The beginning of many languages ​​​​of the Old World gave Nostratic a linguistic community dated by researchers to about the 11th–9th millennium BC. and localized by them in Northeast Africa and Southwest Asia. From its composition, the languages ​​​​of five families stood out, which spread over a large territory of the Old World: Indo-European, Altaic, Ural-Yukagir, Kartvelian and Dravidian.

Indo-European the family occupies a special place among them, since its languages ​​are not only common in the vast territory of the Old World, but prevail in the number of speakers in the American and Australian-Oceanian regions. It includes the following groups, subgroups and languages.

Slavic The group, in turn, is divided into subgroups: East Slavic - Russian, Ukrainian, Ruthenian and Belarusian languages; West Slavic - Polish, Czech, Slovak and two Lusatian (Lusatian - the Slavic people of the north-eastern part of Germany) languages; South Slavic - Serbo-Croatian (native to Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins and Bosniaks), Slovene, Macedonian and Bulgarian.

german a group in which, as in Slavic, one can single out "one-national" languages, i.e. those that are native to one ethnic group, and "multinational" that "serve" several peoples. The first ones include: Swedish, Norwegian, Frisian (Friezes - an ethnic group living in the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany), Faroese (Faroese - the people of the Faroe Islands), Icelandic languages, to the second: Deutsch, which is native to the Germans, Austrians, Liechtensteiners, German-Swiss, Alsatians, Luxembourgish and Yiddish are peculiar variants of the German language - native language for a significant portion of Ashkenazi Jews; English - for the British, most of the Scots and Irish, part of the Gibraltarians, Anglo-Canadians, Anglo-Australians, Anglo-Zeelanders, Anglo-Africans, US Americans and a number of peoples of the West Indies - Grenadians, Jamaicans, Barbadians, Trinidadians, Guyanese; Dutch - for Dutch, Flemings, Surinamese and Afrikaners (Boers) South Africa; Danish - for the Danes and part of the Norwegians.

Romanskaya the group that arose on the basis of the so-called Vulgar Latin, now referred to as "dead" languages, includes languages ​​​​that are native to one ethnic group - Romanian, Catalan, Galician, Romansh, Sardinian, Occitan, Corsican, and for several ethnic groups: Italian - for Italians, Sanmarians, Italian-Swiss; French - for the French, Monegasques/Monegasques, Franco-Swiss, Walloons, French Canadians, in the West Indies - Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyanese and Haitians; Portuguese - for the Portuguese and Brazilians; Spanish - for the Spaniards, part of the Gibraltarians, and in Latin America for most ethnic groups - Mexicans, Peruvians, Chileans, Argentines, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, etc. (the exception is Brazilians and some peoples of the West Indies). Spanish language is a "record holder" in the number of ethnic groups speaking it.

Celtic a group once widespread in Europe is now represented only by Irish, Breton (an ethnic group in France), Gaelic (part of the Scots) and Welsh (Welsh) languages.

Albanian group - Albanian.

Greek Group - Greek language, which is spoken by the Greeks proper, the Greek Cypriots, and the so-called Karakachan Greeks of mountainous Greece.

Baltic group - Lithuanian, Latvian languages.

Armenian group - Armenian language.

Iranian group - Afghan / Pashtun, Persian / Farsi, Dari / Farsi-Kabuli, Kurdish, Tajik, etc., from the languages ​​​​of the peoples of Russia - Ossetian and Tat.

Indo-Aryan the group includes the languages ​​of the northern part of the Hindustan peninsula - Hindustani, Bengali, Bihari, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, Assamese, Nepali, Sinhala, etc. Russian Federation this group is represented by the gypsy language.

Nuristani group - Nuristani language.

Altai the language family is represented by three groups - Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu, including the Korean branch.

Turkic group - Turkish (Turks, Turkish Cypriots, Greeks-Urums), Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Karakalpak, Uzbek, Uighur, Gagauz, etc. In the Russian Federation in the European part - Tatar, Bashkir, Chuvash languages. In the North Caucasus - Karachay-Balkar, Nogai and Kumyk. In Siberia - Altai, Khakass, Tuva, Yakut, Dolgan, Shor, Tofalar languages.

Mongolian group - Mongolian, in the Russian Federation: Buryat - in Siberia and Kalmyk - in the European part.

Tungus-Manchu group - Manchurian, in the Russian Federation - Nanai, Evenki, Even, Ulch, Udege, Oroch, Orok (Uilta), Negidal languages.

Ural-Yukaghir the family consists of three groups of languages ​​- Finno-Ugric, Samoyedic and Yukagir.

Finno-Ugric group includes languages Finnish subgroups - Finnish, Estonian, Liv (people in Latvia). In the Russian Federation - Udmurt, Komi and Komi-Permyak, Sami, Veps, Izhora, as well as the languages ​​of bilingual ethnic groups: Moksha and Erzya - native to Mordovians, Mountain Mari and Meadow-Eastern - for Mari, Livvik and Ludikov - for Karelians; and Ugric subgroups - Hungarian, and in the Russian Federation - Khanty and Mansi languages.

samoyed the group consists of the Nenets, Enets, Selkup and Nganasan languages.

Yukagir the group is represented by only one language - Yukagir.

North Caucasian the family consists of the Nakho-Dagestan and Abkhaz-Adyghe groups.

Nakho-Dagestan the group includes Nakh a subgroup consisting of the Chechen and Ingush languages, and Dagestan a subgroup consisting, according to linguists, of about fifty languages ​​- Avar, Lezgi, Dargin, Lak, Tabasaran, etc.

Part Abkhaz-Adyghe groups include Abkhazian a subgroup including the Abkhazian and Abaza languages, and Adyghe a subgroup consisting of the Adyghe and Kabardino-Circassian languages.

All of the above families include, among other things, the languages ​​of the peoples whose ethnic territory is part of the Russian Federation. In addition, there are peoples who speak the Chukotka-Kamchatka languages ​​that do not go back to the Nostratic community - Chukchi, Koryak and Itelmen, Eskimo-Aleutian - Eskimo and Aleut.

The peoples who speak the languages ​​of other families live mainly outside of it.

Sino-Tibetan The family in terms of the number of speakers of its languages ​​is one of the largest in the world, primarily due to the largest people in the world - the Chinese, whose number is 1.3 billion people. She is

is divided into Chinese, Central and Western Himalayan group. Chinese the group is represented by the Chinese language, in which there are quite a few mutually intelligible dialects, except for the Chinese, Hui (Dungan) speak this language. AT central the group includes Burmese, Tibetan, Izu, etc., Western Himalayan canauri and lahuli.

Languages Dravidian families are distributed in the south of the Hindustan Peninsula. It consists of several groups, among which the most significant in terms of the number of speakers of these languages ​​are: southern with Tamil, Malayali, Kannara, etc.; southeast with Telugu language. In addition, the Dravidian family includes gondwanese and other groups.

Kartvelian family includes Georgian language, which, in addition to Georgians, is also spoken by Adjarians, and the Megrelian, Chan and Svan languages ​​\u200b\u200bthat are close to it.

Austroasiatic the family is distributed in Southeast and partly East and South Asia. It includes groups: Viet Muong, in which the most significant in terms of the number of speakers is Vietnamese; southeastern (Mon-Khmer) with Khmer, Khasi and other languages, as well as groups Munda, Miao Yao, Northern (palaung-wa ) and Malacca.

Austronesian the family is distributed mainly on the islands South-East Asia and much of Oceania. In terms of the number of speakers, the largest of its groups is Western Autonesian with the Javanese, Bisaya, Sund and other languages ​​in Southeast Asia and the languages ​​of the Chamorro and Belau / Palau peoples in Oceania on the islands of Micronesia. Languages in the East Austronesian (Oceanian) groups are distributed mainly in Oceania: in Melanesia - among the peoples of Tolai, Keapara, etc .; in Micronesia, among the Tungars, Truks, and other peoples; in Polynesia - among the Maori, Samoa and some others. In addition, this family includes Central Austronesian and Taiwanese groups.

Languages paratai families are distributed mainly in mainland Southeast, as well as in the south of East Asia, the most representative in its composition Thai a group with Siamese, Lao, Zhuang and a number of other languages, this family also includes the languages ​​of the groups kam-suu, li and gelao.

In Australia and Oceania, researchers, in addition to the languages ​​of the Austronesian family, also distinguish Australian and Papuan languages. They have been studied rather poorly: Australian - due to the disappearance of a significant part of the natives, Papuan - due to the inaccessibility of the interior of New Guinea. It has been established that these languages ​​represent a significant number of language families. So, as part of the Australian languages, and there are about two hundred of them, united in a phylum, such communities are distinguished (corresponding approximately to families such as pama-nyunga, tiwi, deraga etc.), in Papuan languages, of which there are more than a thousand - trans-New Guinean, West Papuan and a number of other families.

Afroasian (Semitic-Hamitic ) the family is distributed in North Africa and Southwest Asia. It consists of Semitic a group that includes the Arabic language, however, from the point of view of modern linguistics, divided into several dozen already independent languages ​​\u200b\u200b(including literary ones) - Moroccan, Egyptian, Syriac, Iraqi, etc. This group also includes: Hebrew - language Jewish ethnic group; Maltese - the inhabitants of the European state of Malta and Assyrian - the language of the Aisors, the descendants of the population Ancient Assyria, now scattered in many countries, their largest number is noted in Iraq and Turkey. Other languages ​​of this group are common in northeast Africa (Amharic, Tigre, etc.).

The languages ​​of the remaining groups of the Afroasian family are spoken only by the peoples of the African continent: Cushite (Oromo, Somali, Beja, etc.); Berber (Tuareg, Zenaga, etc.) and Chadian (house, bura, bade, etc.).

Niger-Kordofanian family whose peoples live mainly in Western Sudan and Western Tropical Africa, consists of two groups. Group n iger-congo includes a number of subgroups - Benue-Congo, Kwa, West Atlantic and others, according to the number of speakers, the languages ​​of such peoples as the Fulbe, Yoruba, Igbo, Rwanda are distinguished. It should be especially noted that the languages ​​of this group are spoken by the Pygmies of Central Africa, some features of their culture indicate that in ancient times they spoke other, "own" languages. Kordofanskaya the group is small both in terms of the number of languages ​​and the number of people who speak them, these are the peoples of Koalib, Tumtum, etc.

Nilo-Saharan the family is distributed mainly in eastern Africa. Most of its languages ​​are included in Shari Nile a group made up of a number of sub-groups East Sudanese, Central Sudanese and others, other groups of this family - Saharan, Songhai, Fur, Maba and Coma. The most common Nilo-Saharan languages ​​belong to the Luo, Dinka, Kanuri, and other peoples.

Khoisan the family is distributed in southern Africa and, in terms of the number of speakers, is mainly represented South African Khoisan group - Hottentot and Bushman languages, its other groups - sandave and hadza/hadzapi include one people each with similar names.

In the Americas, the vast majority of the population now speaks languages Indo-European family that spread here as a result of the colonization of the region in the post-Columbian time.

As for the aboriginal population, it is characterized by the already mentioned Eskimo-Aleutian languages ​​in the northern part of the continent and Indian - in the rest. Classification Indian languages represents difficult problem, and so far no one has been created that would be accepted, if not by all, then by the majority of researchers. Now the most generally accepted is the following classification by J. Greenberg, which distinguishes nine families in the Indian languages.

Ando-equatorial family (according to many researchers, it should be divided into the Andean and Equatorial families) includes the languages ​​of such peoples as Quechua, Paraguayans, Aymara, Araucans, etc. In the languages ​​of the family penalty they say (Maya, kakchikel, kekchi, tsimshiap, etc.), Aztec-Tanoan (Aztecs, Shoshone, Hopi, Zunya, etc.), macrooto manga (zapotecs, mixtecs, pame, etc.), macro chibcha (chibcha-muisca, lenca, kuna, etc.), same-pano-caribbean (same, pano, caribbean, toba, etc.), hoka sioux (Sioux, Cherokee, Iroquois, Dakota, etc.), Algonquian-Mosan (Algonquin, Cree, Ojibwe, etc.) on the day (Navajo, Athabaskan, Apache, Tlingit, etc.), tarasque - Taras.

Isolated languages

Languages ​​that bear no resemblance to any other languages ​​are represented almost exclusively on the Asian continent. Ainu the language belongs to the Ainu of Hokkaido (Japan), there are about 20 thousand of them, although only a few hundred representatives of this people speak it. Japanese the language is also among the isolated ones, the number of Japanese is 126 million people. Nivkh the language of the Nivkhs of the Lower Amur and Sakhalin Island, numbering 4.5 thousand people. is a "splinter" of the so-called Paleo-Asiatic peoples who once lived here, displaced or assimilated by newcomers from the south. Ket the language belongs to the Kets of the Upper and Middle Yenisei, numbering about 1 thousand people. In the highlands North India on the Burishi the language is spoken by Burishki / Burushaski, there are about 50 thousand of them. The only non-Asian isolated language is Basque, belonging to the Basques of the north of the Iberian Peninsula, the number of which is 1.2 million people. This is the only one of the nations Western Europe, preserved here after the settlement of the Indo-Europeans. In addition, sometimes isolated languages ​​are referred to as Korean language, the number of Koreans is approximately 62 million people, however, many researchers include one hundred in the Altaic language family.

In conclusion, it should be noted that in hard-to-reach regions, in particular, in the Amazon basin, in Western and Central Africa and in New Guinea, linguists have noted cases of the discovery of isolated languages, but their poor study does not allow us to confirm with certainty the legitimacy of such conclusions.

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

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

Indo-European family

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

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

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

Afro-Asian family

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

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

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

Nilo-Saharan family

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

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

The language families represented by the Nilo-Saharan macrofamily have significant differences among themselves. Accordingly, they present a great challenge for linguistic researchers. Into the languages ​​of this macrofamily big influence rendered by the Afro-Asian macrofamily.

Sino-Tibetan family

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

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

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

North and South American languages

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

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

Language families of Russia

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

Altaic language family

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

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

Ural family

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

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

North Caucasian family

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

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

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

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

Other language families

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

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

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

language family

Language systematics - auxiliary discipline, which helps to organize the objects studied by linguistics - languages, dialects and groups of languages. The result of this sorting is also called taxonomy of languages.

The taxonomy of languages ​​is based on the genetic classification of languages: the evolutionary-genetic grouping is natural, not artificial, it is quite objective and stable (in contrast to the often rapidly changing areal affiliation). The goal of linguistic systematics is to create a single coherent system of world languages ​​based on the allocation of a system of linguistic taxa and corresponding names, built according to certain rules (linguistic nomenclature). The terms taxonomy and taxonomy are often used interchangeably.

Device principles

The following principles are characteristic of linguistic systematics:

• A single hierarchically organized system.
• Unified system of taxa.
• Unified nomination system.

Unity of the entire system and the comparability of units of the same level should be provided by common criteria for attributing objects to one level or another. This applies to both upper levels (families and groups) and lower levels (languages ​​and dialects). In a unified taxonomy, the criteria for assigning objects to the same level must meet the following requirements: applicability to any object and consistency(or uniqueness) of referring an object to a particular class.

Unified system of taxa. Linguists can only envy the harmonious system of taxa in biology. Although there are many terms in linguistics (family, group, branch, sometimes phylum, phylum, stock), but their use varies greatly from the author, the language of description and the specific situation. Within the framework of systematics, these taxa are ordered and used according to certain rules.

Unified nomination system. In contrast to biology, where there is a coherent system of nomination in Latin using a binary name for the base unit, in linguistics there is nothing of the kind and it can hardly arise. Therefore, the main thing that a taxonomist can do is, firstly, to arrange the names of languages ​​in the language of description, choosing the main name for each idiom and group of idioms; secondly, as an additional means for the unambiguous designation of languages, regardless of the language of description, indicate for each its self-name.

Using Lexicostatistics Data. To determine the level of taxa in an existing classification (or to build a classification where it does not yet exist) and assign an object to a particular taxon, the criterion for maintaining the basic vocabulary is used; and not only to build the upper levels of classification (which is trivial), but also to distinguish between individual idioms. The percentage of matches is calculated from the standard 100-word Swadesh list. The emphasis is deliberately placed on the percentage of coincidences (although the time of decay may be given for reference), since there is no unanimity among comparativists on this issue, and relative percentage of coincidences, rather than absolute decay times, is quite enough to build a taxonomy of languages.

Upper levels of taxonomy

The main upper levels (taxa) of systematics are: family, branch, group. If necessary, the number of taxa can be increased by adding prefixes above- and under-; For example: subfamily, supergroup. The term can also be used occasionally zone, often to denote not genetic but rather areal or paraphyletic groupings, see for example the Bantu or Austronesian language classification.

Family- top a basic level of on which all systematics is based. A family is a group of distinctly but far enough related languages ​​that have at least 15 percent of the same in the base list. See List of Families of Eurasia or Overview of Families of Africa for examples.

For each family, the list of branches, groups, etc. is determined taking into account the traditionally distinguished groupings, the degree of their proximity to each other and the time of disintegration into components. At the same time, branches and groups of different families do not have to be of the same level of depth, only their relative order within one family is important.

The table shows examples of building systematics with strict use of taxa. If for Indo-European languages some levels can be skipped, then for the well-known for their branching Austronesian they are not even enough.

An example of the use of taxa

An example of the use of taxa

taxon
family	Indo-European	Austronesian
subfamily	"European"	Malayo-Polynesian
superbranch		Central East Malayo Polynesian
zone		Eastern Malayo-Polynesian
subzone		oceanic
branch	Balto-Slavic	central east oceanic
subbranch		Central Pacific (Fiji-Polynesian)
Group	Slavic	Eastern Fijian-Polynesian group
subgroup	East Slavic	Polynesian
sub-subgroup		nuclear-Polynesian
microgroup		Samoan
language	Ukrainian	tokelau

Language / dialect

Therefore, in language systematics, a scale with four levels of similarity is used: language - adverb - dialect - patois, developed on an empirical basis .

According to this scale, if two idioms have the percentage of matches in the 100-word base list< 89 (что соответствует времени распада, по формуле Сводеша-Старостина , >1100 years ago), then the idioms are different languages. If the match percentage is > 97 (decay time< 560 лет), то идиомы являются dialects one language. For the remaining interval (89-97), an intermediate level of very close languages ​​/ distant dialects is proposed, for which the term " adverb» in cases where the corresponding idiom is traditionally regarded as a component of another language. When such an idiom is considered to be a separate language, the taxon “language” is retained behind it, and the association into which it belongs and corresponding in terms of proximity to a single language is called “ cluster».

The use of taxa of the lower levels is clearly illustrated in the table. At the same time, it often happens that one or more idioms in one cluster are considered to be languages, while others are not, although they are at the same level of mutual intelligibility / structural similarity. An example is the Vainakh cluster, which includes the Chechen and Ingush languages ​​and the Akkin-Orstkhoi dialect.

Use of lower-level taxa (for "languages ​​and dialects")

levels	examples
1 level usually matches either a) independent language(poorly intelligible with other languages), or b) group ( cluster) of closely related languages.
2 level corresponds a) adverbs (groups of dialects) or b) separate closely related languages(partially mutually intelligible).	picardy, Walloon, "literary French
3 level corresponds to individual dialects (with good understanding).		Pskov group of dialects (GG), Tver GG, Moscow
4th level corresponds to individual dialects(with very small structural differences).		moscow city,

Note.: Underlined names are expanded in the following rows of the table..

The indicated levels at the same time correlate with the degree of mutual intelligibility, which is especially useful when the percentage of overlap between languages ​​is unknown.

• Between two languages mutual intelligibility is very difficult and normal communication is impossible without special training.
• Inside the tongue between two adverbs there is mutual intelligibility, but not complete; communication is possible, but misunderstandings or errors may occur.
• Between dialects within the dialect there is almost complete mutual intelligibility, although speakers note the features of each dialect, usually in pronunciation (accent) and the use of certain words.

The allocation of languages ​​and dialects may not coincide with the traditional approach. For example:

• The Chinese branch includes up to 18 languages ​​traditionally considered dialects of the Chinese language.
• The French language (or the language of oil) includes Francian (on the basis of the dialect of which French literary language), Picard, Norman and other dialects.
• Serbo-Croatian cluster includes Chakavian, Kajkavian and Shtokavian dialects, and the latter also Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian literary languages(=dialects).
• The Western Oguz cluster consists of Turkish, Gagauz, South Crimean Tatar.
• The Nogai cluster consists of the Nogai, Kazakh and Karakalpak languages.
• The Ibero-Romance cluster includes Portuguese, Galician, Asturo-Leones, Spanish, (High) Aragonese.

macro levels

Despite the fact that the family is the top base taxon in taxonomy, it also takes into account information about deeper relationships. But the taxa for the higher levels do not lend themselves to such rigorous formalization as the lower ones.

• Superfamily- the union of close families (percentage of coincidences = 11-14), which are traditionally considered one family, but in accordance with the definition of a family in language taxonomy, should be taken to a higher level. The superfamily, apparently, is the Altaic languages in a broad sense(including Korean and Japanese-Ryukyuan languages), Cushitic and Austronesian.
• Macrofamily(= Fila) - an association of families, with somehow established correspondences and approximately calculated percentages of coincidences. Such, apparently, are the Nostratic, Afroasian, Sino-Caucasian, Khoisan macrofamilies.
• hyperfamily- association of macrofamilies, extremely hypothetical; for example, the Borean hyperfamily.
• Hypothesis- alleged association of families, without establishing correspondences and calculating the percentage of coincidences between individual components. As a rule, it is done offhand. For example, the Nilo-Saharan, Broad Khoisan hypothesis.

In the works of predominantly foreign linguists (see, for example,) other terms are also used:

• Stock (stock) is the union of families ( families), which in this case are understood more narrowly than defined above. Examples of stocks are Indo-European (with Germanic, Romance and other families), Uralic, Sino-Tibetan, Autronesian; thus, stock usually corresponds to the above definition family.
• Phylum / phyla (phylum, pl. phyla) is a union of sinks (also called a superstock - superstock) or families (if the term stock is not used), and, as a rule, rather assumed than proven. Generally consistent macrofamily.

Notes

see also

Literature

• Koryakov Yu. B., Maisak T. A. Systematics of world languages ​​and databases on the Internet // Proceedings of the International Seminar "Dialogue "2001" on Computational Linguistics and its Applications. Volume 2. M., Aksakovo, 2001.

Examples of directories built on the basis of taxonomy or similar:

• Koryakov Yu. B. Atlas of Caucasian languages. M., 2006
• Registry of World Languages ​​(in development)
• Dalby D. Vol. 1-2. Hebron, 2000
• Gordon R.G., Jr. (ed). Ethnologue.com Ethnologue: Languages ​​of the World. 15th edition. SIL, 2005
• Kaufmann T. The native languages ​​of Latin America: general remarks // Atlas of the World's Languages ​​(edited by C. Moseley and R.E. Asher). 1994
• Meso-American Indian languages ​​in Languages ​​of the World // Britannica CD. Version 97. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1997.
• Voegelin C.F. & F.M. Classification and Index of the World's languages. N.Y., 1977
• Wurm S. Australasia and the Pacific // Atlas of the World's Languages ​​(edited by C. Moseley and R.E. Asher). 1994

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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 Afro-Asian 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. Groups of speakers of Afro-Asiatic languages ​​(mainly various dialects Arabic) are found in many countries outside the main range. Total number about 253 million speakers.

The existence of other macrofamilies remains only a scientific hypothesis that needs to be confirmed.
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 genetic research, indicating that the source of at least a 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 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 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 - historical area and 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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