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The ideology of politics as a social institution. Relationships of the individual in society

The ideology of politics as a social institution. Relationships of the individual in society

20.09.2019

The phonetic structure of the Latin language of the classical period

Lecture 2. The Latin alphabet and its influence on the alphabet of European languages. Latin vowels: number, diphthongs.

Plan

1. Features of the formation and development of the Latin alphabet.

2. Latin alphabet system

3. The paradigm of the modern Latin language and examples of its historical development.

4. Latin vowels: amount of sound, diphthongs.

Human civilization has already reached a high level, and we practically do not think about where we got from, these or those things that we use every day, it seems that it has always been like this. Let's not talk about the latest technical progress now, let's think about more global things, such as language, writing. Every day on store signs, product packaging, price tags on things, we meet with inscriptions in foreign languages, most often it is English, which has rightfully earned itself international status. In the last decade, the prevalence of the English language has erased all boundaries, it has become vital for those who want to make a successful career. Even those who do not speak this language can easily read the names of popular brands, and all thanks to its incredible popularization. In Russian, the Cyrillic font is used for writing, it is also used by some other Slavic peoples, such as Bulgarians and Serbs. But, more than half of European languages use the Latin alphabet for writing. These uncomplicated Latin letters seem to have been with us for ages. But both language and writing are always the result of centuries-old work of the people. Exactly appearance of writing, made it possible for ancient civilizations to leave a memory to their descendants. Without writing, there would be no literature, scientific and technological progress would be impossible. How writing was born? What prompted the ancient people to think about how to record the necessary information? Nomadic tribes, and the warring parties, there was no need for writing. Their main task was to conquer a large territory for their tribe. But when the tribe began to lead a settled way of life, then there was a need for writing. Probably, it was in some, from such moments of calm, ancient Phoenicians , and thought about how to graphically display the necessary information.

Exactly Phoenicians, owns the first alphabet in the history of mankind, which became the progenitor of the Latin alphabet. It was the Phoenician alphabet that gave the traditional letter order. The Greek alphabet developed from the Phoenician alphabet, it is in it that vowels first appear, which were borrowed from the Semitic languages. For thousands of years, literacy has been the privilege of the upper strata of society and the clergy, only a select few have mastered this science. But it was the Ancient Greeks who were able to bring schools closer to the people, removing them from the influence of religious priests. And giving the opportunity to receive education from childhood. But the Greek civilization fell under the onslaught of the Roman conquerors, who received the alphabet and writing as trophies. It was the Greek alphabet and the writing system that formed the basis of the Latin language of the Ancient Roman Empire. For thousands of years, the alphabet has been transformed, for example, initially there were 23 letters in the Latin alphabet, only in the Middle Ages, three more new letters (J, U and W) were added, and the alphabet acquired such a familiar look. At the dawn of the birth of Latin writing, they wrote without separating words with spaces and did not use punctuation marks yet. The militancy of the Romans expanded the expanses of the empire in all directions, in the end, even the north of Europe was conquered, and the Romans crossed the English Channel. The sites of the Roman legions are found in England, France, Syria and Judea, and even in Africa, near Tunisia and Algeria. In the spread of Latin writing, an important role was also played by the fact that many peoples chose the Latin alphabet to write their native languages, so as not to invent new letters, but to use those already familiar to everyone. In its development, Latin writing has gone through many stages, the font has been transformed, as architectural styles have changed. In various historical periods, minuscule Roman cursive and Roman capital letters, uncial and semi-uncial letters, Merovingian and Visigothic fonts, Old Italic and Gothic, rotunda and Swabian writing appear. Many of these typefaces are still used for decorative purposes. This is how the evolution of writing took place, introducing new signs, styles, ways of writing. The theme of the emergence of writing is very interesting and multifaceted, it is closely related to the development of human civilization with historical and cultural events. It is on the example of writing that one can establish a historical connection, it would seem, of completely different peoples. The transformation of primitive rock paintings, first into drawn symbols, and then into individual letters, which corresponded to a certain sound. The pinnacle of this process was the invention of printing. That allowed science and culture to develop at a new level.

The letter appears among this or that people, in this or that culture, as a rule, in connection with the need to satisfy the needs of its spiritual and cognitive activity and statehood. In relation to the peoples of Europe, the formula, widespread in the history of world culture, completely retains its validity: “The alphabet follows religion”.

In its East, Christianity was adopted from Byzantium in a form that allowed for the possibility of worship in their native language and encouraged the creation of their own alphabet based on Greek and the translation of church texts into their native language. In its West, the conductor of Christianity was Rome, which preached the principle of "trilingualism" (Hebrew, Greek and Latin, sanctified by the authority of the Bible and the Christian Church). Here, in religious everyday life, only Latin was mainly used (often in a regional variety) and, if necessary, their own script was created (at first for auxiliary purposes), based on a gradual, initially purely spontaneous adaptation of the Latin alphabet to the native language, the phonological system of which differs significantly from Latin.

All European writing systems arose on the basis of borrowing (author's or spontaneous) not so much the forms of letters, but the ways of constructing the alphabet and the graphic system that developed in Greek or Latin writing. Here one can clearly trace the universal principle of the development of writing systems formulated by general grammar in the direction of their phonetization (and phonemization - for languages of the phonemic system), i.e. movement from ideography to phonography (phonemography). European writing systems are alphabetic, and such writing is known to be the most perfect sound writing system for phonemic languages. It is based on a one-to-one correspondence between graphemes and phonemes, i.e. strives to realize the ideal formula of the graphics system. Nevertheless, deviations from the ideal are often observed, consisting of: a) the presence of many graphemes (“algraphs” or “graphemic series”) to designate one phoneme; b) in the use of different graphemes to convey obligatory and optional allophones of one phoneme; c) in the use of one grapheme to designate different phonemes - often taking into account the position in the word; d) there are a number of positional variants of one grapheme. The optimal solution to the problem of graphics is to construct, if not exhaustive, then quite sufficient and, at the same time, an economical set of rules for fixing phonemically significant sound differences (phonological differential features) for a given language.

The formation of scripts based on the Latin alphabet was a long and controversial process of spontaneous adaptation of Latin characters to other kinds of phoneme systems, which proceeded in the absence at the initial stage of a preliminary understanding of the principles for selecting the available graphemes and giving them other functions, if necessary, in the absence of a pre-compiled set of graphics rules, regulating the correspondence between graphemes and phonemes, and even more so in the absence of spelling that unifies the spelling of specific words. Between cultural centers (as a rule, monasteries) and schools of scribes there was a sharp competitive struggle associated with the upholding of certain graphic techniques.

The creation of a written language based on the Latin alphabet went through the following main stages: writing down proper names (toponyms and anthroponyms) and other words in local scripts in Latin texts; writing in the margins or between the lines of Latin texts translations into the native language of individual words (gloss), phrases and whole sentences; translations of religious (and later secular) texts into the native language; creation of original texts of various genres in the native language.

The earliest writing originated in Ireland. Here in the 3-5 centuries. (before the adoption of Christianity), the Ogham script was used (it consisted in applying a certain number and size of notches located at a certain angle to the edge of the stone). The close to ideal phonographic character of this writing system testifies to the genius of its creators. In the 5th c. The Irish accept Christianity and at the beginning of the 6th century. create their own letter on a Latin basis, used by monks to record religious works and epics. Here, in a culture with no sharp confrontation between Christianity and paganism, the idea of a “fourth” language is preached. By the 8th c. Ogham writing is completely supplanted. In addition to the Latin letters of the Classical period, digraphs are used to indicate diphthongs and to fix fricative consonants that have arisen as a result of recent sound transitions. Doubled spellings are adopted to denote deaf stop consonants in the middle and end of words. Methods are being invented to convey the softness of consonants after back vowels and the hardness of consonants after front vowels by a combination of letters.

Irish missionaries were active in Scandinavia, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Pannonia and Moravia, seriously influencing the establishment of certain graphic canons in these countries and the awareness of these peoples of the right to widely use writing in their native language. They had a particularly serious influence on the formation of writing among the Anglo-Saxons. At the same time, traces of influence on the development of Irish graphics by missionaries from Celtic Britain can be found.

Comparatively late, writing appeared in Romance-speaking countries, which is apparently explained by the widespread ability to read and understand texts in dead language by the 5th century BC. Latin. In the Romance language area (Romania), there were serious differences in the voicing of the same church text in accordance with the characteristics of the local folk-spoken language. Attention is drawn to the reform of Charlemagne, who sought to bring the pronunciation into agreement with the Latin spelling.

The need for their own written language is recognized in connection with the large gap between canonical Latin and the spoken language that hinders the understanding of written texts. In France, in the 9th century, in Provence in the 11th century, in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Catalonia in the 12th-13th centuries, their own writing system was formed. At the same time, there were frequent and significant coincidences - due to the commonality of the Romanesque speech of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages as the source material and some general trends in sound development - in the arsenal of graphic techniques used. So, the quality of vowels is usually inconsistently indicated, but the quality of consonants is quite informatively conveyed through various letter combinations, for example, the designation of middle language lateral and nasal sonants. These new phonemes are recorded as the result of a change in the occlusive back-lingual consonants. It is typical for scribes to strive not to break away from Latin prototypes by creating etymological spellings. Quite late (16th century) the Latin letters Uu and Vv, Ii and Jj began to be demarcated, which had a pan-European character. The grapheme Ww (from the double uu/vv) is formed on Germanic soil.

The first Czech monuments in Latin appear in the 13th century, although the Latin alphabet penetrated to the Western Slavs earlier than the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets (until the unsuccessful Moravian mission of Constantine the Philosopher and Methodius with their students in the 9th century). Czech writing is created in monasteries by monks who studied with the Germans. Therefore, the influence of examples of Latin and German graphics is so tangible. Subsequently, competing digraphs appear to denote numerous Czech consonants and diacritics to convey their hardness and softness. The creation of an ideal phonographic Czech graphics is possible only as a result of the reform of J. Hus in 1412.

Creation of European writing

In 1904–1906, the so-called Sinai inscriptions dating back to the 13th-14th centuries BC (Fig. 1.8). The signs of these inscriptions in many ways resembled Egyptian hieroglyphs, but their system represented a complete alphabet.

The creators of this most ancient alphabet were Hyksos- semi-nomadic pro-Semitic people. The Hyksos conquered Egypt and dominated there for several centuries until they were expelled by the strengthened Egyptians. The Hyksos adopted the high Egyptian culture and, on the basis of Egyptian hieroglyphs, already sufficiently prepared for this, created their own script, the basis of which was the alphabet.

Rice. 1.8. Sinai script, 13th-14th centuries BC.

Phoenicians, conducting extensive trade with many countries, significantly improved the ancient Semitic writing, making it exclusively phonetic.

Greeks got acquainted with Semitic writing as early as the second millennium BC and around the 10th century BC created their own alphabet based on the Phoenician. They introduced vowel symbols that were not in the Phoenician alphabet.

The origin of the Greek alphabet from the ancient Semitic is confirmed by the preserved names of many letters. For example, the Greek letter "alpha" (α) in the Semitic alphabet corresponds to the letter "aleph"; the letter "beta" (β) - "bet", "gamma" ( γ ) - "gimel", etc.

Greek writing was at first leftist, as is the case in Semitic writing. The Greek colonies in Italy transferred their script there, on the basis of which various versions of the Latin alphabet were created.

Latin script- alphabetic writing used by the ancient Romans. It was preserved among the majority of the peoples of Western Europe, formed the basis of the writings of many languages of the world. Latin writing goes back to Greek writing.

Proper Latin alphabet (Latin) developed in the IV-V centuries. BC e., the direction of writing from left to right from the II century. BC.

After the unification of Italy by Rome in the first century BC, a single Latin alphabet was introduced, which has survived without any changes to our time. In the new alphabet, additional signs were eliminated that were available in the early Latin alphabets, complicating writing and making it difficult to read. The Latin alphabet began to spread in Western Europe and soon became the main alphabet there.

Glagolitic. As convincingly proved by the latest studies of historians, writing among the Eastern Slavs appeared no later than the middle of the 9th century, that is, long before the adoption of Christianity.

Rice. 1.9. Glagolitic letter

Cyrillic. Following the Glagolitic alphabet, a new alphabet, the Cyrillic alphabet, began to spread in Rus'. The oldest monument of the Slavic Kirillovsky The letter is “the inscription of King Samuel” (Fig. 1.10), made on the tombstone. The creators of the new alphabet - Cyrillic - are Greek monks Cyril and Methodius. Initially, this alphabet was compiled for Moravans, one of the West Slavic peoples, but quickly became almost universal in Slavic countries and replaced the less convenient Glagolitic alphabet.

Cyril and Methodius , brothers from Thessalonica (Thessaloniki), Slavic enlighteners, creators of the Slavic alphabet, preachers of Christianity. Cyril (c. 827-869 before becoming a monk in 869 - Constantine the Philosopher), and Methodius (c. 815-885) in 863 were invited from Byzantium by Prince Rostislav to the Great Moravian state to introduce worship in the Slavic language. Instilling a new Slavic alphabet, they translated the main liturgical books from Greek into Old Slavonic.

Rice. 1.10. "Inscription of King Samuel", made on a tombstone

After the death of Methodius, his disciples, who defended the Slavic Liturgy, were expelled from Moravia and found shelter in Bulgaria. Here a new Slavic alphabet was created on the basis of the Greek, to convey the phonetic features of the Slavic language, it was supplemented with letters borrowed from the Glagolitic alphabet. This alphabet, which was widespread among the Eastern and Southern Slavs (Fig. 1.11), was later called "cyrillic"- in honor of Cyril (Konstantin).

Rice. 1.11. New alphabet - Cyrillic

Russian alphabet. Like any alphabet, this is a sequential series of letters that convey the sound composition of Russian speech and create the written and printed form of the Russian language). The Russian alphabet dates back to the Cyrillic alphabet, and has existed in its modern form since 1918.

The Russian alphabet contains 33 letters, 20 of which convey consonants ( b, p, c, f, e, t, h, s, f, w, h, c, u, g, k, x, m, n, l, p), and 10 - vowels (ah, uh, oh, s, and, u) or (in certain positions) combinations j+ vowel ( i, e, yu, yo); letter " th" conveys "and non-syllable" or j; "ъ" and "ь" do not represent separate sounds.

The Russian alphabet serves as the basis for the alphabets of some other languages.

The ideal phonographic alphabet should consist of as many letters as there are phonemes in a given language.
But since writing developed historically and much of the writing reflected obsolete traditions, there are no ideal alphabets, but there are more or less rational ones. Among the existing alphabets, two are the most common and graphically convenient: they are Latin and Russian.
The culture of the young Romano-Germanic barbarians originated on the ruins of the Roman Empire, Latin came to them as the language of the church, science and literature and the Latin alphabet, which corresponded well to the phonetic structure of the Latin language, but did not at all correspond to the phonetics of the Romance and Germanic languages. 24 Latin letters could not graphically represent 36-40 phonemes of new European languages. Thus, in the field of consonants for most European languages, signs were needed for hissing fricatives and affricates, which were not in Latin. Five Latin vowels (a,e, o, i, i and later at ) did not correspond in any way to the system of vocalism of French, English, Danish and other European languages.

Attempts to invent new letters (for example, signs for interdental consonants proposed by the Frankish king Chilperic I) were not successful. Tradition was stronger than need. Minor alphabetical innovations (such as the French "se cedilla" ҫ, German "escet" β or Danish ø ) did not save the situation. The Czechs acted most radically and correctly without resorting to multi-letter combinations such as Polish sz = [w], cz = [h], szcz = [u], and using superscript diacritics, when they got regular rows of whistling s, c, z and hissing Š,Č, Ž

Thus, to replenish the alphabet, you can:

or provide letters with additional icons: lower ones, such as cedilla, for example, Romanian ţ, Ş, or cross, for example Danish ø, Polish t , or upper, for example Czech Š,Č, Ž .
or use ligatures, for example German β ("escet");
or use combinations of several letters to convey one sound, for example, German ch= [X], sch = [w].

As an illustration of the difficulties and methods of making up for the lack of the Latin alphabet for the peoples using it, the following table can serve, which shows how the same phoneme is transmitted by different letters.

In addition, thanks to the same Latin tradition, the same letter in languages using the Latin alphabet is used to denote different phonemes, for example:

There are no such shortcomings in the Russian alphabet. He was “lucky” in history: the inventors of the Slavic alphabets did not just apply the Greek alphabet to the Slavic languages, but radically reworked it, and not only in terms of the lettering, but also in relation to the phonemic composition of the Slavic languages; aspirated consonants, unusual for Slavic languages, were excluded, but consonants were created for affricates c, s, h and for vowels b, b, a, and, ђ , s. The adaptation of this alphabet to the Russian language proceeded gradually and received its legal form in two legislative acts: in the personal proofreading of Peter the Great (1710) and in a decree of the Soviet government (1917). The ratio of the letters of a good alphabet and the composition of the phonemes of the language can be shown by the example of the Russian alphabet.

Reformatsky A.A. Introduction to Linguistics / Ed. V.A. Vinogradov. - M., 1996.

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The ideology of politics as a social institution. Relationships of the individual in society

Creation of European writing

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