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

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

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) Romance (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Provençal, Romanian)

b) German group

North German 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, Ayzeirbojan, Turkmen, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Yakut)

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

3) Tungus-Shandyur branch (Tungus, Evenk)

Uralic languages.

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

2) Samoyed branch (Nenets, Enen, Selkups)

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

Sino-Tibetan family

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

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

Afroasian family (Semito-Hamitic 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 the Indo-European languages

Indo-European languages (or Ario-European, or Indo-Germanic), one of the largest linguistic families of Eurasia. The common features of the Indo-European languages, which oppose them to the languages of other families, are reduced to the presence of a certain number of regular correspondences between formal elements of different levels associated with the same content units (borrowings are excluded). A concrete interpretation of the facts of the similarity of the Indo-European languages may consist in postulating a certain common source of known Indo-European languages (Indo-European proto-language, the base language, a variety of ancient Indo-European dialects) or in accepting the situation of a linguistic union, which resulted in the development of a number of common features in originally different languages.

The Indo-European family of languages includes:

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

Thracian - 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;

Hitto-Luvian (Anatolian) group - from the 18th century. BC.;

Greek group - from the 15th - 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 c. AD;

Armenian language - from the 5th c. AD;

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

Tocharian group - from the 6th c. AD

Illyrian language - from the 6th century. AD;

Albanian language - from the 15th century. AD;

Bibliography

Uspensky B.A., Structural typology of languages

Types of linguistic structures, in the book: General Linguistics

Meie A., An Introduction to the Comparative Study of Indo-European Languages

2. Germanistics -

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

As a field of knowledge, German studies stood out in the 17th century, when, during the period of the formation of bourgeois nations in German-speaking countries, interest in national monuments of ancient writing, instruction in the native language, and, in connection with the desire for the unity of literary languages, in questions of linguistic regulation 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 the Germanic languages begins. Francis Junius, the first publisher of the Gothic Silver Codex (Dordrecht, 1665), introduces the Gothic language into the circle of Germanic studies. Later, J. Hicks raises the question of the historical relationship of the Germanic languages to each other. L. ten Cathe formulates the idea of historical patterns in the development of the Germanic languages. In the second half of the 17th and 18th centuries. Works on the German language (J. 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. Rask stressed the importance of learning Icelandic

Scientific German studies took shape in the first 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 of ten Cate and Rusk, Grimm established in full the correspondence between Indo-European, Gothic and Old High German noisy consonants (Grimm's law of movement of consonants; see. Grimm's law). Later, however, it was established that he operated with juxtapositions of letters, not sounds, and was far from the idea of reconstructing the Germanic parent language.

German studies rose to a qualitatively new level in the 1970s and 1980s. 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 language-base (proto-language). Linguistic reconstructions have reached a high degree of reliability, the sound composition and morphological structure of the Germanic parent language have been described, the Indo-European etymological identity of most of the root word, derivational and inflectional morphemes of the Germanic languages has been proved. The patterns of changes that occurred in the phonetics and morphology of the Germanic languages in the era of their independent historical development were determined. Significant progress has been made in dialectology, numerous descriptions of individual dialects have been made, and a number of dialectological atlases have been created, in particular, the atlas of dialects of the German language by G. Wencker - F. Wrede. The study of the phonetic and grammatical structure and lexical composition of the literary Germanic languages advanced. Works were published on comparative historical grammar (W. Shtreitberg, F. Kluge, G. Hirt, E. Prokosch) and on the history of individual languages (English - Kluge, K. Luik, German - O. Behagel, Dutch - M. Schoenfeld, Scandinavian - A. Nuren), according to phonetics, morphology and syntax of modern languages, numerous etymological (English - W. W. Skita, German - Kluge, Swedish - E. Helkvist, etc.), historical (German - G Paul) and explanatory dictionaries, publications of monuments, descriptions of dialects, grammar of the Germanic languages of the ancient and middle periods (series published in Heidelberg and Halle), etc. During this period, a huge factual material was accumulated, which serves as a constant source for the study of Germanic languages.

The development of theoretical linguistics in the 20th century, which overcame the crisis of neo-grammatism, was also reflected in German studies and led to its restructuring. Thus, in dialectology, the inconsistency of the traditional doctrine of the coincidence of the boundaries of dialects with the boundaries of the habitation of the Germanic tribes became obvious. T. Frings and others proved that the modern distribution of dialects, which 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 the Germanic languages into eastern, northern and western areas also turned out to be untenable, since it only reflects the correlation of the language of the most ancient written monuments, that is, the stratification of the Germanic language arrays 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 the Germanic languages does not explain the connections that existed, for example, in the Gothic language simultaneously with the Scandinavian languages and with the South German dialects. There was also doubt 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, individual phenomena of which have different chronological depths (Frans Coutsem).

The attempt of American structuralists to introduce the method of phonological and morphonological analysis into the comparative historical description of the ancient Germanic languages (cf. "Experience in Proto-Germanic Grammar", 1972, edited by Kutsem and H. L. Kufner) showed that the techniques used in the study of modern languages , in comparative historical descriptions can be effective only 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 relations between phenomena and reveal their functional role at one or another stage of language development.

Zhirmunsky V. M., Introduction to the comparative-historical grammar of the Germanic languages. M.-L., 1963;
Prokosh 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 (Germanistics) is a science that studies the origin, development and structure of the Germanic languages, their connections, general patterns and trends in development, 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 the ancient Germanic language forms and language units that existed in the pre-literate period. The attention of German linguistics to ancient periods is explained by the fact that a number of important processes in the development of the Germanic languages occur over a long period of time, therefore certain features of the current state of the Germanic languages can only be explained by studying their history. Let us compare, for example, the difference between the system of consonantism in English and German, which is explained to a large extent by the second shift of consonants. This movement (in one of the following lectures we will dwell on it in detail) occurred in most dialects of the German language in the period from the 11th to the 16th centuries. (spreading from the southeast of Germany to the 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 German and English.

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

So, archaeological finds, the works of ancient historians help to establish the places of residence of the ancient Germanic tribes, contain information about their social structure, life, culture, language. Often they contain texts (words, sentences) written in ancient Germanic languages. A large historical, ethnographic and linguistic material contains ancient epic works, annals.

The origin and beginning of the Renaissance is associated primarily with the cultural life of Italy, where already at the turn of the XIV-XV centuries. the rise of the humanities, the flourishing of fine arts, an increase in interest in mathematics and natural science, a humanistic movement is being formed that puts the human person at the center of its worldview and proclaims the possibility of a harmonious existence of man and the world around him. At the end of the XV - the first third of the XVI century. it extends to most states of Western and Central Europe. However, already in the 30s. 16th 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. marked by an unprecedented expansion of the horizons of Europeans, great geographical discoveries, acquaintance with a number of hitherto unknown peoples and languages. Although Latin (purified from medieval “barbarian” layers and close to classical norms) still plays the role of a common cultural language of the humanist movement, it is gradually gaining strength and a tendency to bring to the fore the living folk languages of then Europe, turning them into a full-fledged means of communication in all areas of human activity, and consequently, strengthening the work on their description and normalization.

At the same time, the Renaissance was also marked by an intensive study of such languages as Greek and Hebrew, the discovery, publication and commenting of a large number of texts, which leads to the emergence of philological science in the proper sense of the word. All these factors also stimulated an increase in theoretical interest in the problems of language, 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 areas can be distinguished.

Creation of grammars of "new" European languages. The process of gradual replacement of Latin by the national languages of the peoples of Europe noted above begins to find theoretical expression in the epoch under consideration. In the homeland of the Renaissance, in Italy, following Dante Alighieri, in addition to representatives of fiction (Boccaccio, Petrarch, etc.), representatives of science also pass into the vernacular. One of the greatest scientists of the era under consideration 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 countryman Alesandro Citolini in a work with a characteristic title "In Defense of the National Language" (1540), he noted that Latin is unsuitable for craft and technical terminology, which "the last artisan and peasant have to a much greater extent than the entire Latin dictionary."

This trend is also evident in other European countries, where it receives administrative support. In France, by an ordinance (decree) of King Francis I, the only official languages are French, 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 for its further development, and its most prominent theorist Joashen(Latinized name - Joachim) du Bellay(1524-1560) in a special treatise "Protection and glorification of the French language" proves not only the equality, but also the superiority of the latter over Latin. He also touches upon such a problem as the normalization of the native language, noting that it is necessary to prefer arguments coming “from reason” rather than “from custom”.

Naturally, the nomination of new 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. Starting at the end of the 15th century, which was marked by the appearance of the grammars of Italian and Spanish, this process takes on a special scope in the 16th century, when German (1527), French (1531), English (1538), Hungarian (1539), Polish (1568) and other grammars; even such small languages of Europe as Breton (1499), Welsh (Welsh) (1547), Basque (1587) become the object of grammatical description. Naturally, their compilers were guided in their activities by the traditional schemes of the ancient grammatical tradition (and some grammars of the new European languages were originally 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 mainly a practical orientation, these grammars served primarily to form and consolidate 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 brightest representatives of the Pleiades, the poet Ronsard(1524–1585) sees his task as “creating new words and reviving old ones”, pointing out that the richer vocabulary a language has, the better it becomes, and noting that 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 sufficiently complete normative dictionaries for the emerging national languages, although the main work in this area began already in the 17th–18th centuries.

"Missionary Grammars". Initially, the sporadic contacts of Europeans with "native" peoples, which became the result of the great geographical discoveries, with the intensification and expansion of the process of colonization of the newly discovered lands, gradually assumed an increasingly permanent and systematic character. The question arose about communicating with native speakers of local languages and - which was considered, at least officially, perhaps the most important task - about converting them to Christianity. This required religious propaganda in the respective languages and, consequently, their study. Already in the XVI 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.), they were 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 the problems of language.

Attempts to establish the relationship of languages. The traditional history of linguistics assigned the most important place to this side of Renaissance linguistics, considering the scientists involved in it as predecessors - albeit very imperfect ones - of the very comparative studies that were identified with "scientific". A work from 1538 is usually mentioned here. Guilelma Postellusa(1510-1581) "On the kinship of languages" and especially the work Joseph Justus Scaliger(1540–1609) "Discourse on European Languages" , which was released in France in 1510. In this latter, within the European languages \u200b\u200bknown to the author, 11 “mother languages” are established: four “big” ones - Greek, Latin (i.e. Romance), Teutonic (Germanic) and Slavic - and seven "small" ones - Epirote (Albanian), Irish, Cymrian (British with Breton), Tatar, Finnish with Lappish, Hungarian and Basque. Later historians of linguistics, not without some irony, noted that the comparison itself was based on a clearly non-scientific from the point of view of comparative historical linguistics correlation of the sound of the word “God” in different languages, and even the proximity of the Greek theos and Latin deus did not prevent Scaliger from declaring all 11 mothers " unrelated to each other by any ties of kinship. At the same time, the scientist was credited with the fact that within the Romance and especially Germanic languages, he managed to make subtle differences, 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 on the basis of the movement of consonants - a position subsequently developed by "scientific" (that is, based on the principles of comparative historical linguistics) Germanic studies.

Another work called in this connection is the work E. Guichard“The Etymological Harmony of Language” (1606), where – again despite the obviously “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 a break caused by the solution of practical problems, in the second half of the 16th century. problems of a theoretical nature begin to attract attention again. One of the most prominent French scientists - Pierre de la Ramé(Latinised form Ramus) (1515–1572), who died tragically during the St. Bartholomew’s Night, creates grammars of the Greek, Latin and French languages, 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 field under consideration is 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 follows the rationality of a language, Sanchez comes to the conclusion that by analyzing the sentence and parts of speech, it is possible to identify the rational foundations of language in general, which are of a universal nature. Following Aristotle, whose influence he experienced to a very strong extent, Sanchez distinguishes three parts of the sentence: name, verb, union. In real sentences of different languages (examples are given from Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch and other languages), they are realized in six parts of speech: name, verb, participle, preposition, adverb and conjunction in the proper sense of the word. Moreover, unlike the tripartite universal sentence, the latter are often indefinite and ambiguous. This is due to two features: the addition of something superfluous, unnecessary for a clear expression of thought, and the compression and omission of something that is fully expressed in a logical sentence (this process Sanchez calls an ellipsis). Through operations on sentences in real languages (for example, a sentence with an intransitive verb like The boy is 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 medieval modists, Sanchez understands it as a science, calling it "the rational basis of grammar" or "grammatical necessity" (the term "legitimate construction" is also used). Moreover, from the point of view of Sanchez, 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 (Sanchez's work itself was written in Latin), while other living languages (Spanish, French, Italian, German, etc.) are languages used in everyday life, practical life, everyday life, art.

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

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 the explanation of 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), vocabularies (collections of words for educational, etc. purposes, such as trilingual Sumerian-Akkado-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 the literary language, which is different for many nations from colloquial speech: for example, monolingual Sanskrit lexicons, 6-8 centuries, ancient Greek, 10 century; later - passive-type translation dictionaries, where the vocabulary of a foreign language is interpreted using the words of the national language (Arabic-Persian, 11th century, Latin-English, 15th century, Church Slavonic-Russian, 16th century, etc.), then translation dictionaries of an active type, where the source language is the vernacular (French-Latin, Anglo-Latin, 16th century, Russian-Latin-Greek, 18th century), as well as bilingual dictionaries of living languages. The first explanatory dictionaries 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 Academy Krusk, 1612, dictionary of the Russian Academy, 1789-94, etc.), also appear synonymous, phraseological, dialectal, terminological, orthographic, grammatical and other dictionaries. The development of L. 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 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 by breaking down into small articles, sorted by title or subject. There are encyclopedic and linguistic dictionaries. Explains the meaning of the introduced units or gives their translation into another language. Dictionaries play an important role in spiritual culture and reflect the knowledge possessed by a given society in a certain era.
Dictionary macrostructure.
Introductory article (which describes what kind of dictionary it is, the system of marks, rules for using the dictionary); dictionary entry, dictionary - the first, most important component, contains all the units that form the dictionary description area and are the inputs of dictionary entries. Despite the name, the dictionary may consist of articles, morphemes, what exactly is the unit of description of this or that dictionary; alphabetical index (depending on the dictionary type). A list of sources, which can, in principle, contain sources of citations, scientific papers. Alphabet. Grammatical phonetic essays (grammar 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. (vocable, 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 serve as quotations from works, models of syntactic constructions that demonstrate characteristic uses.

Lexicography (from Greek lexikos - pertaining to the word and ...graphics), branch of linguistics dealing with the practice and theory of composition dictionaries. In the development of forms of practical vocabulary among different peoples, 3 similar periods are distinguished: 1) the pre-dictionary period. The main function is the explanation of 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 Sumero-Akkado - 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 the literary language, which is different for many nations from colloquial speech: for example, monolingual Sanskrit lexicons, 6-8 centuries, ancient Greek, 10 century; later - passive-type translation dictionaries, where the vocabulary of a foreign language is interpreted using the words of the national language (Arabic-Persian, 11th century, Latin-English, 15th century, Church Slavonic-Russian, 16th century, etc.), then translation dictionaries of an active type, where the source language is the vernacular (French-Latin, Anglo-Latin, 16th century, Russian-Latin-Greek, 18th century), as well as bilingual dictionaries of living languages. The first explanatory dictionaries were created in countries with hieroglyphic writing (China, 3rd century BC; Japan, 8th century). 3) The period of developed linguistics, 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 Academy Krusk, 1612, dictionary of the Russian Academy, 1789-94, etc.), also appear synonymous, phraseological, dialectal, terminological, orthographic, grammatical and other dictionaries. The development of L. 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 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 18-19 centuries. approved, and in the 20th century. the fourth 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 etymological, historical, frequency, reverse, related languages, languages of writers, etc.). Modern lexicography is acquiring an industrial character (the creation of lexicographic centers and institutions, the mechanization of work since 1950, etc.).

Theoretical L. 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, the USA, etc.). The modern theory of linguistics 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 (singling out 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 associated with all sections of linguistics, especially with lexicology, many of whose problems receive a specific refraction in L. Contemporary linguistics emphasizes the important social function of dictionaries, which record the body of knowledge of the society of a given epoch. L. develops a typology of dictionaries. Monolingual L. (explanatory and other dictionaries) and bilingual L. (translation dictionaries) stand out. educational linguistics (dictionaries for language learning), scientific and technical linguistics (terminological dictionaries), etc.

Lit.: Shcherba L. V., Experience of the general theory of lexicography, “Izv. USSR Academy of Sciences, OLYA, 1940, No. 3; Lexicographic collection, vols. 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.

Meaning of LANGUAGE BRANCH in the Dictionary of Linguistic Terms

BRANCH LANGUAGE

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

Dictionary of linguistic terms. 2012

See what the "language branch" is in other dictionaries:

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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 distinctive 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 the time ... ... Wikipedia

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

Significance of Indo-European languages in comparative historical linguistics

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

Ways to compare languages

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

Genetic classification of Indo-European languages

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

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

Branches of the Indo-European family

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

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

Pidgins

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

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

Tajik

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

Ossetian

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

The collapse of the base language

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

Attempts to merge different branches

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

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

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

The first comparativists

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

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

The merit of August Schleicher

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

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

Contemporary research by Quentin Atkinson

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

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

Consideration of cognates

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

Use of historical information and geographic data

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

Research results

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

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

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

Most languages in the world are grouped into families. A language family is a genetic language 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

In total there are about 420 language families. Sometimes families are combined into macrofamilies. But at present, only theories about the existence of Nostratic and Afroasian macrofamilies have received reliable justification.

Nostratic languages- a hypothetical macrofamily of languages that unites several language families and languages of Europe, Asia and Africa, including Altaic, Kartvelian, Dravidian, Indo-European, Uralic, sometimes also Afroasian and Eskimo-Aleut languages. All Nostratic languages go back to a single Nostratic parent language.
Afroasian 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 Afro-Asiatic speakers (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 needs to be confirmed.
A family is a group of distinctly but fairly distantly related languages that have at least 15% of matches in the base list.

Figuratively, a language family can be represented as a tree with branches. Branches are groups of related languages. They do not have to be of the same level of depth, only their relative order within the same family is important. Consider this issue on the example of the Indo-European family of languages.

Indo-European family

It 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 scholar Thomas Young in 1813.

Thomas Young
The languages of the Indo-European family come from a single Proto-Indo-European language, whose speakers lived about 5-6 thousand years ago.
But it is impossible to name the exact places of origin of the Proto-Indo-European language, there are only hypotheses: they name such regions as Eastern Europe, Western Asia, the steppe territories at the junction of Europe and Asia. With a high probability, the so-called "pit culture" can be considered the archaeological culture of the ancient Indo-Europeans, the carriers of which in the III millennium BC. e. lived in the east of modern Ukraine and the south of Russia. This is a hypothesis, but it is confirmed 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 carriers of the Yamnaya culture from the territory of the Black Sea and Volga steppes approximately 4500 years ago.

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

Indo-European a 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 this 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, which was spoken in the Southern Mesopotamia in the 4th-3rd millennia BC); Nivkh (the Nivkh language, spoken in the northern part of Sakhalin Island and in the basin of the Amgun River, a tributary of the Amur); Elamite (Elam - a historical region and an ancient state (III millennium - mid-VI century BC) in the south-west of modern Iran); The Hadza (in Tanzania) languages are isolated. Only those languages are said to be isolated for which there is sufficient data and entry into the language family has not been proven for them even after strenuous attempts to do so.