Languages by family. Language families and peoples of the world

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF UKRAINE

STATE UNIVERSITY

CHAIR OF ENGLISH PHILOLOGY

MAIN LANGUAGE FAMILIES

Performed

5th year student

OKU "Master"

specialty

"Language and Literature

(English)"

Introduction

1. Indo-European languages

1.1. Indo-Aryan languages

1.2. Iranian languages

1.3. Romance languages

1.4. Celtic languages

1.5. Germanic languages

1.6. Baltic languages

1.7. Slavic languages

1.8. Armenian language

1.9. Greek language

2. Sino-Tibetan family

3. Finno-Ugric family

4. Turkic family

5. Semitic-Hamitic (Afrasian) family

List of used literature

Introduction

It should be noted that there are about 20 language families in total. The largest of them is the Indo-European family, whose languages are spoken by about 45% of the world's population. Its distribution area is also the largest. It covers Europe, Southwest and South Asia, North and South America, Australia. The most numerous group within this family is Indo-Aryan, which includes the Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, and other languages. The Romance group, which includes Spanish, Italian, French, and some other languages, is also very large. The same can be said about the German group (English, German and a number of other languages), the Slavic group (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, etc.), the Iranian group (Persian, Tajik, Baloch, etc.).

The second largest speaker is the Sino-Tibetan (Sino-Tibetan) family, whose languages are used by 22% of all inhabitants of the planet. It is clear that such a large share in the world provides it with Chinese.

The large ones also include the Niger-Kordofan family (distributed in Africa, south of the Sahara), the Afroasian family (mainly in the Near and Middle East), the Austronesian family (mainly in Southeast Asia and Oceania), the Dravidian family (in South Asia), Altai family (in Asia and Europe).

Currently, there are more than two and a half thousand languages. The exact number of languages has not been established, as this is a very difficult process. Until now, there are territories that are poorly studied linguistically. These include some areas of Australia, Oceania, South America. Therefore, the study and study of the origin of languages is very relevant.

1. Andpre-European languages

Indo-European languages are one of the largest families of Eurasian languages (about 200 languages). They have also spread over the past five centuries to North and South America, Australia, and partly Africa. The most active was the expansion of the languages of English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, which led to the emergence of Indo-European speech on all continents. The top 20 most widely spoken languages (counting both their native speakers and those who use them as a second language in interethnic and international communication) now include English, Hindi and Urdu, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German, French, Punjabi, Italian, Ukrainian.

The Indo-European (according to the tradition adopted among German scientists, Indo-Germanic) family of languages is the most well studied: based on the study of its languages in the 20s. 19th century comparative-historical linguistics began to take shape, research methods and the techniques of which were then transferred to other language families. The founders of Indo-European and comparative studies include the Germans Franz Bopp and Jacob Grimm, the Dane Rasmus Christian Rask and the Russian Alexander Khristoforovich Vostokov.

Comparativists aim to establish the nature and degree of similarity (primarily material, but also to some extent typological) of the studied languages, to find out the ways of its emergence (from a common source or due to rapprochement as a result of long-term contacts) and the reasons for the divergence (divergence) and convergence (convergence) between the languages of the same family, to reconstruct the proto-linguistic state (in the form of a set of archetypes as a kind of matrix in which the accumulated knowledge about the internal structure of the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European is recorded) and to trace the directions of subsequent development.

Today, it is most often believed that the area of \u200b\u200bthe initial or rather early distribution of speakers of the Indo-European language extended from Central Europe and the Northern Balkans to the Black Sea region (South Russian steppes). At the same time, some researchers believe that the initial center of irradiation of Indo-European languages and cultures lay in the Middle East, in close proximity to the speakers of Kartvelian, Afroasian and, probably, Dravidian and Ural-Altaic languages. The traces of these contacts give grounds for putting forward the Nostratic hypothesis.

Indo-European linguistic unity could have as its source either a single proto-language, a base language (or, rather, a group of closely related dialects), or a situation of a linguistic union as a result of the development of a number of originally different languages. Both perspectives, in principle, do not contradict each other, one of them usually prevails at a certain period in the development of a linguistic community.

Relations between members of the Indo-European family were constantly changing due to frequent migrations, and therefore the classification of Indo-European languages \u200b\u200bthat is currently accepted must be adjusted when referring to different stages in the history of this linguistic community. For earlier periods, the proximity of the Indo-Aryan and Iranian, Baltic and Slavic languages is characteristic, the proximity of the Italic and Celtic languages is less noticeable. The Baltic, Slavic, Thracian, Albanian and Indo-Iranian languages have many common features, and the Italic and Celtic languages have Germanic, Venetian, and Illyrian languages.

The main features characterizing the relatively ancient state of the Indo-European source language:

a) In phonetics: functioning of [e] and [o] as variants of the same phoneme; the probability of vowels having no phonemic status at an earlier stage; special role [a] in the system; the presence of laryngeal, the disappearance of which led to the opposition of long and short vowels, as well as to the appearance of melodic stress; distinction between stop voiced, voiceless and aspirated; the difference between the three rows of posterior linguals, the tendency to palatalization and labialization of consonants in certain positions;

b) In morphology: heteroclitic declination; probable presence of ergative (active) case; a relatively simple case system and the later appearance of a number of indirect cases from combinations of a name with a postposition, etc.; the proximity of the nominative in -s and the genitive with the same element; the presence of an "indefinite" case; the opposition of the animate and inanimate classes, which gave rise to the three-kind system; the presence of two series of verb forms, which led to the development of thematic and athematic conjugation, transitivity/intransitivity, activity/inactivity; the presence of two series of personal endings of the verb, which caused the differentiation of the present and past tense, mood forms; the presence of forms on -s, which led to the appearance of one of the classes of present stems, the sigmatic aorist, a number of mood forms and derived conjugation;

from) In syntax: interdependence of the places of the members of the proposal; the role of particles and preverbs; the beginning of the transition of a number of full-value words into service elements; some initial features of analytics.

1 .1 Indo-Aryan languages

Indo-Aryan languages (Indian) - a group of related languages, dating back to the ancient Indian language.

The Indo-Aryan (Indian) languages (more than 40) include: the Apabhransha language group, Assami languages, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Vedic, Gujarati, Magahi, Maithili, Maldivian, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Pali, Punjabi, Pahari language group, Sanskrit, Sinhalese, Sindhi, Urdu, Hindi, Romani. Areas of distribution of living Indian languages: northern and central India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Republic of Maldives, Nepal. Total number speaking 770 million people.

All of them date back to the ancient Indian language and, together with the Iranian, Dardic and Nuristani languages, belong to the Indo-Iranian linguistic community. The oldest period of development is represented by the Vedic language (the language of worship, from the 12th century BC) and Sanskrit (epic period: 3-2 centuries BC; epigraphic period: the first centuries of our era; classical period: 4- 5th century AD). language Turkic Indo-European grammar

Features of modern Indian languages:

a)INphonetics: number of phonemes from 30 to 50: preservation of aspirated and cerebral consonant classes; rare opposition of long and short vowels; the absence of an initial combination of consonants;

b)INmorphology: the loss of the old inflection, the development of analytical forms and the creation of a new inflection;

c)INsyntax: fixed position of the verb; widespread use of service words;

d)INvocabulary: the presence of words dating back to Sanskrit and external borrowings (from non-Aryan languages of India, from Arabic, Persian, English); the formation of a number of local language unions (Himalayan, etc.); the presence of numerous alphabets, historically dating back to the Brahmi.

1 .2 Iranian languages

Iranian languages are a group of languages that go back to the reconstructed Old Iranian language, which is part of the Aryan branch of the Indo-European family. Iranian languages are spoken in the Middle East, in Central Asia, Pakistan and the Caucasus among the Iranian peoples, whose number is currently estimated at approximately 150 million people.

Iranian languages (more than 60) include Avestan, Azeri, Alanian, Bactrian, Bashkardi, Balochi, Vanj, Wakhani, Gilan, Dari, Old Persian, Zaza (language/dialect), Ishkashim, Kumzari (language/dialect), Kurdish, Mazanderan, Median, Munjan, Ormuri, Ossetian, Pamir language group, Parachi, Parthian, Persian, Pashto/Pashto, Sangisari language/dialect, Sargulyam, Semnan, Sivendi (language/dialect), Scythian, Sogdian, Middle Persian, Tajik, Tajrish ( language/dialect), Talysh, Tat, Khorezmian, Khotanosak, Shugnano-Rushan group of languages, Yagnob, Yazgulyam, etc.

Features of Iranian languages:

a)in phonetics: preservation in the ancient Iranian languages of the subsequently lost correlation of duration; preservation in consonantism mainly of the proto-language system; the development in later languages of aspiration correlations presented in different languages is not the same.

b)in morphology: at the ancient stage - inflectional shaping and ablaut of the root and suffix; multi-type declension and conjugation; the trinity of the system of number and gender; multi-case inflectional paradigm; the use of inflections, suffixes, augment, different types of stems to build verb forms; the beginnings of analytical constructions; in later languages - the unification of the types of formation; death of the ablaut; binary systems numbers. and gender (up to the extinction of the gender in a number of languages); the formation of new verbal analytical and secondary inflectional forms based on participles; the variety of indicators of person and number of the verb; new formal indicators of liability, pledge, specific characteristics, time.

c)in syntax: the presence of a safe design; the presence in a number of languages of ergative sentence construction.

The first written monuments from the 6th c. BC. Cuneiform for Old Persian; Middle Persian (and a number of other languages) monuments (from the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD) in a variety of Aramaic writing; a special alphabet based on Middle Persian for Avestan texts.

1 .3 Romance languages

Romance languages are a group of languages and dialects that are part of the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family and genetically ascend to a common ancestor - Latin. The name Romance comes from the Latin word Romanus (Roman).

The Romance group unites the languages that arose on the basis of Latin:

Aromanian (Aromunian),

· Galician,

Gascon,

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

Spanish,

Istro-Romanian

Italian,

· Catalan,

Ladino (language of the Jews of Spain)

Megleno-Romanian (Meglenite),

· Moldavian,

Portuguese,

Provençal (Occitan)

· Romansh; they include: Swiss, or Western, Romansh / Graubünden / Curval / Romansh, represented by at least two varieties - Surselv / Obwald and Upper Engadine, sometimes subdivided into more languages;

Tyrolean, or Central, Romansh / Ladin / Dolomite / Trentino and

Friulian/Eastern Romansh, often classified as a separate group,

Romanian,

Sardinian (Sardinian),

Franco-Provençal

· French.

Literary languages have their own variants: French - in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada; Spanish - in Latin America, Portuguese - in Brazil.

More than 10 creole languages arose on the basis of French, Portuguese, Spanish.

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

Zones of distribution of Romance languages:

· "Old Romania": Italy, Portugal, almost all of Spain, France, south of Belgium, west and south of Switzerland, the main territory of Romania, almost all of Moldova, separate inclusions in the north of Greece, south and northwest of Yugoslavia;

· "New Romania": part of North America (Quebec in Canada, Mexico), almost all of Central America and South America, most of the Antilles;

· Countries that were colonies, where the Romance languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese), without displacing the local ones, became official - almost all of Africa, small territories in South Asia and Oceania.

The Romance languages are the continuation and development of the vernacular Latin speech in the territories that became part of the Roman Empire. Their history shows trends towards differentiation (divergence) and integration (convergence).

Main features of the Romance languages:

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

b)in morphology: preservation of inflection with a strong tendency towards analyticism; the name has 2 numbers, 2 genders, the absence of a case category (except for the Balkan-Romance), the transfer of object relations by prepositions; a variety of forms of the article; preservation of the case system for pronouns; agreement of adjectives with names in gender and number; formation of adverbs from adjectives through the suffix -mente (except for Balkan-Romanian); a branched system of analytical verb forms; the typical scheme of a Romance verb contains 16 tenses and 4 moods; 2 pledges; peculiar impersonal forms;

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

1 .4 Celtic languages

The Celtic group is formed by the languages of Breton, Welsh (Cymric), Gaulish, Gaelic, Irish, Celtiberian, Cornish, Cumbrian, Lepontian, Manx (K)sky, Pictish, Scottish (Aeric). In the 1st millennium BC. Celtic languages were distributed in a significant part of Europe (now it is part of Germany, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Spain, northern Italy), reaching in the east to the Carpathians and through the Balkans to Asia Minor. Later, the zone of their distribution was greatly reduced; the Manx, Cornish, Celtiberian, Lepontian, and Gallic languages became extinct. Living languages are Irish, Gaelic, Welsh and Breton. Irish is one of the official languages in Ireland. Welsh is used in the press and on the radio, Breton and Gaelic are used in everyday communication.

The vocalism of the Neo-Celtic languages is characterized by interaction with neighboring consonants. As a result of this, rounding, palatalization, permutation, narrowing, contact nasalization, etc., have become widespread (in diachrony and synchrony). Some of these phenomena, as the causes that caused them disappear, turn into morphological means for expressing number, case, kind, etc.

Insular languages sharply deviate from the ancient Indo-European type: numerous combinatorial changes (aspiration, palatalization and labialization of consonants); infixation of pronouns in verb forms; "conjugated" prepositions; specific use of verbal names; word order. These and many other features distinguish the Celtic languages from the Indo-European ones. languages (explanations: influence of non-Indo-European substratum; historical innovations). Preservation of a number of archaic features. Changes in living languages: loss of the opposition of personal absolute and conjunctive verb endings in many forms of tenses and moods (Irish).

1.5 Germanic languages

The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European family. Distributed in a number of Western European countries (Great Britain, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein), North. America (USA, Canada), southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia), Asia (India), Australia, New Zealand. The total number of speakers as native is about 550 million people.

Modern Germanic languages are divided into 2 subgroups: West Germanic and North Germanic (Scandinavian).

West Germanic languages include English, Frisian, High German (German), Dutch, Boer, Flemish, and Yiddish.

English language is the native language of the majority of the population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain - England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, USA. Besides, English language spoken as an official language in the Republic of South Africa, the Republic of India and Pakistan.

Frisian distributed among the population of the Friesland Islands in the North Sea. The literary Frisian language developed on the basis of West Frisian dialects.

High German is the native language of the population of Germany, Austria and a significant part of Switzerland, as well as the literary language of the urban population of the northern regions of Germany; the rural population of these areas still speaks a special dialect called Low German or Platdeutsch. In the Middle Ages, Low German was the language of an extensive folk fiction, which has come down to us in a number of works of art.

Dutch Language is the native language of the Dutch people.

Afrikaans, also called "Afrikaans", it is distributed over a large territory of the Republic of South Africa. The Boer language, which is close to Dutch, is spoken by the Boers or Afrikaners, the descendants of the Dutch colonists who left Holland in the 17th century.

Flemish very close to Dutch. It is spoken by the population of the northern part of Belgium and parts of the Netherlands. As well as French, Flemish is the official language of the Belgian state.

Yiddish- the language of the Jewish population of Eastern Europe, which developed in the 10th - 12th centuries on the basis of Middle High German dialects.

North Germanic languages include: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese.

Swedish- this native language the Swedish people and the population of the coastal strip of Finland, where representatives of the ancient Swedish tribes moved in the distant past. Of the Swedish dialects that exist at the present time, the dialect of the inhabitants of the island of Gotland, the so-called Gutnic dialect, stands out sharply for its features. Modern Swedish consists of German words, recorded and arranged in accordance with English grammar. The active Swedish dictionary is not very large.

Danish is the native language of the Danish people and was for several centuries the state and literary language of Norway, which was part of the Danish state from the end of the 14th century. until 1814

Swedish and Danish, which were close in the past, but have diverged significantly at the present time, are sometimes combined into a subgroup of East Scandinavian languages.

Norwegian, the native language of the Norwegian people, is spoken throughout Norway. Due to the special historical conditions for the development of the Norwegian people, forced to be under the rule of the Danes for almost 400 years, the development of the Norwegian language was greatly delayed. Currently, Norway is in the process of forming a single national Norwegian language, which in its features occupies an intermediate position between the Swedish and Danish languages.

in Icelandic says the people of Iceland. The ancestors of modern Icelanders were Norwegians who settled here in the 10th century. During almost a thousand years of independent development, the Icelandic language has acquired a number of new features that significantly distinguish it from the Norwegian language, and has also retained many features characteristic of the Old Norse language, while the Norwegian language has lost them. All this has led to the fact that the difference between Norwegian and (New) Icelandic is now very significant.

Faroese, common in the Faroe Islands, which lie north of the Shetland Islands, like Icelandic, retained many features of the Old Norse language, from which it broke away.

The languages Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese are sometimes combined on the basis of their origin into one group called the West Norse language group. However, the facts of the modern Norwegian language show that in its present state it is much closer to Swedish and Danish than to Icelandic and Faroese.

Distinctive features of the Germanic languages:

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

b)in morphology: wide use of ablaut in inflection and word formation; the formation (next to a strong preterite) of a weak preterite by means of a dental suffix; distinguishing between strong and weak declensions of adjectives; manifestation of a tendency to analyticism;

c)in word formation: the special role of nominal word formation (basic composition); the prevalence of suffixation in nominal word production and prefixation in verb word production; the presence of a conversion (especially in English);

d)in syntax: tendency to fix word order;

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

1.6 Baltic languages

The Baltic group (the name belongs to G. G. F. Nesselman, 1845) includes the languages Latvian, Lithuanian, Prussian.

Modern Baltic languages are common in the eastern Baltic (Lithuania, Latvia, the north-eastern part of Poland - Suvalkia, partly Belarus).

Modern Baltic languages are represented by Lithuanian and Latvian (sometimes Latgalian is also distinguished). Among the extinct Baltic languages are Prussian (before the 18th century; East Prussia), Yatvyazh, or Sudavian (until the 18th century; northeast Poland, southern Lithuania, adjacent regions of Belarus), Curonian (until the middle of the 17th century; on the coast of the Baltic Sea within modern Lithuania and Latvia), Selonian, or Selian ( documents of the 13th-15th centuries; part of eastern Latvia and northeast Lithuania), Galindian, or Golyadsky (in Russian chronicles "golyad"; documents of the 14th century; southern Prussia and, probably, the basin of the Protva River).

Features of the Baltic languages:

a)INphonetics: essential are the oppositions of palatalized and non-palatalized, simple consonants and affricates, tense and relaxed, long and short vowels; the presence of intonation oppositions; the possibility of clustering up to 3 consonants at the beginning of a syllable; the presence of closed and open syllables;

b)INmorphology: the use of quantitative and qualitative alternation of vowels in the verb; names have movement of stress, change of intonation; richness of suffix inventory; remnants of the middle gender; 2 numbers; 7 cases, including instrumental, locative and vocative); 3 degrees of gradation; 5 types of stems for nouns; distinction between adjective nominal and pronominal types of declension; moods are indicative, conditional, desirable, imperative, and in Latvian, ascending to the Finno-Ugric substratum, obligatory and paraphrasing; pledges real, reflexive, passive; diverse types of tenses and moods;

c)INsyntax: precedence of the genitive to other cases in the chain of names;

d)INvocabulary: most of the words from the original I.-e. vocabulary; practically unified dictionary of the Baltic languages; significant commonality of the Baltic and Slavic vocabulary; borrowings from Finno-Ugric languages, German, Polish, Russian.

1.7 Slavic languages

The Slavic group includes Belarusian, Bulgarian, Upper Lusatian and Lower Lusatian, Macedonian, Polabian, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Slovenian, Old Church Slavonic, Ukrainian, Czech.

Slavic languages are widespread in Europe and Asia (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia, as well as the states of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Germany, Austria). carriers Slavic languages also live in the countries of America, Africa, Australia. The total number of speakers is about 300 million people.

The Slavic languages, according to the degree of their proximity to each other, form groups: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian), South Slavic (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, or Serbian and Croatian, Slovenian) and West Slavic (Czech, Slovak, Polish with Kashubian, Upper and Lower Lusatian).

general characteristics Slavic languages

a)Grammar

Grammatically, the Slavic languages, with the exception of Bulgarian and Macedonian, have a highly developed system of noun inflections, up to seven cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, prepositional, and vocative). The verb in the Slavic languages has three simple tenses (past, present and future), but is also characterized by such complex characteristic like view. The verb can be imperfective or perfective, indicating the completion of the action of the species. Participles and gerunds are widely used (one can compare their use with the use of participles and gerunds in English). In all Slavic languages, except for Bulgarian and Macedonian, there is no article. The languages of the Slavic subfamily are more conservative and therefore closer to the Proto-Indo-European language than the languages of the Germanic and Romance groups, as evidenced by the preservation by the Slavic languages of seven of the eight cases for nouns that were characters for the Proto-Indo-European language, as well as the development of the form of the verb.

b)Vocabulary

The vocabulary of the Slavic languages is predominantly of Indo-European origin. There is also an important element of the mutual influence of the Baltic and Slavic languages on each other, which is reflected in the vocabulary. Borrowed words or translations of words go back to the Iranian and Germanic groups, as well as to the Greek, Latin, and Turkic languages. Influenced the vocabulary and languages such as Italian and French. Slavic languages also borrowed words from each other. Borrowing foreign words tends to translate and imitate rather than simply absorb them.

c)Writing

Perhaps it is in writing that the most significant differences between the Slavic languages lie. Some Slavic languages (in particular, Czech, Slovak, Slovene and Polish) have a script based on the Latin alphabet, since the speakers of these languages belong predominantly to the Catholic denomination. Other Slavic languages (for example, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian) use adopted Cyrillic variants as a result of the influence of the Orthodox Church. Single language- Serbo-Croatian uses two alphabets: Cyrillic for Serbian and Latin for Croatian.

1 .8 Armenian language

Armenian is an Indo-European language, usually classified as a separate subgroup, rarely combined with Greek and Phrygian.

It is common in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Syria, Lebanon, USA, Iran, France and other countries. The total number of speakers is over 6 million people.

It is assumed that the basis of the Armenian language is the language of the Hayasa-Armen tribal union within the state of Urartu. The Armenian ethnos was formed in the 7th century. BC. in the Armenian Highlands.

There are 3 stages in the history of the written and literary language: the ancient one (from the beginning of the 5th century, from the time the Armenian alphabet was created, to the 11th century, when the oral ancient Armenian fell into disuse; the written version, grabar, functioned in literature, competing with the new literary language , until the end of the 19th century, and has survived to this day in the cult sphere); middle (from the 12th to 16th centuries; the formation of dialects), new (from the 17th century), characterized by the presence of eastern and western versions of the literary language and the presence of many dialects.

Properties of the Armenian language:

a)in phonetics: at the ancient stage - the Indo-European phonological system with some modifications; removal of opposition by longitude/shortness; the transition of syllabic Indo-European sonants into vowels and non-syllabic sonants into consonants; the emergence of new fricative phonemes; the appearance of affricates; change of plosives by interruption, similar to the German movement of consonants; the presence of three rows - voiced, deaf and aspirated; in middle period- stunning voiced and voicing of the deaf; monophthongization of diphthongs; in new period- the discrepancy between the two options is primarily in consonantism.

b)in morphology: predominantly inflectional-synthetic structure; the emergence of analytic verb constructions already in ancient period; preservation of the three-row system of demonstrative pronouns; inheritance from I.-e. the basic principles of the formation of verbal and nominal stems, individual case and verbal inflections, word-building suffixes; the presence of 2 numbers; extinction of the genus category in the eastern version; use of the agglutinative principle of education pl. numbers; distinction of 7 cases and 8 types of declension; preservation of almost all categories of Indo-European pronouns; the verb has 3 voices (real, passive and middle), 3 persons, 2 numbers, 5 moods (indicative, imperative, desirable, conditional, incentive), 3 tenses (present, past, future), 3 types of action (performed, committed and to be committed), 2 types of conjugation, simple and analytical forms (with a predominance of analytical), 7 participles.

1.9 Greek language

The Greek language forms a special group in the Indo-European community. Genetically most closely related to the ancient Macedonian language. Distributed in the south of the Balkan Peninsula and the adjacent islands of the Ionian and Aegean Seas, as well as in southern Albania, Egypt, southern Italy, Ukraine, Russia.

Main periods: Ancient Greek (14th century BC-4th century AD), Middle Greek, or Byzantine (5th-15th centuries), Modern Greek (from the 15th century).

The main stages in the development of ancient Greek: archaic ((14-12 centuries BC - 8 century BC), classical (from 8-7 to 4 centuries BC), Hellenistic (time formation of the Koine; 4-1 centuries BC), late Greek (1-4 centuries AD).In ancient Greek, dialectal groups were distinguished: Ionian-Attic, Arcado-Cypriot (South Achaean), with the language of the Cretan-Mycenaean monuments), Dorian.

From the end of the 5th c. BC. Attic superdialect becomes the literary language. In the Hellenistic period, on the basis of the Attic and Ionian dialects, the common Greek koine was formed in literary and colloquial varieties. Later, there was a return to the Attic norm, which led to competition between 2 autonomous language traditions.

Modern Greek Koine was formed on the basis of southern dialects and was widely distributed in the 18th and 19th centuries. The literary modern Greek language exists in two versions: kafarevusa "purified" and dimotika "folk".

In the Greek language, many structural properties are manifested due to the long historical interaction in the course of the formation of the Balkan linguistic union.

Features of the ancient Greek language:

a)in phonetics: 5 vowel phonemes, differing in longitude/shortness; the formation of long vowels or diphthongs from adjacent vowels; musical stress movable, three types: acute, obtuse and clothed; 17 consonants, including stop voiced, voiceless and aspirated, nasal, fluent, affricates, spirants; dense and weak aspiration; transition I.-e. syllabic sonants into groups "vowel + consonant" (or "consonant + vowel"); reflection i.-e. labiovelar mainly in the form of anterior lingual or labial;

b)in morphology: 3 genera; the presence of articles; 3 numbers; 5 cases; 3 types of declension; 4 inclinations; 3 pledges; 2 types of conjugation; 2 groups of tenses (main: present, futurum, perfect; historical: aorist, imperfect, pluperfect);

c)in syntax: free word order; developed system of parataxis and hypotaxis; the important role of particles and prepositions;

d)in vocabulary: layers are native Greek, pre-Greek (Pelasgian), borrowed (from Semitic, Persian, Latin languages).

2. Sino-Tibetan family

The Sino-Tibetan languages (Sino-Tibetan languages) are one of the largest language families in the world. Includes over 100, according to other sources, several hundred languages, from tribal to national. The total number of speakers is over 1100 million people.

In modern linguistics, the Sino-Tibetan languages are usually divided into 2 branches, different in the degree of their internal dissection and in their place on the linguistic map of the world, -- Chinese and Tibeto-Burmese. The first is formed by the Chinese language with its numerous dialects and groups of dialects. It is spoken by more than 1050 million people, including about 700 million - in the dialects of the northern group. The main area of its distribution is the PRC south of the Gobi and east of Tibet.

The rest of the Sino-Tibetan languages, numbering about 60 million speakers, are included in the Tibeto-Burmese branch. The peoples who speak these languages inhabit most of Myanmar (formerly Burma), Nepal, Bhutan, vast areas of southwestern China and northeastern India. The most important Tibeto-Burmese languages or groups of closely related languages are: Burmese (up to 30 million speakers) in Myanmar and (over 5.5 million) in Sichuan and Yunnan (PRC); Tibetan (over 5 million) in Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan (PRC), Kashmir (northern India), Nepal, Bhutan; Karen languages (over 3 million) in Myanmar near the border with Thailand: Hani (1.25 million) in Yunnan; manipuri, or meithei (over 1 million); bodo, or kachari (750 thousand), and garo (up to 700 thousand) in India; jingpo, or kachin (about 600 thousand), in Myanmar and Yunnan; fox (up to 600 thousand) in Yunnan; Tamang (about 550 thousand), Newar (over 450 thousand) and Gurung (about 450 thousand) in Nepal. The disappearing language of the Tujia people (up to 3 million people) in Hunan (PRC) belongs to the Tibeto-Burmese branch, but by now most of the Tujia have switched to Chinese.

The Sino-Tibetan languages are syllabic, isolating, with a greater or lesser tendency to agglutinate. The main phonetic unit is the syllable, and the boundaries of syllables, as a rule, are at the same time the boundaries of morphemes or words. The sounds in the syllable are arranged in a strictly defined order (usually a noisy consonant, sonant, intermediate vowel, main vowel, consonant; all elements except the main vowel may be absent). Combinations of consonants are not found in all languages and are possible only at the beginning of a syllable. The number of consonants occurring at the end of a syllable is much less than the number of possible initial consonants (usually no more than 6-8); in some languages only open syllables or there is only one final nasal consonant. Many languages have a tone. In languages whose history is well known, one can observe the gradual simplification of consonantism and the complication of the system of vowels and tones.

A morpheme usually corresponds to a syllable; the root is usually immutable. However, in many languages these principles are violated. So, in the Burmese language, alternation of consonants in the root is possible; in classical Tibetan there were non-syllabic prefixes and suffixes, expressing, in particular, the grammatical categories of the verb. The predominant method of word formation is the addition of roots. The selection of a word often presents a difficult problem: it is difficult to distinguish a compound word from a phrase, an affix from a functional word. Adjectives in Sino-Tibetan languages are grammatically closer to verbs than to names; sometimes they are included in the verb category as "verbs of quality". The conversion is widespread.

3. FInno-Ugric family

The Finno-Ugric (or Finno-Ugric) family is divided into four groups: Baltic-Finnish (these are Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, Vepsian, Izhorian), Permian (Udmurt, Komi-Zyryan and Komi-Permyak languages), Volga, to which they belong the Mari and Mordovian languages, and the Ugric group, which includes the Hungarian, Mansi and Khanty languages. A separate language of the Saami living in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Kola Peninsula, closest to the Baltic-Finnish languages. The most widespread Finno-Ugric language is Hungarian, and in the countries of the near abroad - Estonian.

All Finno-Ugric languages have common features and a common basic vocabulary. These features originate in a hypothetical Proto-Finno-Ugric language. About 200 basic words of this language have been proposed, including word roots for such concepts as the names of kinship relationships, body parts, and basic numbers. This total vocabulary includes, according to Lyle Campbell, at least 55 words related to fishing, 33 to hunting, 12 to deer, 17 to plants, 31 to technology, 26 to construction, 11 to clothing, 18 - to climate, 4 - to society, 11 - to religion, as well as three words related to trade.

Most of the Finno-Ugric languages are agglutinative, the common features of which are changing words by adding suffixes (instead of prepositions) and syntactic coordination of suffixes. In addition, there is no category of gender in the Finno-Ugric languages. Therefore, there is only one pronoun with the meaning "he", "she" and "it", for example, hän in Finnish, tdmd in Votic, tema in Estonian, x in Hungarian, cij? in the Komi language, Tudo in the Mari language, So in the Udmurt language.

In many Finno-Ugric languages, possessive adjectives and pronouns such as "my" or "your" are rarely used. Possession is expressed by inclination. For this, suffixes are used, sometimes together with a pronoun in the genitive case: "my dog" in Finnish minun koirani (literally "my dog is mine"), from the word koira - dog.

4. Turkic family

The Turkic family unites more than 20 languages, including:

1) Turkish (formerly Ottoman); writing since 1929 based on the Latin alphabet; until then for several centuries - based on the Arabic alphabet.

2) Azerbaijani.

3) Turkmen.

4) Gagauz.

5) Crimean Tatar.

6) Karachay-Balkar.

7) Kumyk - used as mutual language for the Caucasian peoples of Dagestan.

8) Nogai.

9) Karaite.

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

11) Bashkir.

12) Altai (Oirot).

13) Shor with Kondom and Mras dialects3.

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

15) Tuva.

16) Yakut.

17) Dolgansky.

18) Kazakh.

19) Kyrgyz.

20) Uzbek.

21) Karakalpak.

22) Uighur (New Uighur).

23) Chuvash, a descendant of the language of the Kama Bulgars, writing from the very beginning based on the Russian alphabet.

24) Orkhon - according to the Orkhon-Yenisei runic inscriptions, the language (or languages) of a powerful state of the 7th-8th centuries. n. e. in Northern Mongolia on the river. Orkhon. The name is conditional.

25) Pecheneg - the language of the steppe nomads of the IX-XI centuries. AD

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

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

28) Chagatai - literary language XV-XVI centuries AD in Central Asia; Arabic graphics.

29) Bulgar - the language of the Bulgar kingdom at the mouth of the Kama; the Bulgar language formed the basis of the Chuvash language, part of the Bulgars moved to the Balkan Peninsula and, having mixed with the Slavs, became an integral element (superstratum) in the Bulgarian language.

30) Khazar - the language of a large state of the 7th-10th centuries. AD, in the area of the lower reaches of the Volga and Don, close to the Bulgar.

5. Semitic-Hamitic(Afrasian) family

Afroasian languages are a macrofamily (superfamily) of languages, which includes six families of languages that have signs of a common origin (the presence of related root and grammatical morphemes).

The Afroasian languages include both living and dead languages. The former are currently distributed over a vast area, occupying the territory of Western Asia (from Mesopotamia to the coast of the Mediterranean and Red Seas) and vast territories of East and North Africa - up to the Atlantic coast. Separate groups of representatives of the Afroasian languages are also found outside the main territory of their distribution.

The total number of speakers currently fluctuates between 270 million and 300 million people, according to various estimates. The Afroasian macrofamily includes the following language families (or branches).

Berber-Libyan languages. The living languages of this family are common in North Africa west from Egypt and Libya to Mauritania, as well as in the oases of the Sahara, up to Nigeria and Senegal. The Berber tribes of the Tuareg (Sahara) use their own letter in everyday life, called tifinagh and dating back to the ancient Libyan letter. The Libyan script is represented by brief rock inscriptions found in the Sahara and the Libyan desert; the earliest of them date back to the 2nd century BC. e.

ancient egyptian language with its late descendant - the Coptic language is a dead language. It was distributed in the valley of the middle and lower Nile (modern Egypt). The first written monuments of ancient Egyptian date back to the end of the 4th - the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. e. It existed as a living and colloquial language until the 5th century AD. e. Monuments of the Coptic language have been known since the 3rd century AD. e.; by the 14th century it fell into disuse, remaining as the cult language of the Coptic Christian Church. In everyday life, the Copts, who, according to data from the end of 1999, there are about 6 million people, use Arabic and are now considered an ethno-confessional group of Egyptian Arabs.

Cushitic languages of which only living ones are known, distributed in Northeast Africa: in the northeast of Sudan, in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, in northern Kenya and in western Tanzania. According to data from the late 1980s, the number of speakers is about 25.7 million.

Omotian languages. Living unwritten languages, common in southwestern Ethiopia. The number of speakers according to the late 1980s is about 1.6 million people. As an independent branch of the Afroasian macrofamily, they began to stand out only recently (G. Fleming, M. Bender, I. M. Dyakonov). Some scientists attribute the Omot languages to the Western Cushitic group, which separated from Proto-Kushit earlier than the rest.

Semitic languages. The most numerous of the Afroasian language families; It is represented by modern living languages (Arabic, Maltese, New Aramaic dialects, Hebrew, Ethio-Semitic - Amharic, Tigre, Tigray, etc.), common in the Arab East, Israel, Ethiopia and North Africa, islands - in other countries of Asia and Africa. The number of speakers according to different sources fluctuates, amounting to approximately 200 million.

Chadic languages alive; This family includes more than 150 modern languages and dialect groups. Distributed in Central and Western Sudan, in the region of Lake Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon. The Hausa speakers are the most numerous, numbering about 30-40 million people; for most of them, Hausa is not their native language, but the language of interethnic communication.

conclusions

This paper characterizes the main language families, considers language groups, features of the language structure of languages, including phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary. Of course, languages differ both in their prevalence and social functions, as well as in the features of the phonetic system and vocabulary, morphological and syntactic characteristics.

Emphasis should be placed on the huge role played in modern linguistics by various classifications of world languages. This is not only a compact fixation of the many internal connections of the latter discovered by science, but also a certain guideline in their consistent study.

It should be noted that some languages are outside the general classification, they are not included in any of the families, Japanese also belongs to them. Many languages are so poorly studied that they do not fall under any of the classifications. This is explained not only by the large number of languages spoken on the globe, but also by the fact that a linguist studying existing (and existing) languages has to deal with factual data that are very dissimilar and very different in their very essence.

List of used literature

1. Arakin V. D. History of the English language / V. D. Arakin. - M.: Fizmatlit, 2001. - 360 p.

2. Armenian language. Materials from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [ Electronic resource]. - Access mode: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_language

3. Baltic languages [Electronic resource]. - Access mode: http://www.languages-study.com/baltic.html

4. Vendina T. I. Introduction to linguistics: textbook. allowance for ped. universities / T.I. Wendina. - M.: Vyssh.shk., 2003. - 288 p.

5. Golovin B.N. Introduction to linguistics / N. B. Golovin. - M.: Higher school, 1973. - 320 p.

6. Dyakonov I. M. Semitic-Hamitic languages / I. M. Dyakonov. - M., 1965. -189 p.

7. Kodukhov V.I. Introduction to linguistics / V.I. Kodukhov. - M.: Enlightenment, 1979. - 351s.

8. Lewis G. Brief comparative grammar of the Celtic languages [Electronic resource] / G. Lewis, H. Pedersen. - Access mode: http://bookre.org/reader?file=629546

9. Melnichuk O. S. Entry to the historical-historical formation of the words "Janian language" / O. S. Melnichuk. -K., 1966. - 596 p.

10. Reformatsky A. A. Introduction to linguistics / ed. V.A. Vinogradov. - M.: Aspect Press, 1998. - 536 p.

11. Edelman D. I. Indo-Iranian languages. Languages of the world: Dardic and Nuristan languages / D. I. Edelman. - M. 1999. - 230 p.

12. Etymological dictionary of Slavic languages. - M.: Nauka, 1980. - T. 7. - 380 p.

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family language

Generally, the lowest average population density is typical for:
1) coastal mountainous areas;
2) coastal plains;
3) continental terrestrial mountainous regions;
4) Intercontinental plains.
8. Highest Population Density Island - Island:
1) Madagascar; 3) Java;
2) Wrangel; 4) Sardinia.
ninth

What is the main reason for the high population density in the northeastern United States:
1) extremely favorable natural conditions;
2) history of settlements;
3) a high level of development of agriculture.
tenths

The natural regions of the Earth are the lowest density. The characteristics of the population are:
1) arctic deserts;
2) tundra;
3) taiga;
4) desert of the temperate zone;
5) tropical deserts.
11. The main indicator of the degree of urbanization is:
1) the number of large cities;
2) the proportion of the urban population;
3) the presence of a metropolis.
12. The process of urbanization in developed countries is characterized by:
1) low rates and rates;
2) low level with high levels;
3) high level with decreasing rates;
4) high speed and speed.
I3.

Divide the countries of the world as the proportion of the urban population is declining:
1) Brazil; 3) Kuwait;
2) Ethiopia; 4) Zaire.
fourteenth

First place in the world in terms of the absolute number of citizens:
1) Russia; 3) United States;
2) China; 4) Brazil.
15. Most Diverse ethnic composition population is typical for countries:
1) foreign Europe;
2) foreign Asia;
3) Africa;
4) Latin America.
16. Language of India as national language (together with Hindi):
1) Spanish; 3) English;
2) Arabic; 4) French.

seventeenth

The structure of employment in highly developed countries is characterized by a predominance of employees in:
1) industry;
2) unproductive sphere;
3) agriculture;
4) construction.
15

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Cultural and historical features of the peoples of Russia.
The main religions prevalent in the country.

Russia is a multinational country. Peoples are different in their numbers, language, settlement patterns, national traditions, customs, traditional activities, lifestyle.
Russians (the largest people in Russia - 120 million people) live throughout Russia. The most important cultural and historical feature of this people is its centuries-old migration activity and the constant presence in the past of sparsely populated areas near the main places of Russian settlement.

Russian groups in the process of migration found themselves in a variety of natural-historical conditions. They adopted the labor skills of the indigenous population and at the same time brought their labor experience (in particular, agricultural) to the areas of new settlement. The Russian village is characterized by a log cabin, a Russian stove.

Since the main occupation was agriculture, the role of bread, flour, cereal dishes, vegetables is great in the national Russian cuisine. Folk art - ceramics (Gzhel), bone carving (Arkhangelsk region), wood carving, enamel (Rostov), lacquer miniature (Palekh, Fedoskino), tray painting (Zhostovo), lace weaving (Vologda), clay painted toy (Dymkovo ).

The culture of Ukrainians and Belarusians is close to Russian, as the peoples are closely connected by the historical path of development.
Some peoples of the Altaic language family (Tuvans, Bashkirs) in the past were engaged in nomadic pastoralism, which is associated with the peculiarities of nature in their places of residence. In the manufacture of portable dwellings, clothes, shoes, animal skins were used. The food was dominated by meat and dairy products (Bashkir koumiss).
The peoples living in the north of Russia (Khanty, Mansi, Chukchi) are traditionally engaged in reindeer herding, hunting and fishing.

Their culture and way of life testify to the fact that these peoples have adapted well to life in difficult natural conditions North.

Fill in the table Language families and groups of peoples of Russia

The peoples of the North Caucasus are famous for their masters of weapons and jewelry (Kuba-chi).
There are several religions in Russia.

Orthodoxy is spread throughout the country. It is professed by Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians (the latter along with Catholicism) and many other peoples, including (along with the remnants of Shamaism) believers of the small peoples of the North (Nenets, Chukchi, Evenks, etc.). Islam, Buddhism (Lamaism) are widespread in the areas of residence of certain peoples of Russia.

Tatars, Bashkirs, many peoples of the North Caucasus profess Islam. Buryats, Kalmyks, Tuvans - Buddhism (Lamaism).

Russia is a multinational country, which means it is multilingual. Linguistics scientists count 150 languages - here, such a language as Russian, which is spoken by 97.72% of the population in Russia, and the language of the Negidals, a small people (only 622 people!), Living on the Amur River, are taken into account on an equal footing.

Some languages are very similar: people can speak their own language and at the same time understand each other perfectly, for example, Russian - Belarusian, Tatar - Bashkir, Kalmyk - Buryat.

In other languages, although they also have a lot in common - sounds, some words, grammar - it will still not be possible to agree: a Mari with a Mordovian, a Lezghin with an Avar. And finally, there are languages - scientists call them isolated ones - that are not like any other.

These are the languages of the Kets, Nivkhs and Yukagirs.

Most of the languages of Russia belong to one of the four language families:

Indo-European;
Altai;
Ural;
North Caucasian.

Each family has a common ancestor language - the proto-language. The ancient tribes that spoke such a parent language moved, mixed with other peoples, and the once single language broke up into several. This is how many languages appeared on Earth.

Let's say Russian belongs to Indo-European family.

In the same family - English and German, Hindi and Farsi, Ossetian and Spanish (and many, many others). Part of a family group Slavic languages. Here, Czech and Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian, etc., coexist with Russian.

e. And together with closely related Ukrainian and Belarusian, it is included in the subgroup East Slavic languages. More than 87% of the population speaks Indo-European languages in Russia, but only 2% of them are not Slavic. These are Germanic languages: German and Yiddish; Armenian (one makes up a group); Iranian languages: Ossetian, Tat, Kurdish and Tajik; Romance: Moldavian; and even the new Indian languages spoken by the gypsies in Russia.

Altai family in Russia it is represented by three groups: Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu.

There are only two peoples who speak Mongolian languages - Kalmyks and Buryats, but one enumeration of Turkic languages \u200b\u200bmay surprise. These are Chuvash, Tatar, Bashkir, Karachay-Balkar, Nogai, Kumyk, Altai, Khakass, Shor, Tuva, Tofalar, Yakut, Dolgan, Azerbaijani, etc. Most of these peoples live in Russia. In our country, there are also such Turkic peoples as Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Turkmens, Uzbeks.

The Tungus-Manchu languages include Evenki, Even, Negidal, Nanai, Oroch, Orok, Udege and Ulch.

Sometimes the question arises: where is a separate language, and where are only dialects of the same language? For example, many linguists in Kazan believe that Bashkir is a dialect of Tatar, and the same number of specialists in Ufa are convinced that these are two completely independent languages.

Such disputes are not only about Tatar and Bashkir.

To the Uralic language family are Finno-Ugric and Samolian groups. The concept of "Finnish" is conditional - in this case it does not mean the official language of Finland. It’s just that the languages included in this group have related grammars, a similar sound, especially if you don’t make out the words, but listen only to the melody.

On the Finnish languages Karelians, Vepsians, Izhors, Vods, Komis, Mariys, Mordovians, Udmurts, Sami speak. There are two Ugric languages in Russia: Khanty and Mansi (and the third Ugric is spoken by the Hungarians). Samoyedic languages are spoken by the Nenets, Nganasans, Enets, and Selkups. The Yukaghir language is genetically close to the Uralic. These peoples are very small in number, and their languages cannot be heard outside the north of Russia.

North Caucasian family- the concept is rather arbitrary.

Unless specialists-linguists understand the ancient relationship of the languages of the Caucasus. These languages have very complex grammar and phonetics of extraordinary difficulty. They contain sounds that are completely inaccessible to people who speak other dialects.

Specialists divide the North Caucasian languages into n Akh-Lagestan and Abkhaz-Adyghe groups.

On the Nakh The Vainakhs speak languages that are understandable to each other - this is the common name for the Chechens and Ingush. (The group got its name from the self-name of the Chechens - Nakhchi.)

Representatives of about 30 peoples live in Dagestan. “Approximately” - because far from all the languages of these peoples have been studied, and very often people determine their nationality precisely by language.

To the Dagestan languages include Avar, Andi, Iez, Ginukh, Gunzib, Bezhta, Khvarshinsky, Lak, Dargin, Lezgin, Tabasaran, Agul, Rutul ...

We named the largest Dagestan languages, but did not list even half. No wonder this republic was called the "mountain of languages".

Peoples (language families, groups) and religions of Russia in tables

And a "paradise for linguists": the field of activity for them is boundless here.

The Abkhazian-Adyghe languages are spoken by kindred peoples. On the Adyghes - Kabardians, Adyghes, Circassians, Shapsugs; in Abkhazian - Abkhazians and Abaza.

But not everything is so simple in this classification. Kabardians, Adyghes, Circassians and Shapsugs consider themselves a single people - Adyghes - with one language, Adyghe, and official sources name four Adyghe peoples.

There are languages in Russia that are not included in any of the four families.

These are primarily the languages of the peoples of Siberia and the Far East. All of them are few. In Chukchi-Kamchatka languages Chukchi, Koryaks and Itelmens speak; on the Eskimo-Aleutian- Eskimos and Aleuts.

The languages of the Kets on the Yenisei and the Nivkhs on Sakhalin and the Amur are not included in any language family.

There are many languages, and in order for people to agree, a common one is needed. In Russia, it has become Russian, because Russians are the most numerous people in the country and they live in all its corners.

It is the language of great literature, science and international communication.

Languages, of course, are equivalent, but even the most rich country cannot publish, for example, books on all subjects in the language of several hundred people. Or even tens of thousands. In a language spoken by millions, this is feasible.

Many peoples of Russia have lost or are losing their languages, especially representatives of small peoples. So, they almost forgot the native language of the Chu-lymys - a small Turkic-speaking people in Siberia.

The list is unfortunately long. In the cities of Russia, the Russian language becomes common for the multinational population. And most of all the only one. However, recently national cultural and educational societies have taken care of their own languages in large centers. They usually organize Sunday schools for children.

Most of the languages of Russia until the 20s.

20th century had no writing. Georgians, Armenians, Jews had their own alphabet. The Latin alphabet (Latin alphabet) was written by the Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Finns. Some languages do not have a written language even now.

The first attempts to create a written language for the peoples of Russia were made even before the revolution, but they seriously took up this in the 1920s: they reformed the Arabic script, adapting it to the phonetics of the Turkic languages.

It did not fit the languages of the Yarods of the Caucasus. They developed the Latin alphabet, but there were not enough letters for the exact designation of sounds in the languages of small peoples. From 1936 to 1941, the languages of the peoples of Russia (and the USSR) were translated into the Slavic alphabet (except for those that had their own, moreover, ancient), added superscript signs, tall straight sticks to indicate guttural sounds, and combinations of letters, strange for the Russian eye, like "b" and "b" after vowels.

It was believed that a single alphabet helped to better master the Russian language. Recently, some languages have begun to use the Latin alphabet again.

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Population of Russia

Peoples (language families, groups) and religion of Russia in tables

The largest language families in Russia are:

Indo-European family, which is about 120 million people.

Ethnolinguistic composition of the population of Russia

A person who includes a group of Slavic languages (Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians), German (Germans and Jews who speak Yiddish), Iranian (Ossetian), Armenian (Armenian) groups, Altai families numbering about 11 million people.

a person from Turkish (Tatar, Chuvash Bashkirs, Kazakhs, Azerbaijanis, Sakhauks, Karachays, Balkars Kumyks, Khakass, etc.) and Mongolian (Buryats and Kalmyks); Northern white family, numbering about 5 million (Avarians, Dargins, Laks, Chechen Ingush, Kabardians Adygeis, etc.). Ural family of 4,000,000 people (Mordovians, Mari, Udmurts, Karelia, Khanty, Mansis, Nentsi, etc.). People and religions of Russia

family language

Language groups

Dominant religion

Areas of compact residence

Indo-European

Slavic

orthodoxy

throughout the territory

Ukrainians

Belarusian

German

Protestantism

Orenburg, Omsk, Novosibirsk Region, Altai Territory

Jews - Yiddish

Judaism

Moscow, St. Petersburg, Jewish Autonomous Region

orthodoxy

North Ossetia Alania

Armenian Gregorian Church

Krasnodar region

Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Chuvashia, Ryazan and Tyumen, Perm Territory

Bashkiria, Chelyabinsk region

save

orthodoxy

Nogais and Kumyks

Dagestan

Balkars and Karachin

Kabardino-Balkaria

shamanism, animism

Altai Republic

Kemerovo region

Buddhism (Lamaism)

orthodoxy

Sakha (Yakutia)

duty

shamanism, animism

Northern Irkutsk region

Mongolian

Buddhism (Lamaism)

Buryatia, Transbaikalia

Kalmykia

Tungus-Manchu

Eva and Evens

shamanism, animism

North of the Irkutsk region, Yakutia, Khabarovsk Territory, Magadan region

Nanai, Orox, Orochi, Udege, Ulchi, etc.

Khabarovsk and Primorsky Territories

North Caucasus

Abkhazia-Adygea

Kabardino-Balkaria

Karachay-Cherkessia

Nakh-Dagestan

Chechens and Ingush

and Ingushetia

Avars, Dargins, Laks, Lezgins

Dagestan

Finno-Ugric

orthodoxy

Mordovia, Tatarstan, Penza region

Udmurtia

Karelia, Tver region

Komi Republic

Komi-Permyaki

Perm region

Khanty and Mansi

Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug

Murmansk region

Nenets, Selkups and NganasansMaterial from the sitehttp: //worldofschool.ru

shamanism, animism

Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug

Chukotka-Kamchatsky

shamanism, animism

Chukotka Autonomous Okrug

Koryaks in Itelmen

Kamchatka Krai

Eskimo-Aleutian

Aleut and Eskim

Commander Islands and Chukotka Autonomous Okrug

Sakhalin region, Khabarovsk region

straw salmon

Krasnoyarsk region

The development of languages can be compared with the process of reproduction of living organisms. In past centuries, their number was much smaller than today, there were so-called "proto-languages" that were the ancestors of our modern speech. They broke up into many dialects, which were distributed throughout the planet, changing and improving. Thus, various language groups were formed, each of which descended from one "parent". On this basis, such groups are defined in families, which we will now list and briefly consider.

The biggest family in the world

As you may have guessed, the Indo-European language group (more precisely, it is a family) consists of many subgroups that are spoken in most of the world. Its distribution area is the Middle East, Russia, all of Europe, as well as the countries of America, which were colonized by the Spaniards and the British. Indo-European languages fall into three categories:

Native speeches

Slavic language groups are very similar both in sound and phonetics. They all appeared at about the same time - in the 10th century, when the Old Slavonic language, invented by the Greeks - Cyril and Methodius - ceased to exist to write the Bible. In the 10th century, this language broke up, so to speak, into three branches, among which were eastern, western and southern. The first of these included the Russian language (Western Russian, Nizhny Novgorod, Old Russian and many other dialects), Ukrainian, Belarusian and Rusyn. The second branch included Polish, Slovak, Czech, Slovene, Kashubian and other dialects. The third branch is represented by Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Slovenian. These languages are spoken only in those countries where they are official, and Russian is the international one among them.

Sino-Tibetan family

This is the second largest language family, which covers the range of all of South and Southeast Asia. The main "proto-language", you guessed it, is Tibetan. All those descended from him follow him. This is Chinese, Thai, Malay. Also language groups belonging to the Burmese regions, the Bai language, Dungan and many others. Officially, there are about 300 of them. However, if you take into account adverbs, then the figure will be much larger.

Niger-Congo family

A special phonetic system, and, of course, a special sound that is unusual for us, have the language groups of the peoples of Africa. A characteristic feature of the grammar here is the presence of nominal classes, which is not found in any Indo-European branch. Indigenous African languages are still spoken by people from the Sahara to the Kalahari. Some of them "assimilated" with English or French, some remained original. Among the main languages that can be found in Africa, we will highlight the following: Rwanda, Makua, Shona, Rundi, Malawi, Zulu, Luba, Xhosa, Ibibio, Tsonga, Kikuyu and many others.

Afroasian or Semitic-Hamitic family

There are language groups that are spoken in North Africa and the Middle East. Also, many dead languages of these peoples are still included here, for example, Coptic. Of the currently existing dialects that have Semitic or Hamitic roots, the following can be mentioned: Arabic (the most common in the territory), Amharic, Hebrew, Tigrinya, Assyrian, Maltese. It also often includes the Chadic and Berber languages, which, in fact, are used in Central Africa.

Japanese-Ryukyuan family

It is clear that the areola of distribution of these languages is Japan itself and the island of Ryukyu adjacent to it. Until now, it has not been finally clarified from which proto-language all those dialects that are now used by the inhabitants of the country of the Rising Sun originated. There is a version that this language originated in Altai, from where it spread, along with the inhabitants, to Japanese islands, and then to America (the Indians had very similar dialects). There is also an assumption that the homeland Japanese language is China.

There are about 3000 languages all over the world, no one has yet been able to calculate the exact number. Although according to the available data of UNESCO there are 2796 languages in the world. Seeing the exact figure, any linguist will smile, not that the exact number of languages in the world was counted, but from what they counted. All over the world there are many mixed languages and languages that have become extinct or languages of small tribes that are not officially listed anywhere. In this regard, it is almost impossible to calculate the exact number of languages. But linguists managed to distribute all the languages of the world into groups or families.

Many different languages are similar to each other, for example, a citizen of Russia can communicate with a citizen of Belarus and Ukraine, or vice versa, and everyone will be able to understand each other. Basically, the languages are similar to those peoples whose lands border on each other or on the ethnic origin of countries. As we know, 1000 years ago, on the territory where Belarus, Ukraine and Russia are now located, there were lands Kievan Rus. And the ancestors of the above countries communicated in the same language, Old Church Slavonic. Until our time, the borders have changed, and three new states of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus have grown in place of Kievan Rus.

Map of distribution of languages in Ukraine

Map of Chinese dialects

Indigenous languages of South America

Arabic dialects

Dialects of the Russian language

African languages map

Map of German dialects

Map of Finno-Ugric languages

Map of Slavic languages

Map of the languages of India

Families and groups of languages

Currently, linguists distinguish the following families and groups of languages:

- Indian group. This is the largest group in terms of number of speakers, as Indian languages are spoken by over 1 billion people. This group includes the languages of Central and Northern India, as well as Pakistan. Gypsies who migrated to Europe from India in the 5th - 10th centuries can also be attributed to this group. n. e. Of the extinct languages, this group includes the ancient Indian language - Sanskrit. On the given language the famous epic poem was written ancient india"Mahabharata"

- Iranian group. The languages of this group are spoken in Iran (Persian) and Afghanistan (Afghan). In this group there is a dead language of the Scythians.

- Slavic group. This includes a large number of different languages, which are usually further divided into subgroups.

eastern subgroup; Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian
western subgroup; Polish, Slovak, Czech, Kashubian, Sorbian and Polabian which is a dead language
southern subgroup; Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Macedonian, Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavonic which is also a dead language

- Baltic group. This group speaks Latvian and Lithuanian.

- German group. This group includes almost all the languages of Western Europe; Scandinavian (Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic), English, German, Dutch and Modern Hebrew Yiddish. Among all the above languages in this group, English is the most widely spoken language, spoken by more than 400 million people. US 215 million, UK 58 million, Canada 33.5 million, Australia 20 million, Ireland 4 million, South Africa 4 million New Zealand 3.6 million. German is spoken in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Regarding the Yiddish language, it can be said that almost all Jews speak it. One of the languages of the Germanic group Boer is spoken in South Africa thanks to immigrants from Holland.

- Roman group. French, Romanian, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese. This group also includes Provencal, Sardinian (Sardinia), Catalan (Eastern Spain) and Moldovan.

- Celtic group. The languages of this group are spoken in Ireland and on the nearest islands, as well as on the Brittany Peninsula, France (Breton), in Wales (Welsh). The dead languages of this group include the language of the ancient Gauls, who lived in the territory of modern France.

In addition to the above groups, Greek, Albanian and Armenian languages are separately distinguished, which are classified as Indo-European languages. This group also includes such dead languages as Hittite (Asia Minor) and Tocharian (Central Asia).

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. 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.
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 archaeological culture the ancient Indo-Europeans can be considered the so-called "pit culture", 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 supported by genetic studies, indicating that at least part of the Indo-European languages in Western and Central Europe was the source of the migration of Yamnaya culture carriers 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 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 for which entry into a language family has not been proven for them even after strenuous attempts to do so.