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Language families, branches and groups in the modern world. Family tree of Indo-European languages: examples, language groups, features

The Indo-European family of languages is the largest. 1 billion 600 million carriers.

1) Indo-Iranian branch.

a) Indian group (Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi)

b) Iranian group (Persian, Pashto, Forsi, Ossetian)

2) Romano-Germanic branch. The specialties of this branch are Greek and Arabic.

a) Romanesque (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Provençal, Romanian)

b) German group

North Germanic subgroup (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic)

West German subgroup (German, English, Dutch)

c) Celtic group (Irish, Scottish, Welsh).

3) Balto-Slavic branch of languages

a) Baltic group (Lithuanian, Latvian)

b) Slavic group

West Slavic subgroup (Polish, Chechen, Slovak)

Southern subgroup (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian)

East Slavic subgroup (Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian).

Altai family. 76 million speakers.

1) Turkic branch (Turkish, Tatar, Bashkir, Chuvash, Izairbojan, Turkmen, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Yakut)

2) Mongolian branch (Mongolian languages, Buryat, Kalmyk)

3) Tungus-Shandyur branch (Tungus, Evenk)

Ural languages.

1) Finno-Ugric branch (Finnish, Estonian, Korelian, Udmurt, Mari (mountain and meadow), Mordovian, Hungarian, Khanty, Mansi).

2) Samoyed branch (Nenets, Enensky, Selkups)

Caucasian family. (Georgian, Abkhazian, Chechen, Kabardian)

Sino-Tibetan family

1) Chinese branch (Chinese, Thai, Siamese, Laotian)

2) Tibeto-Burman branch (Tibetan languages, Burmese languages, Himalayan languages)

Afroasiatic family (Semitohamite family)

1) Semitic branch (Arabic, Hebrew)

2) Barbary branch (languages of the Sahara, Morocco and Mauretania)

The place of the Russian language in the typological classification: The Russian language belongs to inflectional languages, of a synthetic structure, with elements of analyticism.

Place of the Russian language in the genealogical classification: The Russian language belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, the Balto-Slavic branch, the East Slavic subgroup.

The essence of Indo-European languages

Indo-European languages (or Aryo-European, or Indo-Germanic) are one of the largest linguistic families in Eurasia. The common features of the Indo-European languages, which contrast them with the languages of other families, boil down to the presence of a certain number of regular correspondences between formal elements of different levels associated with the same units of content (borrowings are excluded). A specific interpretation of the facts of similarity of Indo-European languages may consist in postulating a certain common source of the known Indo-European languages (Indo-European proto-language, base language, diversity of ancient Indo-European dialects) or in accepting the situation of a linguistic union, the result of which was the development of a number of common features in initially different languages.

The Indo-European family of languages includes:

Slavic group - (Proto-Slavic from 4 thousand BC);

Thracian language - from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC;

Indian (Indo-Aryan, including Sanskrit (1st century BC)) group - from 2 thousand BC;

Iranian (Avestan, Old Persian, Bactrian) group - from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC;

Hittite-Luwian (Anatolian) group - from the 18th century. BC;

Greek group - from 15th to 11th centuries. BC;

Phrygian language - from the 6th century. BC;

Italian group - from the 6th century. BC;

Venetian language - from 5 BC;

Romance (from Latin) languages - from the 3rd century. BC;

German group - from the 3rd century. AD;

Celtic group - from the 4th century. AD;

Armenian language - from the 5th century. AD;

Baltic group - from the middle of the 1st millennium AD;

Tocharian group - from the 6th century. AD

Illyrian language - from the 6th century. AD;

Albanian language - from the 15th century. AD;

References

Uspensky B.A., Structural typology of languages

Types of linguistic structures, in the book: General linguistics

Meillet A., Introduction to the comparative study of Indo-European languages

2. German studies -

1) a complex of scientific disciplines related to the study of languages, literature, history, material and spiritual culture of German-speaking peoples; 2) an area of linguistics that deals with research Germanic languages. Germanistics (in the 2nd meaning) studies the processes and patterns of formation of Germanic languages in the circle of Indo-European languages and during the period of their independent historical development, the forms of their existence at different stages of the social life of Germanic peoples, the structure and functioning of modern Germanic languages.

As a field of knowledge, Germanic studies emerged in the 17th century, when, during the formation of bourgeois nations in German-speaking countries, interest in national monuments of ancient writing, education in the native language and, in connection with the desire for the unity of literary languages, in issues of language standardization increased. In Germany, England, and the Netherlands, textbooks of native languages appeared in the 16th century, in the Scandinavian countries - in the 17th century. In the 17th century The study of ancient monuments in Germanic languages begins. Francis Junius, the first publisher of the Gothic Silver Code (Dordrecht, 1665), introduces the Gothic language into the circle of Germanic studies. Later, J. Hicks raises the question of the historical relations of Germanic languages to each other. L. ten Cate formulates the idea of historical patterns in the development of Germanic languages. In the 2nd half of the 17th and 18th centuries. Works on the German language (Y. G. Schottel, I. K. Gottsched, I. K. Adelung) were of great importance for the development of German studies. At the beginning of the 19th century. R. K. Rusk emphasized the importance of learning the Icelandic language

Scientific German studies was formed in the 1st half of the 19th century, mainly in the works of J. Grimm. His “German Grammar” (vols. 1-4, 1819-1837) was the first detailed comparative and comparative-historical description of the Germanic languages. After private observations by ten Cate and Rask, Grimm established full correspondences between Indo-European, Gothic and Old High German obstruents (Grimm's law of consonant movement; see Grimm's law). Later, however, it was established that he operated with comparisons of letters, not sounds, and was far from the idea of reconstructing the Germanic proto-language.

German studies rose to a qualitatively new level in the 70-80s. 19th century, in the era neogrammatism, when the attention of researchers focused on the study of living Germanic languages and dialects and on the reconstruction of the Germanic base language (protolanguage). Linguistic reconstructions have reached a high degree of reliability, the sound composition and morphological structure of the Germanic proto-language have been described, and the Indo-European etymological identity of most of the root words, derivational and inflectional morphemes of the Germanic languages has been proven. The patterns of changes that occurred in the phonetics and morphology of the Germanic languages during the era of their independent historical development were determined. Dialectology has achieved significant success, numerous descriptions of individual dialects have been made, a number of dialectological atlases have been created, in particular the atlas of German dialects by G. Wenker - F. Wrede. The study of the phonetic and grammatical structure and lexical composition of literary Germanic languages has advanced. Works have been published on comparative historical grammar (W. Streitberg, F. Kluge, G. Hirt, E. Prokosch) and on the history of individual languages (English - Kluge, K. Luik, German - O. Behagel, Dutch - M. Schönfeld, Scandinavian - A. Nuren), on phonetics, morphology and syntax of modern languages, numerous etymological (English - W. W. Skeet, German - Kluge, Swedish - E. Hellquist, etc.), historical (German - G Paul) and explanatory dictionaries, publications of monuments, descriptions of dialects, grammar of Germanic languages of the ancient and middle periods (series published in Heidelberg and Halle), etc. During this period, a huge amount of factual material was accumulated, serving as a constant source for the study of Germanic languages.

The development of theoretical linguistics in the 20th century, which overcame the crisis of neogrammatism, was reflected in German studies and led to its restructuring. Thus, in dialectology, the inconsistency of the traditional teaching about the coincidence of the boundaries of dialects with the boundaries of the habitat of Germanic tribes became obvious. T. Frings and others have proven that the modern distribution of dialects that developed in the Middle Ages reflects the political, economic, and cultural boundaries of that era. The traditional doctrine of the originality of the historical division of Germanic languages into eastern, northern and western areas also turned out to be untenable, since it reflects only the correlation of the language of the most ancient written monuments, that is, the stratification of the Germanic linguistic massifs in the era of early feudalism and the initial period of German state associations. A study by F. Maurer (1942) showed that the traditional classification of Germanic languages does not explain the connections that existed, for example, in the Gothic language simultaneously with Scandinavian languages and with South German dialects. Doubts also arose about the original unity of the western branch of the Germanic languages, since the genetic connection between the Ingvaeonic and German language areas turns out to be contradictory. In the comparative historical grammar of the Germanic languages, a new idea arose about the model of the Germanic base language, which began to be viewed not as a set of characteristic features that distinguish the Germanic languages from other Indo-European languages, but as a changing structure, the individual phenomena of which have different chronological depths (Frans Coetsem).

The attempt of American structuralists to introduce the methods of phonological and morphonological analysis into the comparative-historical description of ancient Germanic languages (cf. “An Experience in the Grammar of the Proto-Germanic Language”, 1972, edited by Kutsem and H. L. Kufner) showed that the techniques used in the study of modern languages , in comparative historical descriptions can only be effective when combined with sociolinguistic analysis; It is not enough to list certain alternations and identify their formal relationships in the language system; it is also necessary to establish historical relationships between phenomena and reveal their functional role at a particular stage of language development.

Zhirmunsky V.M., Introduction to the comparative historical grammar of the Germanic languages. M.-L., 1963;
Prokosch E., Comparative grammar of the Germanic languages, trans. from English, M., 1964;
Chemodanov N. S., Germanic languages, in the book: Soviet linguistics for 50 years, M., 1967;

Germanic philology (Germanic studies) is a science that studies the origin, development and structure of Germanic languages, their connections, general patterns and development trends, as well as the relationship of Germanic languages with the languages of other groups of the Indo-European language family.

One of the most important tasks of German studies is the reconstruction (restoration) of ancient Germanic linguistic forms and language units that existed in the preliterate period. The attention of Germanic linguistics to ancient periods is explained by the fact that a number of important processes in the development of Germanic languages occur over a long period of time, therefore certain features of the modern state of the Germanic languages can only be explained by studying their history. Let us compare, for example, the difference between the consonantism system in English and German, which is largely explained by the second movement of consonants. This movement (we will discuss it in detail in one of the following lectures) occurred in most dialects of the German language in the period from the 1st to the 16th centuries. (spreading from southeast Germany to northwest). Thus, only knowledge of the phonetic system of the German language before movement makes it possible to understand its current state, the reasons for the differences in the composition of consonants in the German and English languages.

Germanistics is based on the principles and principles of general linguistics. It is also closely connected with other linguistic disciplines - comparative linguistics, dialectology, non-linguistic - history, archeology, ethnography, history of literature, art.

Thus, archaeological finds and the works of ancient historians help to establish the places of residence of ancient Germanic tribes and contain information about their social structure, way of life, culture, and language. They often contain texts (words, sentences) written in ancient Germanic languages. Ancient epic works and chronicles contain a large amount of historical, ethnographic and linguistic material.

The origin and beginning of the Renaissance is associated, first of all, with the cultural life of Italy, where already at the turn of the XIV-XV centuries. The rise of the humanities begins, the flourishing of fine arts, interest in mathematics and natural science increases, a humanistic movement is formed, which puts the human personality at the center of its worldview and proclaims the possibility of a harmonious existence of man and the surrounding world. At the end of the 15th - first third of the 16th centuries. it applies to most countries in Western and Central Europe. However, already in the 30s. XVI century Renaissance ideals are facing a serious crisis, and the events associated with the Reformation and Counter-Reformation lead to the gradual extinction of many of them, although the principles laid down by the humanists, changing and transforming, continued to exist, largely determining the entire further development of European culture.

On the other hand, XV-XVI centuries. are marked by an unprecedented expansion of the horizons of Europeans, great geographical discoveries, and acquaintance with a number of hitherto unknown peoples and languages. Although Latin (cleansed of medieval “barbarian” layers and brought closer to classical norms) still plays the role of the common cultural language of the humanistic movement, the tendency to bring to the fore the living folk languages of the then Europe is gradually gaining strength, turning them into a full-fledged means of communication in all areas of human activity, and therefore, strengthening the work on their description and normalization.

At the same time, the Renaissance was also marked by the intensive study of languages such as Greek and Hebrew, the discovery, publication and commentary of a large number of texts, which leads to the emergence of philological science in the proper sense of the word. All these factors stimulated an increase in theoretical interest in language problems, creating the basis for the formation of linguistic concepts.
These circumstances predetermined the main trends in the development of linguistics in the period under review, among which several important directions can be identified.

Creation of grammars of “new” European languages. The above-mentioned process of gradual replacement of Latin by the national languages of the peoples of Europe begins to find theoretical expression in the era under review. In the homeland of the Renaissance, in Italy, following Dante Alighieri, representatives of science, in addition to representatives of fiction (Boccaccio, Petrarch, etc.), also switched to the popular language. One of the greatest scientists of the era in question Galileo Galilei on this occasion he remarked: “Why do we need things written in Latin if an ordinary person with a natural mind cannot read them.” And his fellow countryman Alesandro Citolini in a work with the characteristic title “In Defense of the Popular Language” (1540), he noted that Latin is unsuitable for craft and technical terminology, which “the last artisan and peasant has at his disposal to a much greater extent than the entire Latin vocabulary.”

This trend is also evident in other European countries, where it receives administrative support. In France, the ordinance (decree) of King Francis I declared French to be the only official language, based on the dialect of Ile-de-France with its center in Paris. A group of French writers of the 16th century, united in the so-called “Pleiades”, is engaged in its propaganda and outlines ways of further development, and its most prominent theorist Joachen(Latinized name - Joachim) du Bellay(1524–1560) in a special treatise “Defense and Glorification of the French Language” proves not only the equality, but also the superiority of the latter over Latin. He also touches on such a problem as the normalization of the native language, noting that one should prefer arguments that come “from reason” and “not from custom.”

Naturally, the promotion of modern European languages as the main ones not only in oral, but also in literary and written communication becomes a powerful incentive for the creation of appropriate normative grammars. Having begun at the end of the 15th century, marked by the appearance of grammars of the Italian and Spanish languages, this process acquired a special scope in the 16th century, when German (1527), French (1531), English (1538), Hungarian (1539), Polish (1568) and other grammars; Even such small European languages as Breton (1499), Welsh (1547), and Basque (1587) become the object of grammatical description. Naturally, their compilers were guided in their activities by traditional schemes of the ancient grammatical tradition (and some grammars of modern European languages were initially even written in Latin); however, to one degree or another, they had to pay attention to the specific features of the languages being described. Having a mainly practical orientation, these grammars served primarily the purposes of forming and consolidating the norms of these languages, containing both rules and educational material illustrating them. Along with grammatical work, vocabulary work is also intensified: for example, one of the prominent representatives of the “Pleiades” is a poet Ronsard(1524–1585) sees his task as “to create new words and revive old ones,” pointing out that the richer the vocabulary a language has, the better it becomes, and noting that the vocabulary can be replenished in different ways: by borrowing from classical languages, individual dialectisms, “resurrected” archaisms and new formations. Thus, the task arose of creating fairly complete normative dictionaries of the emerging national languages, although the main work in this area began already in the 17th–18th centuries.

"Missionary Grammarians". Initially sporadic contacts of Europeans with “native” peoples, which were the result of great geographical discoveries, with the intensification and expansion of the process of colonization of newly discovered lands, gradually took on an increasingly permanent and systematic character. The question arose about communicating with native speakers of local languages and - what was considered, at least officially, perhaps the most important task - about converting them to Christianity. This required religious propaganda in the relevant languages, and therefore their study. Already in the 16th century. The first grammars of “exotic” languages began to appear, addressed mainly to preachers of the “word of God” and called “missionary”. However, they were often carried out not by professional philologists, but by amateurs (in addition to the missionaries themselves, among the authors - and not only in the period under review, but also much later - there could be travelers, colonial officials, etc.), built almost exclusively within the traditional framework of ancient schemes and, as a rule, were practically not taken into account in theoretical developments devoted to language problems.

Attempts to establish the relationship of languages. The traditional history of linguistics has given this aspect of Renaissance linguistics the most important place, considering the scientists involved in it as predecessors - albeit very imperfect ones - of the very comparative studies that were identified with “scientificness”. A work dating back to 1538 is usually mentioned here Gvilelma Postellus(1510–1581) “On the relationship of languages” and especially the work Joseph Justus Scaliger(1540–1609) "Discourse on European Languages" , which was published in France in 1510. In this latter, within the European languages known to the author, 11 “mother languages” are established: four “large” ones - Greek, Latin (i.e. Romance), Teutonic (Germanic) and Slavic - and seven “small” ones - Epirot (Albanian), Irish, Cymric (British with Breton), Tatar, Finnish with Lapp, Hungarian and Basque. Later historians of linguistics noted, not without some irony, that the comparison itself was based on the correlation between the sound of the word “God” in different languages, which was clearly not scientific from the point of view of comparative historical linguistics, and even the proximity of the Greek theos and the Latin deus did not prevent Scaliger from declaring all 11 mothers “ not related to each other by any ties of kinship." At the same time, the scientist was given credit for the fact that within the Romance and especially Germanic languages he was able to make subtle distinctions, dividing the Germanic languages (according to the pronunciation of the word “water”) into Water- and Wasser-languages and thus outlining the possibility of dividing the Germanic languages and German dialects based on the movement of consonants - a position subsequently developed by “scientific” (i.e., based on the principles of comparative historical linguistics) German studies.

Another work, called in this connection, is work. E. Guichara“The Etymological Harmony of Language” (1606), where - again despite the clearly “unscientific” methodology from the point of view of later comparative studies - the family of Semitic languages was shown, which was subsequently developed by other Hebraists of the 17th and later centuries.

Development of the theory of language. After some break caused by the solution of practical problems, in the second half of the 16th century. Problems of a theoretical nature are again beginning to attract attention. One of the most prominent French scientists - Pierre de la Ramée(Latinized form Ramus) (1515–1572), who tragically died during the Night of St. Bartholomew, creates grammars of Greek, Latin and French, where, in addition to orthographic and morphological observations, the creation of syntactic terminology is completed and the system of sentence members that has survived to this day takes its final form. But the most outstanding work of the named era in the area under consideration is considered to be the book Francisco Sanchez(Latinized form - Sanctius) (1523–1601) "Minerva, or on the causes of the Latin language."

Pointing out that the rationality of a person also implies the rationality of language, Sanchez comes to the conclusion that through the analysis of sentences and parts of speech, it is possible to identify the rational foundations of language in general, which are universal in nature. Following Aristotle, whose influence he experienced to a very strong extent, Sanchez distinguishes three parts of a sentence: noun, verb, conjunction. In real sentences of different languages (examples from Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch and other languages are given), they are implemented in six parts of speech: name, verb, participle, preposition, adverb and conjunction in the proper sense of the word. Moreover, in contrast to the three-part universal sentence, the latter are often vague and ambiguous. This is explained by two features: the addition of something extra, unnecessary for the clear expression of a thought, and the compression and omission of something that is expressed in full in a logical sentence (Sánchez calls this process ellipsis). Through operations on sentences in real languages (for example, a sentence with an intransitive verb like Boy sleeping, in full logical form is presented as a sentence with a transitive verb and object Boy sleeping dream) a universal, logically correct language is restored, which in itself is not expressed. Its expression is grammar. Like the medieval milliners, Sanchez understands it as a science, calling it “the rational basis of grammar” or “grammatical necessity” (the term “legal construction” is also used). Moreover, from Sanchez’s point of view, the language closest to the universal logical (although not completely coinciding with it) is Latin in its classical form. Therefore, it should be the language of science (Sánchez’s work itself is written in Latin), while other living languages (Spanish, French, Italian, German, etc.) are languages used in everyday life, practical life, everyday life, art.

Thus, during the Renaissance, the main paths along which the science of language was destined to develop in the next few centuries were essentially outlined.

4.History of lexicography

5. Three similar periods in the development of lexicography among different peoples
In the development of forms of practical lexicography among different peoples, 3 similar periods are distinguished:
1) Pre-word period. The main function is to explain obscure words: glosses (in Sumer, 25th century BC, in China, 20th century BC, in Western Europe, 8th century AD, in Russia, 13th century .), glossaries (collections of glosses for individual works or authors, for example, to the Vedas, 1st millennium BC, to Homer, from the 5th century BC), vocabulary (collections of words for educational, etc. . purposes, for example, trilingual Sumerian-Akkado-Hittite tablets, 14-13 centuries BC, lists of words by thematic groups in Egypt, 1750 BC.
2) Early vocabulary period. The main function is the study of a literary language, which in many nations differs from spoken language: for example, monolingual lexicons of Sanskrit, 6-8 centuries, ancient Greek, 10 centuries; later - translation dictionaries of the passive type, where the vocabulary of a foreign language is interpreted using words of the national language (Arabic-Persian, 11th century, Latin-English, 15th century, Church Slavic-Russian, 16th century, etc.), then active-type translation dictionaries, where the source language is the folk language (French-Latin, English-Latin, 16th century, Russian-Latin-Greek, 18th century), as well as bilingual dictionaries of living languages. The first dictionaries of the explanatory type were created in countries with hieroglyphic writing (China, 3rd century BC, Japan, 8th century).
3) The period of developed lexicography associated with the development of national literary languages. The main function is the description and normalization of the vocabulary of the language, increasing the linguistic culture of society: explanatory dictionaries, many of which are compiled by state academic and philological societies (Italian dictionary of the Crusca Academy, 1612, dictionary of the Russian Academy, 1789-94, etc.), also appear synonymous, phraseological, dialectal, terminological, spelling, grammatical and other dictionaries. The development of literature was influenced by the philosophical concepts of the era. For example, academic dictionaries of the 17th-18th centuries. were created under the influence of the philosophy of science of Bacon and Descartes. Dictionary of the French language by Littre (1863-72) and other dictionaries of the 19th century. experienced the influence of positivism. Evolutionist theories of the 19th century. strengthened the historical aspect in explanatory dictionaries.

Dictionary structure
A dictionary is a book in which information is organized into small articles, sorted by title or topic. There are encyclopedic and linguistic dictionaries. Explains the meaning of the entered units or provides their translation into another language. Dictionaries play a big role in spiritual culture and reflect the knowledge that a given society possesses in a certain era.
Macrostructure of the dictionary.
Introductory article (which describes what kind of dictionary this is, the marking system, rules for using the dictionary); dictionary entry, vocabulary - the first, most important component, contains all the units that form the description area of the dictionary and are the inputs of dictionary entries. Despite the name, a dictionary can consist of entries, morphemes, what exactly represents a unit of description of a particular dictionary; alphabetical index (depending on the type of dictionary). A list of sources, which may, in principle, contain sources of quotations, scientific works. Alphabet. Grammatical phonetic essays (grammatical rules, reading rules).
The structure of a dictionary entry or the microstructure of a dictionary. Dictionary entry zones.
1. Lexical entry of a dictionary entry. (vocabula, lemma).
2. Zone of grammatical information and phonetic information.
3. Zone of stylistic marks. (obsolete - not obsolete), jargon, coloring
4. Zone of interpretation (meanings).
5. Illustration area. Linguistic examples (illustrations) can be quotations from works, models of syntactic constructions demonstrating characteristic uses.

Lexicography (from the Greek lexikos - relating to the word and ...graphy), branch of linguistics concerned with the practice and theory of composition dictionaries. In the development of forms of practical literature among different peoples, three similar periods are distinguished: 1) the pre-dictionary period. The main function is to explain obscure words: glosses(in Sumer, 25th century BC, in China, 20th century BC, in Western Europe, 8th century AD, in Russia, 13th century), glossaries (collections of glosses to individual works or authors, for example, to the Vedas, 1st millennium BC, to Homer, from the 5th century BC), vocabulary (collections of words for educational and other purposes, for example trilingual Sumerian-Accado -Hittite tablets, 14-13 centuries BC, lists of words by thematic groups in Egypt, 1750 BC, etc.). 2) Early vocabulary period. The main function is the study of a literary language, which in many nations differs from spoken language: for example, monolingual lexicons of Sanskrit, 6-8 centuries, ancient Greek, 10 centuries; later - translation dictionaries of the passive type, where the vocabulary of a foreign language is interpreted using words of the national language (Arabic-Persian, 11th century, Latin-English, 15th century, Church Slavic-Russian, 16th century, etc.), then active-type translation dictionaries, where the source language is the folk language (French-Latin, English-Latin, 16th century, Russian-Latin-Greek, 18th century), as well as bilingual dictionaries of living languages. The first dictionaries of the explanatory type were created in countries with hieroglyphic writing (China, 3rd century BC, Japan, 8th century). 3) The period of developed literature, associated with the development of national literary languages. The main function is the description and normalization of the vocabulary of the language, increasing the linguistic culture of society: explanatory dictionaries, many of which are compiled by state academic and philological societies (Italian dictionary of the Crusca Academy, 1612, dictionary of the Russian Academy, 1789-94, etc.), also appear synonymous, phraseological, dialectal, terminological, spelling, grammatical and other dictionaries. The development of literature was influenced by the philosophical concepts of the era. For example, academic dictionaries of the 17th-18th centuries. were created under the influence of the philosophy of science of Bacon and Descartes. Dictionary of the French language by Littre (1863-72) and other dictionaries of the 19th century. experienced the influence of positivism. Evolutionist theories of the 19th century. strengthened the historical aspect in explanatory dictionaries.

In the 18th-19th centuries. affirmed, and in the 20th century. The 4th function of linguistics is developing - the collection and processing of data for linguistic research in the field of lexicology, word formation, stylistics, and the history of languages (dictionaries of etymology, history, frequency, reverse, related languages, languages of writers, etc.). Modern literature is acquiring an industrial character (the creation of lexicographic centers and institutes, the mechanization of work since 1950, etc.).

Theoretical literature was formed in the second third of the 20th century. The first scientific typology of dictionaries was created by the Soviet scientist L.V. Shcherba(1940). It was further developed in the works of many Soviet and foreign linguists (Czechoslovakia, France, USA, etc.). Modern linguistic theory is characterized by: a) the idea of vocabulary as a system, the desire to reflect in the structure of the dictionary the lexical-semantic structure of the language as a whole and the semantic structure of an individual word (identifying the meanings of words according to their connections with other words in the text and within semantic fields ); b) a dialectical view of the meaning of a word, taking into account the mobile nature of the connection between the signifier and the signified in a verbal sign (the desire to note shades and transitions in the meanings of words, their use in speech, various intermediate phenomena); c) recognition of the close connection of vocabulary with grammar and other aspects of the language.

L. is connected with all branches of linguistics, especially with lexicology, many problems of which receive specific refraction in L. Modern literature emphasizes the important social function of dictionaries, which record the body of knowledge of a society of a given era. L. develops a typology of dictionaries. There are monolingual literature (explanatory and other dictionaries) and bilingual literature (translation dictionaries); educational literature (dictionaries for language learning), scientific and technical literature (terminological dictionaries), etc.

Lit.: Shcherba L.V., Experience in the general theory of lexicography, “Izv. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, OLYA”, 1940, No. 3; Lexicographic collection, vol. 1-6, M., 1957-63; Kovtun L.S., Russian lexicography of the Middle Ages, M. - L., 1963; Casares H., Introduction to modern lexicography, trans. from Spanish, M., 1958; Problems in lexicography, ed. F. W. Householder and Sol Saporta, 2 ed., The Hague, 1967; Dubois J. et Cl., Introduction a la Lexicographic ie dictionnare, P., 1971; Rey-Debove J., Etude linguistique et sémiotique des dictionnaires français contemporains. La Haye - P., 1971; Zgusta L., Manual of lexicography, The Hague, 1971.

The meaning of LINGUISTIC BRANCH in the Dictionary of Linguistic Terms

BRANCH LANGUAGE

A group of languages within a language family, united on the basis of genetic affinity. see, for example, Indo-European languages.

Dictionary of linguistic terms. 2012

See what a “language branch” is in other dictionaries:

Linguistic taxonomy is an auxiliary discipline that helps to organize the objects studied by linguistics: languages, dialects and groups of languages. The result of this ordering is also called the taxonomy of languages. The basis of taxonomy... ... Wikipedia

Indo-European Taxon: family Homeland: Indo-European areas Centum (blue) and Satem (red). The presumed source area of satemization is shown in bright red. Habitat: the whole world... Wikipedia

Indo-Europeans Indo-European languages Albanian · Armenian Baltic · Celtic Germanic · Greek Indo-Iranian · Romance Italic · Slavic Dead: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkan ... Wikipedia

The Greek group is currently one of the most unique and relatively small language groups (families) within the Indo-European languages. At the same time, the Greek group is one of the most ancient and well-studied since... ... Wikipedia

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

The importance of Indo-European languages in comparative historical linguistics

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

Ways to Compare Languages

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

Genetic classification of Indo-European languages

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

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

Branches of the Indo-European family

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

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

Pidgins

During the expansion of various languages of the Indo-European group that occurred over the past centuries, dozens of new pidgins were formed on a Romance and Germanic basis. They are characterized by a radically reduced vocabulary (1.5 thousand words or less) and simplified grammar. Subsequently, some of them were creolized, while others became full-fledged both functionally and grammatically. Such are Bislama, Tok Pisin, Krio in Sierra Leone, and Gambia; Sechelwa in the Seychelles; Mauritian, Haitian and Reunion, etc.

As an example, let us give a brief description of two languages of the Indo-European family. The first of them is Tajik.

Tajik

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

Ossetian

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

Collapse of the base language

No later than the fourth millennium BC. e. There was a collapse of the single Indo-European base language. This event led to the emergence of many new ones. Figuratively speaking, the family tree of Indo-European languages began to grow from the seed. There is no doubt that the Hittite-Luwian languages were the first to separate. The timing of the identification of the Tocharian branch is the most controversial due to the paucity of data.

Attempts to merge different branches

The Indo-European language family includes numerous branches. More than once attempts have been made to unite them with each other. For example, hypotheses have been expressed that the Slavic and Baltic languages are especially close. The same was assumed in relation to the Celtic and Italic ones. Today, the most generally accepted is the unification of the Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages, as well as Nuristan and Dardic, into the Indo-Iranian branch. In some cases, it was even possible to restore verbal formulas characteristic of the Indo-Iranian proto-language.

As you know, the Slavs belong to the Indo-European language family. However, it has not yet been established precisely whether their languages should be separated into a separate branch. The same applies to the Baltic peoples. Balto-Slavic unity causes a lot of controversy in such a union as the Indo-European language family. Its peoples cannot be unambiguously attributed to one branch or another.

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

The first comparativists

The emergence of comparative historical linguistics itself dates back to the beginning of the 19th century and is associated with the name of Franz Bopp. In his work, he was the first to scientifically prove the kinship of Indo-European languages.

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

The merit of August Schleicher

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

Comparative historical linguistics was formed as a result of the study of various related languages, as well as the processing of methods for proving their relationship and the reconstruction of a certain initial proto-linguistic state. August Schleicher is credited with schematically depicting the process of their development in the form of a family tree. The Indo-European group of languages appears in the following form: a trunk - and groups of related languages are branches. The family tree has become a visual representation of distant and close relationships. In addition, it indicated the presence of a common proto-language among closely related ones (Balto-Slavic - among the ancestors of the Balts and Slavs, German-Slavic - among the ancestors of the Balts, Slavs and Germans, etc.).

A modern study by Quentin Atkinson

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

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

Consideration of cognates

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

Use of historical information and geographic data

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

Research results

After combining the information obtained, an evolutionary tree was created based on the following two hypotheses: Kurgan and Anatolian. The researchers, having compared the resulting two trees, found that the “Anatolian” one, from a statistical point of view, is the most likely.

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

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

Most of the world's languages are grouped into families. A language family is a genetic linguistic association.

But there are isolated languages, i.e. those that do not belong to any known language family.
There are also unclassified languages, of which there are more than 100.

Language family

There are about 420 language families in total. Sometimes families are united into macro-families. But at present, only theories about the existence of the Nostratic and Afrasian macrofamilies have received reliable substantiation.

Nostratic languages- a hypothetical macrofamily of languages, uniting several language families and languages of Europe, Asia and Africa, including Altaic, Kartvelian, Dravidian, Indo-European, Uralic, and sometimes also Afroasiatic and Eskimo-Aleutian languages. All Nostratic languages go back to a single Nostratic parent language.
Afroasiatic languages- a macrofamily of languages distributed in northern Africa from the Atlantic coast and the Canary Islands to the Red Sea coast, as well as in Western Asia and on the island of Malta. There are groups of speakers of Afroasiatic languages (mainly various dialects of Arabic) in many countries outside the main area. The total number of speakers is about 253 million people.

The existence of other macrofamilies remains only a scientific hypothesis that requires confirmation.
Family– this is a group of definitely, but quite distantly related languages that have at least 15% matches in the base list.

The language family can be figuratively represented as a tree with branches. Branches are groups of closely related languages. They do not have to be of the same level of depth, only their relative order within the same family is important. Let us consider this question using the example of the Indo-European family of languages.

Indo-European family

This is the most widespread language family in the world. It is represented on all inhabited continents of the Earth. The number of speakers exceeds 2.5 billion. The Indo-European family of languages is considered part of the macrofamily of Nostratic languages.
The term “Indo-European languages” was introduced by the English scientist Thomas Young in 1813.

Thomas Young
The languages of the Indo-European family descend from a single Proto-Indo-European language, whose speakers lived about 5-6 thousand years ago.
But it is impossible to name exactly where the Proto-Indo-European language originated; there are only hypotheses: regions such as Eastern Europe, Western Asia, and steppe territories at the junction of Europe and Asia are named. With a high probability, the archaeological culture of the ancient Indo-Europeans can be considered the so-called “Yamnaya culture”, the bearers of which in the 3rd millennium BC. e. lived in the east of modern Ukraine and the south of Russia. This is a hypothesis, but it is supported by genetic studies indicating that the source of at least part of the Indo-European languages in Western and Central Europe was a wave of migration of speakers of the Yamnaya culture from the territory of the Black Sea and Volga steppes approximately 4,500 years ago.

The Indo-European family includes the following branches and groups: Albanian, Armenian, as well as Slavic, Baltic, Germanic, Celtic, Italic, Romance, Illyrian, Greek, Anatolian (Hittite-Luvian), Iranian, Dardic, Indo-Aryan, Nuristan and Tocharian languages groups (Italic, Illyrian, Anatolian and Tocharian groups are represented only by dead languages).
If we consider the place of the Russian language in the taxonomy of the Indo-European language family by level, it will look something like this:

Indo-European family
↓
Branch: Balto-Slavic
↓
Group: Slavic
↓
Subgroup: East Slavic
↓
Language: Russian

Slavic

Isolated languages (isolates)

There are more than 100 of them. In fact, each isolated language forms a separate family, consisting only of that language. For example, Basque (northern regions of Spain and adjacent southern regions of France); Burushaski (this language is spoken by the Burish people living in the mountainous regions of Hunza (Kanjut) and Nagar in northern Kashmir); Sumerian (the language of the ancient Sumerians, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia in the 4th-3rd millennia BC); Nivkh (the language of the Nivkhs, widespread in the northern part of Sakhalin Island and in the basin of the Amguni River, a tributary of the Amur); Elamite (Elam is a historical region and ancient state (III millennium - mid-VI century BC) in the southwest of modern Iran); Hadza (in Tanzania) languages are isolated. Only those languages are called isolated for which there is sufficient data and inclusion in the language family has not been proven for them, even after intensive attempts to do so.