric languages) and ancestral ( Semitic and Indo-European). Incorporating languages are classified as a special category of formless languages, since in them the word and the sentence are not distinguished. The advantage of F. Misteli's classification is the distinction between root-isolating languages (Chinese) and basic-isolating languages (Malay).

F. N. Fink (1909) based his classification on the principle of sentence construction (“massiveness” - as in incorporating languages or “fragmentation” - as in Semitic or Indo-European languages) and the nature of the connections between the members of the sentence, in particular the question about approval. On this basis, an agglutinating language with sequential agreement on class indicators (Subia from the Bantu family) and an agglutinating language with partial agreement (Turkish) are distributed by Fink into different classes. As a result, Fink shows eight types: 1) Chinese, 2) Greenlandic, 3) Subia, 4) Turkish, 5) Samoan (and other Polynesian languages),

6) Arabic (and other Semitic languages), 7) Greek (and other Indo-European languages) and 8) Georgian.

Despite many subtle observations of languages, all three of these classifications are built on arbitrary logical foundations and do not provide reliable criteria for resolving the typology of languages.

Of particular note is the morphological classification of languages by F. F. Fortunatov (1892) - very logical, but insufficient in terms of coverage of languages. F. F. Fortunatov takes as his starting point the structure of the form of a word and the relationship of its morphological parts. On this basis, he distinguishes four types of languages: 1) “In the vast majority of the family of languages that have the forms of individual words, these forms are formed through such a separation of the stem and affix in words, in which the stem or does not represent the so-called inflection at all [here there is in kind of internal inflection. – A.R.], or even if such inflection may appear in the stems, then it does not constitute a necessary accessory to the forms of words and serves to form forms separate from those formed by affixes. In the morphological classification, such languages are called... agglutinating or agglutinative languages... that is, actually gluing... because here the stem and affix of words remain, according to their meaning, separate parts of words in the forms of words, as if glued together.”

2) “The Semitic languages belong to another class in the morphological classification of languages; in these languages... the stems of words themselves have the necessary... forms formed by inflection of the stems... although the relationship between the stem and the affix in Semitic languages is the same as in agglutinative languages... I call the Semitic languages inflectional-agglutinative... because the relationship between the stem and the affix in these languages it is the same as in agglutinating languages."

3) “To... the third class in the morphological classification of languages belongs to the Indo-European languages; here... there is an inflection of bases in the formation of those very forms of words that are formed by affixes, as a result of which the parts of words in the forms of words, i.e., the base and the affix, represent here in meaning such a connection between each other in the forms of words that they do not have in any in agglutinative languages, nor in inflectional-agglutinative languages. It is for these languages that I reserve the name inflectional languages...”

4) “Finally, there are languages in which there are no forms of individual words. These languages include Chinese, Siamese and some others. In the morphological classification, these languages are called root languages... in root languages, the so-called root is not part of the word, but the word itself, which can be not only simple, but also complex (complex).”

In this classification there are no incorporating languages, there are no Georgian, Greenlandic, Malay-Polynesian languages, which, of course, deprives the classification of completeness, but it very subtly shows the difference in the formation of words in Semitic and Indo-European languages, which until recently was not distinguished by linguists.

Although, when characterizing Semitic languages, Fortunatus does not mention internal inflection, but speaks of “forms formed by inflection of stems,” this is also repeated when characterizing Indo-European languages, where “there is inflection of stems in the formation of the very forms of words that are formed by affixes”; What is important here is something else - the relationship between this “inflection of stems” (no matter how it is understood) and ordinary affixation (i.e., prefixation and postfixation), which Fortunatov defines as agglutinating and contrasts with a different connection between affixes and stems in Indo-European languages; This is why Fortunatov distinguishes between Semitic languages – “inflectional-agglutinative” and Indo-European – “inflectional”.

The new typological classification belongs to the American linguist E. Sapir (1921). Believing that all previous classifications are “a neat construction of the speculative mind,” E. Sapir made an attempt to give a “conceptual” classification of languages, based on the idea that “every language is a formalized language,” but that “a classification of languages, built on the distinction of relations, purely technical” and that languages cannot be characterized from only one point of view.

Therefore, E. Sapir bases his classification on the expression of different types of concepts in language: 1) root, 2) derivational, 3) mixed-relational and 4) purely relational; the last two points must be understood in such a way that the meanings of relations can be expressed in the words themselves (by changing them) together with lexical meanings - these are mixed relational meanings; or separately from words, for example, word order, function words and intonation - these are purely relational concepts.

The second aspect of E. Sapir is the very “technical” side of expressing relations, where all grammatical methods are grouped into four possibilities: A) isolation (i.e. ways of function words, word order and intonation), b) agglutination, With) fusion (the author deliberately separates two types of affixation, since their grammatical tendencies are very different) and d) symbolization, where internal inflection, repetition and method of stress are combined.

The third aspect is the degree of “synthesis” in grammar in three stages: analytical, synthetic and polysynthetic, i.e. from the absence of synthesis through normal synthesis to polysynthesis as “oversynthesis”.

From all that has been said, E. Sapir obtains a classification of languages, shown in the table on p. E. Sapir managed to very successfully characterize the 21 languages shown in his table, but from his entire classification it is not clear what a “type of language” is. The most interesting are the criticisms regarding the previous classifications - there are a lot of interesting thoughts and sound ideas here. However, it is completely incomprehensible, after the works of F. F. Fortunatov, how E. Sapir could characterize the Arabic language as “symbolic-fusional”, when in languages such as Semitic, the affixation is agglutinating and not fusional; in addition, he characterized the Turkic languages (using Turkish as an example) as synthetic, but the Soviet scientist E. D. Polivanov explained the analytical nature of agglutinating languages. In addition, and this is the main thing, Sapir’s classification remains absolutely ahistorical and ahistorical. In the preface to the Russian edition of Sapir’s book “Language,” A. M. Sukhotin wrote:

“The trouble with Sapir is that for him, his classification is just a classification. It gives one thing - “a method that allows us to consider each language from two or three independent points of view in its relation to another language. That's all…". Sapir, in connection with his classification, not only does not pose any genetic problems, but, on the contrary, decisively eliminates them…” (p. XVII).

Basic type	Technique	Degree of synthesis	Example
A. Simple pure	1) Insulating	Analytical	Chinese, en
relational	2) Insulating	Namsky (Viet
languages	with agglutin	Namsky), Ewe,
tion	Tibetan
B. Complex purely	1) I agglutinate	Analytical	Polynesian
relational	I'm isolating
languages	good
2) I agglutinate	Synthetic	Turkish
good
3) Fusion-ag	Synthetic	Classical
glutinating	Tibetan
4) Symbolic	Analytical	Shilluk
B. Simple sme	1) I agglutinate	Synthetic	Bantu
shanno-relya	good
tion languages	2) Fusion	Analytical	French
D. Complex mixtures	1) Agglutini	Polysynthetic	Nootka
shanno-relya	raging	cue
tion languages	2) Fusion	Analytical	English, la
Tinsky, Gre
chesical
3) Fusion,	Slightly synthetic	Sanskrit
symbolic	cue
4) Symbolico-fu	Synthetic	Semitic
sion

In one of his recent works, Tadeusz Milewski also does not connect the typological characteristics of languages with the historical aspect and, based on the correct position that “typological linguistics grows directly from descriptive linguistics,” and sharply contrasting typological linguistics with comparative historical ones, proposes such a “cross” classification of types languages, based on syntactic data: “... in the languages of the world there are four main types of syntactic relations: ... 1) subject to intransitive predicate [i.e. i.e. not possessing the property of transitivity. – A.R.], 2) the subject of the action to the transitive predicate [i.e. i.e. possessing the property of transitivity. -A. R.], 3) the object of the action to the transitive predicate, 4) the definition to the defined member... Typology of structures of phrases [i.e. e. syntagm. – A.R.] and sentences can thus be of two kinds: one is based only on the form of syntactic indicators, the other - on the scope of their functions. From the first point of view, we can distinguish three main types of languages: positional, inflectional and concentric. In positional languages, syntactic relations are expressed by a constant word order... In inflectional languages, the functions of the subject, subject, object of action and definition are indicated by the very form of these words... Finally, in concentric languages (incorporating) the transitive predicate, using the form or order of the pronominal morphemes included in its composition, indicates on the subject of the action and the object...” This is one aspect.

The second aspect analyzes the differences in the scope of syntactic means, and the author notes that “in the languages of the world there are six different types of combination of the four main syntactic functions.” Since in this analysis there is no actual typology, but only indications of which combinations of these features are found in which languages, then all this reasoning can be omitted.

Elsewhere in this article, T. Milevsky divides the languages of the world according to another principle into four groups: “isolating, agglutinative, inflectional and alternating.” What is new, in comparison with Schleicher, is the identification of alternating languages, which include Semitic languages; T. Milevsky characterizes them as follows: “Here comes the combination of all functions, both semantic and syntactic, within the word, which thanks to this forms a morphologically indecomposable whole, most often consisting of only one root.” This statement in the light of what was said above (see Chapter IV, § 45) is incorrect; it is necessary to single out the type of Semitic languages, but not at all in the way that T. Milevsky suggests (see the definitions of F. F. Fortunatov above).

The question of the typological classification of languages, therefore, has not been resolved, although over 150 years much and interesting things have been written on this topic.

One thing remains clear: the type of language must be determined primarily on the basis of its grammatical structure, the most stable, and thereby typifying, properties of the language.

It is necessary to include the language a in this characteristic and phonetic structure, which Humboldt also wrote about, but could not implement this, since at that time there was no phonetics as a special linguistic discipline.

In typological research, it is necessary to distinguish between two tasks: 1) the creation of a general typology of the languages of the world, united in certain groups, for which one descriptive method is not enough, but it is necessary to use a comparative-historical one, but not at the previous level of neogrammatical science, but enriched with structural methods understanding and description of linguistic facts and patterns, so that it is possible for each group of related languages to build its typological model (model of Turkic languages, model of Semitic languages, model of Slavic languages, etc.), sweeping away everything purely individual, rare, irregular and describing the type language as a whole, as a structure according to strictly selected parameters of different tiers, and 2) a typological description of individual languages with the inclusion of their individual characteristics, the distinction between regular and irregular phenomena, which, of course, must also be structural. This is necessary for two-way (binary) comparison of languages, for example, for the applied purposes of translation of any type, including machine translation, and, first of all, for the development of teaching methods for a particular non-native language, and therefore such an individual typological description for each compared pair languages should be different.

BASIC LITERATURE FOR THE MATERIAL SET FORTH IN CHAPTER VI (CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES)

Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary. M.: Sov. Encycl., 1990.

Questions of methodology for the comparative historical study of Indo-European languages. M.: Publishing house. USSR Academy of Sciences, 1956.

Gleason G. Introduction to descriptive linguistics / Russian lane. M., 1959.

Ivanov Vyach. Sun. Genealogical classification of languages and the concept of linguistic kinship. Ed. Moscow State University, 1954.

Kuznetsov P. S. Morphological classification of languages. Published by Moscow State University, 1954.

Meillet A. Introduction to the comparative study of Indo-European languages / Russian trans. M. – L., 1938.

Morphological typology and the problem of language classification. M. - L.: Nauka, 1965.

Peoples of the world. Historical and ethnographic reference book; Ed. S. W. Bromley. M.: Sov. Encycl., 1988.

General linguistics. Internal structure of language; Ed. B. A. Serebrennikova. M.: Nauka, 1972 (section: Linguistic typology).

Comparative historical study of languages of different families. Current status and problems. M.: Nauka, 1981.

Theoretical foundations of the classification of world languages; Ed. V. N. Yartseva. M.: Nauka, 1980.

Theoretical foundations of the classification of world languages. Kinship problems; Ed. V. N. Yartseva. M.: Nauka, 1982.

Notes:

See chap. VI – “Classification of languages”, § 77.

Boduende Courtenay I.A. Language and languages. The article was published in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron (half volume 81). See: Baudouin de Courtenay I. A. Selected works on general linguistics. M., 1963. T. 2 P. 67–96.

Similar statements were made by F. F. Fortunatov in his work of 1901–1902. “Comparative linguistics” (see: Fortunatov F.F. Selected works. M., 1956. T. 1.S. 61–62), in F. de Saussure in the work “Course of General Linguistics” (Russian translation by A. M. Sukhotin. M., 1933. P. 199–200), in E. Sapir’s work “Language” (Russian trans. M., 1934. P. 163–170), etc.

For more information about language and speech, see: Smirnitsky A.I. Objectivity of the existence of language. Moscow State University, 1954, as well as Reformatsky A. A. Principles of synchronous description of language // On the relationship between synchronous analysis and historical study of languages. Ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1961. P. 22 et seq. [rep. in the book: Reformatsky A. A. Linguistics and poetics. M., 1987].

See: Fortunatov F. F. On teaching Russian grammar in secondary school // Russian Philological Bulletin. 1905. No. 2. Or: Fortunatov F.F. Selected works. M.: Uchpedgiz, 1957. T. 2.

See: Baudouin de Courtenay I. A. Experience in the theory of phonetic alternations // Selected works on general linguistics. M., 1963. T. 1. P. 267 et seq.

De Saussure F. Course of general linguistics / Russian lane. A. M. Sukhotina, 1933. P. 34.

From Greek syn –"together" and chronos“time”, i.e. “simultaneity”.

The name "Romanesque" comes from the word Roma, as Rome was called by the Latins, and currently by the Italians.

See chap. VII, § 89 – on the formation of national languages.

Cm . right there.

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

A number of scientists are of the opinion about the possible distant relationship of three language families - Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu, forming the Altai macrofamily. However, in accepted usage, the term “Altaic languages” denotes a conditional association rather than a proven genetic grouping (V.V.).

Due to the fact that in Turkology there is no single point of view on the grouping of Turkic languages, we give them a list; At the end, various points of view on their grouping are given.

Currently, the Altai and Shor languages use one literary language based on Altai.

Cm .: Korsh F. E. Classification of Turkish tribes by languages, 1910.

See: Bogoroditsky V. A. Introduction to Tatar linguistics in connection with other Turkic languages, 1934.

Cm .: Schmidt W. Die Sprachfamilien und Sprachenkreise der Erde, 1932.

Paleo-Asian languages are a conditional name: Chukchi-Kamchatka represent a community of related languages; other languages are included in Paleo-Asian languages rather on a geographical basis.

See chap. IV, § 56.

Humboldt V. On the differences between the organisms of human languages and the influence of this difference on the mental development of mankind / Transl. P. Bilyarsky, 1859. See: Zvegintsev V. A. History of linguistics of the 19th–20th centuries in essays and extracts. 3rd ed., additional. M.: Education, 1964. Part I. P. 85–104 (new edition: Humboldt V. von. Selected works on linguistics. M., 1984.).

Milevsky T. Prerequisites for typological linguistics // Research on structural typology. M., 1963. P. 4.

See ibid. S. 3.

Right there. P. 27.

Milevsky T. Prerequisites for typological linguistics // Research on structural typology. M., 1963. P. 25.

Principles of language classification. Classification of languages. Principles of classification of languages ​​of the world (genealogical, typological, areal, functional, cultural-historical classifications) What principles of classification of languages ​​do you know

Typological principle

Geographical principle

Sociolinguistic principle

About the status of various classifications

Typological principle

Geographical principle

Sociolinguistic principle

About the status of various classifications

Notes:

Principles of language classification. Classification of languages. Principles of classification of languages of the world (genealogical, typological, areal, functional, cultural-historical classifications) What principles of classification of languages do you know