Test in linguistics on the topic:
"Languages of the world: classification and methods of study"
Plan
1.Basic classification of world languages
2. Typological classification of languages: languages of analytical and synthetic structure
3.Genealogical classification
a) comparative historical method in linguistics
b) the question of the ancestral homeland of Europeans
4. Language families, branches and groups in the modern world
5. The essence of Indo-European languages
Bibliography
1. Basic classification of world languages
Currently, there are from 3 to 5 thousand languages on earth. The difference is associated with the difference in dialects and languages, secondly with the definition of the area and scope of use, and thirdly with the assessment of the “vitality” of the language.
The multiplicity of languages necessitates classification. In modern linguistics, 4 classifications have been developed:
1) Areal (geographical)
2) Functional
3) Typological (morphological)
4) Genealogical
The first is based on studying the linguistic map of the world. Describes the boundaries of distribution.
The second is based on the study of the functions and areas of language use (cultural, diplomatic, language of education, etc.)
The most important are the typological and genealogical classifications.
2. Typological classification of languages: languages of analytical and synthetic structure
The second direction is the typological (morphological) classification of languages, based on morphological data, regardless of genetic or spatial proximity, relying solely on the properties of the linguistic structure. The typological classification of languages seeks to cover the material of all languages of the world, reflect their similarities and differences, and at the same time identify the possible language types and specifics of each language or group of typologically similar languages, while relying on data not only from morphology, but also from phonology, syntax, and semantics.
The basis for including a language in the typological classification of languages is the type of language, that is, the characteristics of the fundamental properties of its structure. However, a type is not absolutely implemented in a language; In reality, each language contains several types, that is, each language is polytypological. Therefore, it is appropriate to say to what extent one or another type is present in the structure of a given language; on this basis, attempts are being made to give a quantitative interpretation of the typological characteristics of the language.
The most accepted typological classification of languages is:
isolating (amorphous) type - unchangeable words with grammatical significance of word order, weak opposition of significant and auxiliary roots (for example, ancient Chinese, Vietnamese, Yoruba);
agglutinating (agglutinative) type - a developed system of unambiguous affixes, absence of grammatical alternations in the root, uniformity of inflection for all words belonging to the same part of speech, weak connection (presence of distinct boundaries) between morphs (for example, many Finno-Ugric languages, Turkic languages, Bantu languages);
the inflectional type combines languages with internal inflection, that is, with grammatically significant alternation in the root (Semitic languages), and languages with external inflection, fusion, that is, with the simultaneous expression of several grammatical meanings with one affix (for example, hands - instrumental case, plural), strong connection (lack of clear boundaries) between morphs and diversity of declensions and conjugations; Ancient and some modern Indo-European languages combine internal inflection and fusion.
The typological classification of languages cannot be considered final, mainly because of its inability to reflect all the specifics of an individual language, taking into account its structure. But it contains in implicit form the possibility of clarifying it by analyzing other spheres of language. For example, in isolating languages such as classical Chinese, Vietnamese, and Guinean, the monosyllabic nature of a word equal to a morpheme, the presence of polytony, and a number of other interrelated characteristics are observed.
The concept of linguistic relativity is a theory of the dependence of the thinking style and fundamental ideological paradigms of a collective native speaker on the specifics of the latter. “The language of a people is its spirit, and the spirit of a people is its language,” and in this sense, “every language is a kind of worldview” (Humboldt). Thus, the typology public life can and should be explained based on the variability of cultures expressing themselves in different languages. In this regard, within the framework of the linguistic relativity of the concept, a hypothetical model of the development of world culture is formulated, which could be based not on the Indo-European language matrix and the corresponding European rational-logical deductivism and the linear concept of irreversible time, but on radically different linguistic material. It is assumed that this would lead to the formation of a fundamentally different type of world culture
Typical synthetic languages include ancient written Indo-European languages: Sanskrit, ancient Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old Church Slavonic; at present, to a large extent, Lithuanian, German, Russian (although both with many active features of analyticism); to analytical: Romance, English, Danish, Modern Greek, New Persian, Modern Indian; from Slavic - Bulgarian.
Languages such as Turkic and Finnish, despite the predominant role of affixation in their grammar, have a lot of analyticity in their structure due to the agglutinating nature of their affixation; languages like Arabic are synthetic because their grammar is expressed within the word, but they are rather analytical in the agglutinating tendency of affixation. Of course, in this regard there are deviations and contradictions; Thus, in German the article is an analytical phenomenon, but it is declined according to cases - this is synthetism; plural nouns in English are expressed, as a rule, once - an analytical phenomenon.
3. Genealogical classification
Genetic classification is based on the sign of kinship - common origin, which was established only after the emergence of the concept of linguistic kinship and the establishment of the principle of historicism in linguistic research (19th century). It develops as a result of studying languages using the comparative historical method. At the same time, the relationship of some languages is recognized as proven if the common origin of a significant part of the morphemes of these languages, all grammatical affixes and many roots is discovered. Including in those parts of the vocabulary that are usually particularly stable: pronouns, names of certain parts of the body, words meaning “water”, “fire”, “sun”, “be”, “give”, “eat”, “drink” ", etc. The common origin of roots and affixes is confirmed by the presence in them of regular interlingual phonetic correspondences. If a comparative historical phonetics has been created that makes it possible to approximately reconstruct the roots of the ancestor language and trace (according to strict rules) their transformation into the roots of descendant languages, then the relationship of the latter is considered established.
In this sense, the kinship of the following families of languages in the Old World is undeniable: Indo-European, Uralic (with Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic branches), Turkic, Mongolian, Tungus-Manchu, Dravidian, Kartvelian, Semitic-Hamitic (Afroasiatic), in the 60s. 20th century united into the Nostratic (Borean) language family. It was possible to construct a comparative phonetics of these languages, tracing regular phonetic correspondences in more than 600 roots and affixes. Among the languages of Eurasia, the Sino-Tibetan family of languages, the Yenisei, Andaman families, isolated languages: Basque, Burusha, Ainu and some ancient languages: Sumerian, Kassite, Hutt, etc. remain outside the groupings. All the numerous language groups of Africa (except Semitic-Hamitic) are united at three o'clok hypothetical families: Niger-Kordofanian, Nilo-Saharan and Khoisan.
The genetic classification of languages exists in the form of a single scheme. Being linguistic, it does not coincide with anthropological and, in particular, does not imply that peoples speaking related languages belong to a single race. Although the formation of language families occurs constantly, their formation, as a rule, dates back to the era before the advent of class society. The modern genetic classification of languages does not provide grounds to support the concept of monogenesis of the world's languages, popular in old linguistics.
Comparative historical method originates at the end of the 19th century, when, during the study of languages, factors of similarity between these languages were established.
Based on the established similarities, a hypothesis arises about the relationship of these languages and the unity of their origin, so gradually the comparative historical method became the basis for the formation of a special branch in linguistics.
The key question for the formation and development of comparative historical linguistics was and remains the question of the habitat of the Proto-Indo-Europeans - carriers of the Proto-Indo-European language. In pre-war literature, the north of Europe was often postulated as the ancestral home, while the Germanic peoples were declared to be the purest bearers of the “Aryan race”.
After the idea of a North European ancestral home was debunked (Indo-European languages do not even have a common designation for the sea), the following basic doctrines about the ancestral home of Europeans were formed:
· Academic hypotheses
1. The most widely accepted is the Kurgan hypothesis, proposed by Marija Gimbutas in 1956. According to it, the ancestral homeland of the Indo-Europeans is the Volga and Black Sea steppes (Yamnaya culture). Gradually, various branches of Indo-Europeans migrated in waves to different sides from the ancestral home. The ancestors of the Balts and Slavs occupied the original area for the longest time.
2. The Anatolian hypothesis (formulated by Colin Renfrew) suggests that the Proto-Indo-European language existed earlier than generally believed, around the Neolithic, 7-6 thousand BC. in Anatolia (Çatalhöyük is considered a monument of Indo-Europeans), after which in 6 thousand Indo-European languages crossed the Bosporus and spread to South-Eastern Europe.
Classification of languages - determining the place of each language among the languages of the world; distribution of the world's languages into groups based on certain characteristics in accordance with the principles underlying the study.
Issues of classifying the diversity of languages of the world, distributing them according to certain headings began to be actively developed in early XIX century.
The most developed and recognized are two classifications - genealogical and typological (or morphological).
Genealogical (genetic) classification:
Based on the concept of linguistic kinship;
The goal is to determine the place of a particular language in the circle of related languages, to establish its genetic connections;
The main method is comparative-historical;
The degree of stability of the classification is absolutely stable (since each language initially belongs to one or another family, group of languages and cannot change the nature of this belonging).
In accordance with this classification, the following language families are distinguished:
Indo-European;
Afroasiatic;
Dravidian;
Ural;
Altai;
Caucasian;
Sino-Tibetan.
There are many branches in the Indo-European family, among them - Slavic (Russian, Polish, Czech, etc.), Germanic (English, Dutch, German, Swedish, etc.), Romance (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese etc.), Celtic (Irish, Scottish, Breton, Welsh).
The Tatar language is part of the Altai language family, the Turkic branch
Typological classification (originally known as morphological):
Based on the concept of similarity (formal and/or semantic) and, accordingly, differences between languages; is based on the peculiarities of the structure of languages (on the characteristics of the morphological structure of the word, methods of combining morphemes, the role of inflections and affixes in the formation of grammatical forms of the word and in the transmission grammatical meaning words);
The goal is to group languages into large classes based on the similarity of their grammatical structure (the principles of its organization), to determine the place of a particular language, taking into account the formal organization of its linguistic structure;
The main method is comparative;
The degree of stability of the classification is relative and historically changeable (since each language is constantly developing, its structure and the theoretical basis this structure).
According to the morphological classification, languages are divided into 4 classes:
1) isolating or amorphous languages, for example, Chinese, most languages of Southeast Asia. The languages of this group are characterized by the absence of inflection, grammatical significance of word order, and weak opposition of significant and function words.
2) agglutinative languages
In agglutinative languages, each morphological meaning is expressed by a separate affix, and each affix has one purpose, as a result of which the word is easily divided into its component parts, the connection between the root part and the affixes is weak. These languages include Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Iberian-Caucasian (for example, Georgian). They are characterized by a developed system of word-formation and inflectional affixation, a single type of declension and conjugation, and grammatical unambiguity of affixes.
3) inflected languages
The connection between the stem and affixes is closer, which is manifested in the so-called fusion - the merger of an affix with the stem. This group includes Indo-European languages (Russian, German, Latin, English, Indian, etc.), Semitic (Arabic, Hebrew, etc.).
4) incorporating or polysynthetic languages
For example, Chukchi-Kamchatka, many Indian languages North America. In these languages, the entire sentence is combined into one complex whole - a verb with a subject, an object, with a definition and circumstances. In polysynthetic languages there are no words outside the sentence; the sentence constitutes the basic unit of speech. This unit is multi-component; words are included in this unit, therefore polysynthetic.
Cultural-historical classification examines languages from the point of view of their relationship to cultural history; takes into account the historical sequence of cultural development; highlights:
Unwritten languages;
Written languages;
Literary languages of nationality and nation;
Languages of international communication.
Based on the prevalence of the language and the number of people speaking it, they are divided into:
Languages that are common among a narrow circle of speakers (tribal languages of Africa, Polynesia; “one-aul” languages of Dagestan);
Languages spoken by individual nationalities (Dungan - in Kyrgyzstan);
Languages spoken by the entire nation (Czech, Bulgarian);
Languages that are used by several nations, the so-called interethnic (French - in France, Belgium, Switzerland; Russian, serving the peoples of Russia);
Languages that function as international languages (English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Russian).
According to the degree of activity of the tongue, they are distinguished:
Living are actively functioning languages;
Dead (Latin, Gaulish, Gothic) - preserved only in written monuments, in place names or in the form of borrowings in other languages or disappeared without a trace; some dead languages are still used today (Latin is the language catholic church, medicine, scientific terminology).
Currently, there are from 3 to 5 thousand languages on earth. The difference is connected, firstly, with the difference in dialects and languages, secondly, with the definition of the area and sphere of use, and thirdly, with the assessment of the “vitality” of the language.
The multiplicity of languages necessitates classification. In modern linguistics, 4 classifications have been developed:
- 1) Areal (geographical)
- 2) Functional
- 3) Typological (morphological)
- 4) Genealogical
The first is based on studying the linguistic map of the world. Describes the boundaries of distribution.
The second is based on the study of the functions and areas of language use (cultural, diplomatic, language of education, etc.)
The most important are the typological and genealogical classifications.
Typological classification of languages: languages of analytical and synthetic structure
The second direction is the typological (morphological) classification of languages, based on morphological data, regardless of genetic or spatial proximity, relying solely on the properties of the linguistic structure. The typological classification of languages seeks to cover the material of all languages of the world, reflect their similarities and differences, and at the same time identify the possible language types and specifics of each language or group of typologically similar languages, while relying on data not only from morphology, but also from phonology, syntax, and semantics.
The basis for including a language in the typological classification of languages is the type of language, that is, the characteristics of the fundamental properties of its structure. However, a type is not absolutely implemented in a language; In reality, each language contains several types, that is, each language is polytypological. Therefore, it is appropriate to say to what extent one or another type is present in the structure of a given language; on this basis, attempts are being made to give a quantitative interpretation of the typological characteristics of the language.
The typological classification of languages cannot be considered final, mainly because of its inability to reflect all the specifics of an individual language, taking into account its structure. But it contains in implicit form the possibility of clarifying it by analyzing other spheres of language. For example, in isolating languages such as classical Chinese, Vietnamese, and Guinean, the monosyllabic nature of a word equal to a morpheme, the presence of polytony, and a number of other interrelated characteristics are observed.
Linguistic relativity concept is a theory of dependence of the thinking style and fundamental ideological paradigms of a collective native speaker on the specifics of the latter. “The language of a people is its spirit, and the spirit of a people is its language,” and in this sense, “every language is a kind of worldview” (Humboldt). Thus, the typology of social life can and should be explained based on the variability of cultures expressing themselves in different languages. In this regard, within the framework of the linguistic relativity of the concept, a hypothetical model of the development of world culture is formulated, which could be based not on the Indo-European language matrix and the corresponding European rational-logical deductivism and the linear concept of irreversible time, but on radically different linguistic material. It is assumed that this would lead to the formation of a fundamentally different type of world culture
Typical synthetic languages include ancient written Indo-European languages: Sanskrit, ancient Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old Church Slavonic; at present, to a large extent, Lithuanian, German, Russian (although both with many active features of analyticism); to analytical: Romance, English, Danish, Modern Greek, New Persian, Modern Indian; from Slavic - Bulgarian.
Languages such as Turkic and Finnish, despite the predominant role of affixation in their grammar, have a lot of analyticity in their structure due to the agglutinating nature of their affixation; languages like Arabic are synthetic because their grammar is expressed within the word, but they are rather analytical in the agglutinating tendency of affixation. Of course, in this regard there are deviations and contradictions; Thus, in German the article is an analytical phenomenon, but it is declined according to cases - this is synthetism; The plural of nouns in English is usually expressed once - an analytical phenomenon.
Linguistics deals not only with the study of the world's languages, but also with their classification. Classification of languages is the distribution of the world's languages into groups based on certain characteristics, in accordance with the principles underlying the study.
There are different classifications of languages. The main ones are:
- - genealogical (genetic), based on the concept of linguistic kinship;
- - typological (morphological), based on the concept of structural similarity of languages;
- - geographical (areal).
Genealogical classification is based on the concept of linguistic kinship, and typological classification is based on the concept of similarity of languages.
The purpose of the genealogical classification of languages is to determine the place of a particular language in the circle of related languages and to establish its genetic connections. The main method of research is comparative-historical, the main classification category is the family of languages (also branch, group, subgroup).
The purpose of the typological classification of languages is to establish language types at different levels - phonetic, morphological, syntactic.
Related languages are the subject of study in comparative historical linguistics. The relationship of languages is manifested in their systematic material similarity, i.e. in the similarity of the material from which the exponents of morphemes and words that are identical or similar in meaning are constructed. For example, other ind. Kas tava sunus? or T. Kas tavo sunus? Such similarities cannot be accidental. It testifies to the relationship of languages. The presence of common morphemes indicates the common origin of languages.
Language affinity is the material proximity of two or more languages, manifested in sound and content similarity and linguistic elements different levels- words, roots, morphemes, grammatical forms, etc. Related languages are characterized by material closeness inherited from the era of their linguistic unity.
Genetic study of languages is the study of languages from the point of view of their origin: the presence/absence of kinship or greater/less kinship. Recognition of the kinship of languages assumes that related languages are “descendants” of one common language(proto-language, base language). The collective of people who spoke this language, in a certain era, disintegrated due to certain historical reasons, and for each part of the collective, in conditions of independent isolated development, the language changed “in its own way,” as a result of which the independent languages.
The greater or lesser degree of kinship depends on how long ago the separation of languages occurred. The longer the languages developed independently, the further they “moved” from each other, the more distant the kinship between them.
Over the centuries, related languages have undergone significant changes. As a result, these languages have far more differences than similarities.
The phonetic appearance of words changes. Phonetic changes are systematic, natural in nature, and as a result, strict phonetic correspondences are observed. For example, lat. matches in it. [h]: caput (head) - Haupt; cornu (horn) - Horn; collis (neck) - Hals. The fact of the presence of a system of regular sound correspondences is the most conclusive in establishing the relationship of languages. Sound correspondences reflect the regular nature of sound transformations of linguistic units.
Related languages that have one common “ancestor” form a language family. For example, the Indo-European family of languages has an Indo-European base language as its base language, which broke up into dialects, gradually turning into independent languages related to each other. The Indo-European proto-language is not recorded in written monuments. Words and forms of this language can only presumably (hypothetically) be restored (reconstructed) by scientists based on a comparison of related languages. The restored form is the protoform, the archetype. It is marked with * (asterisk), for example: * nevos- prototype for words: English. new, lat. novus, tazh. nav, German neu, Armenian nor, Russian new. linguistics kinship genealogical typological
To recreate the ancient appearance of this word, the most rational option is to choose the Greek and Latin forms, which allow us to reconstruct the *nevos archetype. When comparing words and forms, preference is always given to languages of an older formation.
The material similarities between languages are not always obvious. Sometimes words that are very different in sound are connected by regular complex phonetic correspondences and, therefore, are genetically identical, for example, Russian. child and German Kind(k>h).
Comparison of related languages is carried out using the comparative historical method.
Reliable evidence of the relationship of languages is the common grammatical forms. They, as a rule, are not borrowed when languages come into contact.
In most cases we're talking about not about complete comparability, but about regular correspondences in the phonemic composition of morphemes with similar semantics.
It is necessary to strive to ensure that the comparisons cover the maximum number of words and a wide range of languages.
The most productive and methodologically correct is not a direct comparison of morphemes of languages, but the construction of hypothetical ancestral forms: if we assume that these languages are related, then for each series of semantically related morphemes of these languages there should have been a primordial form in the base language to which they all go back. Therefore, it is necessary to show that there are rules according to which the transition from some proto-form to all existing mophemes in these languages can be explained. So, instead of directly comparing Russian ber- and its analogues in other languages, it is assumed that in the Proto-Indo-European language there was a form * bher, which, according to certain laws, passed into all forms attested in descendant languages.
The comparative historical method uses the technique of reconstruction. Reconstruction is a set of techniques and procedures for recreating unattested linguistic states, forms, phenomena by historical comparison of the corresponding units of a particular language, group or family of languages.
The main meaning of the reconstruction is the most adequate and consistent disclosure of the stage-by-stage development and historical changes of particular subsystems and the system as a whole of languages dating back to one ancestor.
Some linguistic phenomena of a common base language may be preserved in one group of related languages, but may disappear in another. Preserved linguistic phenomena - relics - make it possible to restore the original picture of the ancestor language. The absence of such relics makes the work of comparativists difficult.
Those linguistic phenomena that appear in the language later are called innovations.
In recent decades, to determine the degree of relationship between languages, new method, which allows, through the use of special calculations, to determine how long ago certain languages diverged. This is the method of glottochronology, proposed by the American linguist M. Swadesh. The glottochronology method is based on the following assumptions. In the vocabulary of each language there is a layer that makes up the so-called basic vocabulary. The vocabulary of the main dictionary is used to express simple, necessary concepts. These words should be represented in all languages. They are least susceptible to change in the course of history. The main dictionary is updated very slowly. The speed of this update is constant for all languages. This fact is used in glottochronology. It has been established that the vocabulary of the main dictionary is replaced at a rate of 19-20% per millennium, i.e. out of every 100 words of the main vocabulary, approximately 80 are preserved after a millennium. This was established by calculations based on the material of languages that have a long attested history.
For glottochronological studies, the most commonly used an important part main dictionary. They take 200 units - 100 basic, or diagnostic, and 100 additional. The main lexical units include words such as hand, leg, moon, rain, smoke, in the additional dictionary - words such as bad, lip, bottom.
For that. in order to determine the time of divergence of two languages, lists of 200 words of the main dictionary should be compiled for each of them, i.e. give the equivalents of these words in these languages. Then it is necessary to find out how many pairs of semantically identical words from two such lists can be considered related, connected by regular phonetic correspondences. lists, we get double the word divergence time.
Classification of languages is the distribution of the languages of the world into certain categoriesin accordance with the principles arising from the general purpose of the study and on the basis of certain characteristics.
There are two main types of classification of languages - genealogical and typological. The main difference between them is that the first is based on the concept of relatedness of languages, the second - on the concept of similarity (formal or semantic), and it can also (but not necessarily) represent a classification with a hierarchy of levels (genus-species relations). From the point of view of their goals, they are not reducible to one another, but their principles can overlap: genealogical classification is often built taking into account typological characteristics, which is inevitable when there is insufficient comparative study of the corresponding languages, when their genealogical classification is preliminary. The independence of the two types of classification is manifested in the possibility of typological classification within already established genealogical groupings.
There is a third type of classification - areal, which, although autonomous, occupies an intermediate position between the two indicated classifications.
It takes into account the distribution of linguistic phenomena in spatial extent and interlingual (interdialect) interaction. Areal classification is also possible for idioms (various linguistic formations - language, dialect, dialect, literary language, and other forms of existence of the language) within the genealogical classification (for example, the Polesie area, covering the 6-Russian-Ukrainian dialects), and for languages of different genetic affiliation (for example, the Carpathian area of the Hungarian-Slavic dialects).
With a genetic approach to classification, they operate with categories such as family, branch, group, etc., with a typological approach - type, class, with an areal approach - area, zone.
Genealogical classification only. is absolute in nature (each language belongs to one specific genealogical group and cannot change this affiliation; cases of erroneous assignment of a language to one family or group and subsequent transfer to another family are not taken into account). Typological classification is always relative and historically changeable due to the variability of the very structure of the language and its theoretical understanding; areal classification is more or less stable depending on the nature of the classification parameters. Only for areal classification is the territorial localization of idioms essential; genealogical and typological classifications are constructed independently of the spatial distribution of languages.
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