The Indo-European language family is the most widespread in the world. Its related languages are spoken by more than 2.5 billion people. It includes modern Slavic, Romance, Germanic, Celtic, Baltic, Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Armenian, Greek and Albanian language groups.
Many ancient Indo-Europeans (Indo-Iranians, for example) were nomads and could graze their herds over vast areas, passing on their language to local tribes. After all, it is known that the language of nomads often becomes a kind of Koine in the places of their nomads.
Slavic peoples
The largest ethno-linguistic community of Indo-European origin in Europe is the Slavs. Archaeological evidence points to the formation of the early Slavs in the area between the Upper Dniester and the basin of the left tributaries of the Middle Dnieper. In this region, the earliest monuments (III-IV centuries) were found, which were recognized as authentically Slavic. The first references to the Slavs are found in Byzantine sources of the 6th century. Retrospectively, these sources mention the Slavs in the 4th century. When the Proto-Slavic people stood out from the common Indo-European (or intermediate Balto-Slavic) people is not known for certain. According to various sources, this could happen in a very wide time range - from the 2nd millennium BC. until the first centuries A.D. As a result of migrations, wars and other kinds of interactions with neighboring peoples and tribes, the Slavic linguistic community broke up into eastern, western and southern ones. Mostly Eastern Slavs are represented in Russia: Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Rusyns. At the same time, Russians make up the absolute majority of the population of the Russian Federation, Ukrainians are the third largest people in the country.
Eastern Slavs were the main population of medieval Kievan Rus and Ladoga-Novgorod land. On the basis of the East Slavic (Old Russian) nationality by the 17th century. formed the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. The formation of the Belarusian people was completed by the beginning of the 20th century. The question of the status of the Rusyns as a separate people is still controversial. Some researchers (especially in Ukraine) consider Rusyns to be an ethnic group of Ukrainians, and the word "Rusyns" itself is an outdated name for Ukrainians used in Austria-Hungary.
The economic basis on which the East Slavic peoples historically formed and developed over the centuries was agricultural production and trade. In the pre-industrial period, these peoples developed an economic and cultural type, which was dominated by arable agriculture with the cultivation of cereals (rye, barley, oats, wheat). Other economic activities (domestic animal husbandry, beekeeping, gardening, gardening, hunting, fishing, collecting wild plants) were important, but not of paramount importance in ensuring life. Until the 20th century almost everything necessary in the peasant economy of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians was produced independently - from houses to clothes and kitchen utensils. Commodity orientation in the agricultural sector accumulated gradually, and primarily at the expense of landowners. Crafts existed both in the form of ancillary household crafts and in the form of specialized industries (iron-making, blacksmithing, pottery, salt-working, cooperage, charcoal, spinning, weaving, lace, etc.).
A very important element of the economic culture of the East Slavic peoples was traditionally otkhodnichestvo - the earnings of peasants in a foreign land, far from their native village: it could be work in large landowner farms, in craftsmen's artels, in mines, in logging, work as wandering stove-makers, tinkers, tailors and etc. It was from otkhodniks that the human resources of urban industrial production were gradually formed. With the development of capitalism in the late XIX - early XX century. and further, in the process of Soviet industrialization, the outflow of people from the countryside to the city increased, the role of industrial production, non-productive spheres of activity, and the national intelligentsia grew.
The predominant type of traditional dwelling among the Eastern Slavs varied depending on the locality. For Russian, Belorussian, North Ukrainian dwellings, the main material was wood (logs), and the type of building was a log cabin ground five-walled hut. In the north of Russia, log houses were often found: courtyards in which various residential and outbuildings were combined under one roof. The combination of wood and clay is typical for South Russian and Ukrainian rural dwellings. A common type of building was a hut: a mud hut - made of wattle, smeared with clay and whitewashed.
The family structure of the East Slavic peoples until the beginning of the 20th century. characterized by the spread of two types of families - large and small, with a partial predominance of one or the other in different areas in different historical eras. Since the 1930s there is almost universal disintegration of the extended family.
An important element of the social structure of the Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples during their stay in the Russian Empire was the class division. Estates differed in specializations, privileges, duties, property status.
And although in some periods there was a certain inter-class mobility, in the general case, staying in the estate was hereditary and lifelong. Some estates (for example, the Cossacks) became the basis for the emergence of ethnic groups, among which now only the memory of the estate of their ancestors is preserved.
The spiritual life of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Rusyns is rich and varied. Orthodoxy with elements of folk rituals plays a special role. Catholicism is also widespread (mainly of the Greek rite - among Ukrainians and Rusyns), Protestantism, etc.
The southern Slavs were formed mainly on the Balkan Peninsula, closely interacting with the Roman Byzantines, then with the Turks. The current Bulgarians are the result of a mixture of Slavic and Turkic tribes. The modern South Slavs also include Macedonians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats, Bosnians, Slovenes, Gorans.
The religion of the majority of the South Slavs is Orthodoxy. Croats are predominantly Catholic. Most of the Bosnians (Muslims, Bosniaks), Gorani, as well as Pomaks (ethnic group) and Torbeshi Allegory of Russia (ethnic group) are Muslims.
The area of modern residence of the southern Slavs is separated from the main Slavic area by non-Slavic Hungary, Romania and Moldova. In Russia at present (according to the 2002 census), Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins live from the southern Slavs.
Western Slavs are Kashubians, Lusatian Sorbs, Poles, Slovaks and Czechs. Their homeland is in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and certain regions of Germany. Some linguists also refer to the West Slavic dialect of the Pannonian Rusyns living in the Serbian region of Vojvodina.
The majority of believing Western Slavs are Catholics. There are also Orthodox, Protestants.
Poles, Czechs, Slovaks live in Russia from the Western Slavs. There are quite large Polish communities in the Kaliningrad region, St. Petersburg, Moscow, the Komi Republic, and the Krasnodar Territory.
Armenians and Hemshils
The Armenian language stands apart in the Indo-European family of languages: only it and several of its dialects are included in the Armenian language group. The formation of the Armenian language and, accordingly, the Armenian people, took place in the 9th-6th centuries. BC. within the state of Urartu.
The Armenian language is spoken in Russia by two peoples: the Armenians and the kindred Hemshils (Hamshens). The latter come from the Armenian city of Hamshen (Khemshin) in the Pontic Mountains.
Hemshils are often called Muslim Armenians, but the northern Hamshens, who settled in the territory of the present Krasnodar Territory and Adygea before the Islamization of their fellow tribesmen, belong, like most Armenians, to the Christian (pre-Chalcedonian) Armenian Apostolic Church. The rest of the Hemshils are Sunni Muslims. There are Catholics among the Armenians.
Germanic peoples
The peoples of the Germanic language group in Russia include Germans, Jews (conditionally) and Englishmen. Inside the West German area in the 1st century. AD three groups of tribal dialects were distinguished: Ingveon, Istveon and Erminon. Migration in the V-VI centuries. parts of the Ingvaeonic tribes to the British Isles predetermined the further development of the English language.
German dialects continued to form on the continent. The formation of literary languages was completed in England in the 16th–17th centuries, in Germany in the 18th century. The emergence of the American version of the English language is associated with the colonization of North America. Yiddish originated as the language of Ashkenazi Jews in Central and Eastern Europe in the 10th-14th centuries. based on Middle German dialects with extensive borrowings from Hebrew, Aramaic, as well as from Romance and Slavic languages.
Religiously, Protestants and Catholics predominate among Russian Germans. Most Jews are Judaists.
Iranian peoples
The Iranian group includes at least thirty languages spoken by dozens of peoples. At least eleven Iranian peoples are represented in Russia. All the languages of the Iranian group in one way or another go back to the ancient Iranian language or a group of dialects spoken by the Prairanian tribes. About 3–2.5 thousand years BC dialects of the Iranian branch began to separate from the common Indo-Iranian root. The pra-Iranians in the era of pan-Iranian unity lived in the space from modern Iran to, probably, the south and southeast of the present European part of Russia. So, the Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans spoke the Iranian languages of the Scythian-Sarmatian group. Today, the only living language of the Scythian subgroup is spoken by the Ossetians. This language has retained certain features of the ancient Iranian dialects. The Persian and Tajik languages belong to the Persian-Tajik subgroup proper. Kurdish language and Kurmanji (Yazidi language) - to the Kurdish subgroup. Pashto - the language of the Pashtun Afghans - is closer to the Indian languages. The Tats language and the Dzhugurdi language (a dialect of Mountain Jews) are very similar to each other. In the process of formation, they were significantly influenced by the Kumyk and Azerbaijani languages. The Talysh language was also influenced by Azerbaijani. Actually, the Talysh language goes back to Azeri - the Iranian language, which was spoken in Azerbaijan before its capture by the Seljuk Turks, after which most of the Azerbaijanis switched to the Turkic language, which is now called Azerbaijani.
There is almost no need to talk about common features in the traditional economic complex, customs and spiritual life of different Iranian peoples: they have been living far from each other for too long, they have experienced too many very different influences.
Romance peoples
The Romance languages are called so because they go back to Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. Of the Romance languages in Russia, the most widespread is Romanian, or rather, its Moldavian dialect, which is considered an independent language. Romanian is the language of the inhabitants of ancient Dacia, on the lands of which modern Romania and Moldova are located. Before the Romanization of Dacia, tribes of the Getae, Dacians, and Illyrians lived there. Then for 175 years this area was under Roman rule and was subjected to intensive colonization. The Romans went there from all over the empire: someone dreamed of retiring and occupying free lands, someone was sent to Dacia as an exile - away from Rome. Soon, almost all of Dacia spoke the local vernacular Latin. But from the seventh century most of the Balkan Peninsula is occupied by the Slavs, and for the Vlachs, the ancestors of the Romanians and Moldavians, the period of Slavic-Romance bilingualism begins. Under the influence of the Bulgarian kingdom, the Vlachs adopted Old Church Slavonic as their main written language and used it until the 16th century, when the proper Romanian writing finally appeared based on the Cyrillic alphabet. The Romanian alphabet based on the Latin alphabet was introduced only in 1860.
Residents of Bessarabia, which was part of the Russian Empire, continued to write in Cyrillic. Until the end of the XX century. the Moldavian language was strongly influenced by Russian.
The main traditional occupations of Moldovans and Romanians - until the 19th century. cattle breeding, then arable farming (corn, wheat, barley), viticulture and winemaking. Believing Moldovans and Romanians are mostly Orthodox. There are Catholics and Protestants.
The homeland of other Romance-speaking peoples, whose representatives are found in Russia, is far abroad. Spanish (also called Castilian) is spoken by the Spaniards and Cubans, French by the French, and Italian by the Italians. Spanish, French and Italian were formed on the basis of vernacular Latin in Western Europe. In Cuba (as in other countries of Latin America), the Spanish language was entrenched in the process of Spanish colonization. Most of the believers among the representatives of these peoples are Catholics.
Indo-Aryan peoples
Indo-Aryan is a language that goes back to ancient Indian. Most of these are the languages of the peoples of Hindustan. The so-called Chib novels, the language of Western gypsies, also belong to this group of languages. Gypsies (Roma) are natives of India, but their language developed in isolation from the main Indo-Aryan area and today differs significantly from the Hindustani languages proper. In terms of their way of life, the gypsies are closer not to their linguistically related Indians, but rather to the Central Asian gypsies. The latter include the ethnic groups Lyuli (Jugi, Mugat), Sogutarosh, Parya, Chistoni and Kavol. They speak dialects of Tajik in half with "lavzi mugat" (a special slang based on Arabic and Uzbek languages interspersed with Indo-Aryan vocabulary). The Parya group, in addition, retains its own Indo-Aryan language for internal communication, which differs significantly from both the Hindustani languages and the Gypsy. Historical data suggests that the Lyuli probably came to Central Asia and Persia from India during the time of Tamerlane or earlier. Part of the Lyuli moved directly to Russia in the 1990s. Western gypsies from India ended up in Egypt, then for a long time were subjects of Byzantium and lived in the Balkans, and came to Russia in the 16th century. through Moldova, Romania, Germany and Poland. Roma, Lyuli, Sogutarosh, Parya, Chistoni and Kavol do not consider each other to be kindred peoples.
Greeks
A separate group within the Indo-European family is the Greek language, it is spoken by the Greeks, but conditionally the Greek group also includes the Pontic Greeks, many of whom are Russian-speaking, and the Azov and Tsalk Greeks-Urums, who speak the languages of the Turkic group. The heirs of the great ancient civilization and the Byzantine Empire, the Greeks got into the Russian Empire in different ways. Some of them are the descendants of the Byzantine colonists, others emigrated to Russia from the Ottoman Empire (this emigration was almost continuous from the 17th to the 19th centuries), others became Russian subjects when some lands that previously belonged to Turkey went to Russia.
Baltic peoples
The Baltic (Letto-Lithuanian) group of Indo-European languages is related to Slavic and at one time, probably, was a Balto-Slavic unity with it. There are two living Baltic languages: Latvian (with a Latgalian dialect) and Lithuanian. Differentiation between the Lithuanian and Latvian languages began in the 9th century, however, they remained dialects of the same language for a long time. Transitional dialects existed at least until the 14th-15th centuries. Latvians migrated to Russian lands for a long time, fleeing the German feudal lords. From 1722 Latvia was part of the Russian Empire. From 1722 to 1915, Lithuania was also part of Russia. From 1940 to 1991, both of these territories were part of the USSR.
A set of groups (branches) of languages, the similarity of which is explained by a common origin. Indo-European family of languages. Finno-Ugric (Finnish-Ugric) family of languages. Turkic family of languages. Semitic family of languages... Dictionary of linguistic terms
Indo-European family
language family- a set of languages \u200b\u200bof late forms of one language (derived from one language), for example, Indo-European S. Ya., Ural S. Ya. etc. There is a tradition of using the term “S. I." only in relation to isolated groups of related ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
language family
language family- The whole set of languages of a given kinship. The following families of languages are distinguished: 1) Indo-European; 2) Sino-Tibetan; 3) Niger Kordofanian; 4) Austronesian; 5) Semito Hamitic; 6) Dravidian; 7) Altai; 8) Austro-Asian; 9) Thai; ... ... Dictionary of linguistic terms T.V. Foal
Indo-European language family- Indo-European Taxon: Ancestral home family: Indo-European ranges of Kentum (blue) and Satem (red). The estimated original area of satemization is shown in bright red. Range: the whole world ... Wikipedia
language family- Language systematics is an auxiliary discipline that helps to organize the objects studied by linguistics - languages, dialects and groups of languages. The result of this ordering is also called the taxonomy of languages. The taxonomy of languages is based on ... ... Wikipedia
language family- a group of related languages. The main families of languages with a written tradition are: a. Indo-European (Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, Greek, Albanian, Romance, Iranian, Indian, Hetto Luvian, Tocharian, Armenian languages); b. Euskero… … Grammatological Dictionary
Genetic classification of related languages- (or genealogical classification) is based on their common origin from the same ancestor language, the so-called parent language. Now it has been fully proved that the so-called Indo-European family of languages originates from one common Indo-European ... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron
Indo-Germanic language family- 1. name, previously used instead of the international term "Indo-European family of languages"; sometimes used and now in it. linguistics. 2. Includes, along with about 15 languages and groups of languages, also Greek. and lat... Dictionary of antiquity
Orange: Countries with the most IL broadcasters. Yellow: countries in which the FL minority language has official status
- the most common family of related languages, one of more than 20 language families in the world. The belonging of individual languages and language groups to the family of Indo-European languages is determined on the basis of the similarity of their structure, studied using the comparative historical method and is explained as a result of their origin from the only Indo-European proto-language in the past.
According to signs of close relationship, the Indo-European languages are divided into groups of languages and individual languages at the level of groups.
There are 7 groups of living Indo-European languages and 3 separate languages, which also include dead languages known from history that are closely related to them, which were previous stages in the development of modern languages or belonged to the corresponding groups as independent languages.
The largest group of living Indo-European languages are Indian languages - 96, which are spoken by more than 770 million people. These include the Hindi and Urdu languages (2 varieties of a single literary language in India and Pakistan), Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Assami, Sindhi, Gypsy, etc., as well as dead languages - Vedic and Sanskrit, in which many written records.
The group of Iranian languages includes living languages - Persian, Tajik, Dari (Farsi-Kabul), Afghan (Pashto), Ossetian, Yagnob, Kurdish, Baloch, Talysh, a number of Pamir languages, etc. (Total 81 million speakers) and dead languages - Old Persian, Avestan, Pahlavi, Median, Parthian, Sogdian, Khorezmian, Scythian, Alanian, Saks (Khotanese). On the basis of a number of common structures, features, the Iranian languages are united with the Indian languages in the Indo-Iranian languages: there is an assumption regarding their origin from the former linguistic unity.
The Slavic group of languages (see Slavic languages) is divided into 3 subgroups (more than 290 million speakers): eastern (Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian; see East Slavic languages), western (Polish, Czech, Slovak, Upper, Lower) and southern ( Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian); the western subgroup also included the Polabian language, which disappeared at the beginning of the 18th century.
The group of Baltic languages consists of living languages - Lithuanian and Latvian (4.3 million people) and dead ones - Prussian, Yatvingian, Curonian and others. proto-language, origin from close Indo-European dialects, long-term contact).
The group of Germanic languages (about 550 million speakers) includes living languages: English - the second (after Chinese) most common in the world, German, Dutch, Frisian, Luxembourgish, Afrikaans, Yiddish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese and the dead - Gothic, Burgundian, barbarian, Gepid, Herulian.
The Romance group of languages (576 million people) is represented by living languages - French, Provencal (Occitan), Italian, Sardinian (Sardinian), Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Romanian (Romanian and Moldavian speech), Aromunian, Romansh, a number of Creole languages. All Romance languages developed from Latin, the literary form of which is now known from numerous written sources and is still used today as the language of the Catholic liturgy and (to a limited extent) as the international language of science. The Latin language, together with the dead languages Oscan and Umbrian, formed a group of Italian languages.
The Celtic group of languages consists of rare living languages - Irish, Gaelic (Scottish), Welsh, Breton and the dead - Manx, Cornish, Celtiberian, Lepontian, Gaulish. In the past, the Celtic languages were spread over a vast area of Europe - from present-day Great Britain to the Carpathians and the Balkans. In the structure of the Celtic languages there are a number of common features with the Italian languages, with which they are usually combined into a more common Italo-Celtic group.
The Greek language (12.2 million people) occupies a separate place among the Indo-European languages at the level of the language group. In its history, ancient Greek (Ancient Greek) and Middle Greek (Byzantine) periods are distinguished.
The Albanian language (4.9 million people) is genetically related to the dead Illyrian and Messapian languages.
The Armenian language (over 6 million people) is considered the successor of the former Hayas-Armeni language as part of the state of Urartu.
Numerous written sources represent two groups of completely extinct Indo-European languages - Anatolian, or Hittite-Luvian (languages Hittite cuneiform, or Nesitska, Luvian cuneiform, Palai, hieroglyphic Hittite, Lydian, Lycian, Carian, sitetska, Pisidian) and Tocharian (languages Tocharian A, or Karasharska or Turpanskaya, and Tocharian B, or Kuchanskaya). Less information has been preserved about other dead Indo-European languages - Phrygian, Thracian, Illyrian, Messapska, Venetsky.
During the long development after the collapse of the proto-language, which had a highly developed structure of a synthetic type, the Indo-European languages subjected to significant structural differentiation - from synthetism (better preserved in the Baltic and Slavic languages) to analyticism (all developed in Afrikaans), from the fusionism of many ancient Indo-European languages to agglutination in new Indian and Iranian languages. Significant differences also appeared in the phonetics of the Indo-European languages. There is an opinion (in particular, it was substantiated in detail by the Russian linguist V. Ilyich-Svitych) that the Indo-European languages, along with the Afro-Asiatic, Uralic, Altaic, Dravidian and Kartvelian languages, belong to a wide “supersimy” of the so-called. Nostratic languages.
1.2. Formation of the Indo-European family of languages
An important component of linguistic history is the emergence and spread of Indo-European languages. This process began in ancient times, and it is happening now, in the form of the spread of already existing languages - English, Russian, Spanish and some others.
During the Paleolithic period, the distant ancestors of the Indo-Europeans lived between the Volga and the Danube. This is evidenced by the fact that the Indo-European names are "Ra (the so-called Volga), Don, Bug, Danube, Balkans, Carpathians, Black Sea), as well as birch - the only Indo-European name for a tree. The words winter and snow are common Indo-European; in many Indo-European languages there are common names for animals (sheep, bull, deer, hare, hedgehog. otter, wolf), birds (goose, duck, eagle, crane), insects (fly, gadfly, wasp. bee, louse, flea).
In the first half of the Stone Age, until the IV-III millennium BC. e., three zones of Indo-European languages were formed: 1) southern, 2) central, 3) northern.
The southern zone consisted of: the Etruscan language of ancient Italy (displaced by the beginning of the new era by the completely Latin language), Lycian, Lydian, Luwian, Hittite languages of Asia Minor. Hittite cuneiform writing dating back to the 18th-13th centuries. BC e., - the most ancient written monuments in the Indo-European language; Hittite hieroglyphic writing refers to the XIV-X1I1 centuries. BC e.
The central zone has undergone a more significant division into branches: on the one hand, the Italian (Romance) and Germanic branches are separated, and on the other hand, the Illyrian-Thracian (it is now represented by the Albanian language), Greek and Indo-Iranian, which, in turn, is divided into Iranian and the Indian branches of the Indo-European languages.
Germanic, Romance and Slavic (the latter emerged from the northern zone) branches form groups of closely related languages.
Consider the formation of three groups of Slavic languages - West Slavic, South Slavic and East Slavic.
The Common Slavic (Proto-Slavic) language consisted of closely related dialects and dialect zones located south of the Prinyat River, between the Western Bug River and the middle reaches of the Dnieper. To the west and north of the Slavs lived the Baltics, east and north of the Finno-Ugric tribes, in the south - the Iranians.
The common Slavic language existed for many centuries: from the second half of the 1st millennium BC. e. until the VI-VII centuries. n. e. The Indo-European heritage was not only preserved, but also modified. Incessant communication maintained commonalities. But in the VI-VII centuries. Slavic tribes settled in vast areas from Ilmen in the north to Greece in the south, from the Oka in the east to the Elbe in the west.
The settlement of the Slavs over a vast territory led to the formation of three groups of Slavic languages, differing in different manifestations of common Slavic sound laws and inflection rules, as well as the emergence of new words and roots, phonetic and grammatical patterns. For example, the name of Charlemagne (the Frankish king, since 800 - the emperor) as a title receives a different phonetic design in the Slavic languages: other-lugs. krol, Polish. krol, Slovak kral, Czech. kral, Slovenian kralj, Serbo-Chorv. kral, bulg. stole, other Russian. king, Russian king, Ukrainian king, white; Karol. Typical features are the structure of an open syllable, inherent in the Slavic languages, and the fullness of the East Slavic languages.
The settlement of the Slavs in the Balkans eventually led to the formation of the South Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Slovenian) and the Balkan language union. Related languages retain their original common features. Common features of a linguistic union arise as a result of prolonged contact of languages.
The Balkan Language Union covers Indo-European languages belonging to different branches of this family - Albanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Modern Greek, Romanian (the latter was formed on the basis of folk Latin, which was spoken by the colonists in Dacia and the Balkan Peninsula). The grammatical features of the Balkan language union are: the post-positive article, the formation of the future tense with the help of the auxiliary verb to want, the replacement of va with an analytical form, analyticism in the declension of bodies.
Article examples: rum. omul - man (from homo ille), fratele - brother (from frater ille); Bulgarian chovekt - a person, momtsite - guys, momata - a girl, momcheta - a boy, momicheto - a girl. Examples of the future tense: rum. voi cinta or cinta voi - I will sing (voi from voiu< voleo–хочу); болг. ш,е пея - буду петь, ще пеешь – будешь петь (частица ще есть застывшая форма 3-го л. ед. ч. глагола ща – хотеть).
Not only the history of the Indo-European languages, but also the history of other families of languages shows that the formation of related languages took place in stages and is closely connected with the history of the peoples - speakers of these languages. The emergence of tribal dialects and, on their basis, related families and groups of languages is an important fact in the history of mankind, as well as the origin of human speech.
Glossaries (collections of terms) on the themes: sky, water, earth, peoples. The name of the compiler of the ancient Egyptian encyclopedia is the scribe Amenemope, son of Amenemone (New Kingdom). 3. Culture of Ancient Mesopotamia The vast fertile country, located between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, is known collectively as Mesopotamia or Mesopotamia. Here, in the lower reaches of these rivers, in ancient times ...
With another. But this continued only until the 70s of the 4th century, when a new terrible and previously unseen enemy appeared from the east, in front of which the “power of Germanarich” turned out to be powerless. ancient civilization of the Huns-Khazars 4. The Hun invasion and its consequences The concept of the "Great Migration of Peoples" has long been established in science, which is usually dated to the 4th-7th centuries. Obviously, its chronological framework...
And Bonampake are considered one of the most beautiful. The beauty of the depiction of people on the frescoes makes it possible to compare these cultural monuments with the cultural monuments of the ancient world. Therefore, this period of development of the Mayan civilization is considered to be classical. Unfortunately, many of the cultural monuments have not survived to this day, as they were either destroyed by the Inquisition or time. Architecture For Art...
Astral deities include: Shamash (Sumer. Utu) - the god of the Sun; Sin (Sumer. Nanna) is the god of the moon. Each had 2 main centers in Mesopotamia: Shamash - in Lars and Sippar, Sin - in Ur and Harran. Both retained their importance throughout Mesopotamian civilization. Shamash had an exceptional position. He is not only the god of the sun, but also the supreme judge - earthly and heavenly, took care of the poor ...
The Indo-European branch of languages is one of the largest in Eurasia. It has spread over the past 5 centuries also in South and North America, Australia and partly in Africa. The Indo-European languages before occupied the territory from East Turkestan, located in the east, to Ireland in the west, from India in the south to Scandinavia in the north. This family includes about 140 languages. In total, they are spoken by approximately 2 billion people (2007 estimate). occupies a leading place among them in terms of the number of carriers.
Significance of Indo-European languages in comparative historical linguistics
In the development of comparative historical linguistics, the role that belongs to the study of the Indo-European languages is important. The fact is that their family was one of the first to be identified by scientists with great temporal depth. As a rule, in science, other families were determined, focusing directly or indirectly on the experience gained in the study of the Indo-European languages.
Ways to compare languages
Languages can be compared in various ways. Typology is one of the most common of them. This is the study of types of linguistic phenomena, as well as the discovery on the basis of this of universal patterns that exist at different levels. However, this method is not applicable genetically. In other words, it cannot be used to investigate languages in terms of their origin. The main role for comparative studies should be played by the concept of kinship, as well as the method of establishing it.
Genetic classification of Indo-European languages
It is an analogue of biological, on the basis of which different groups of species are distinguished. Thanks to it, we can systematize many languages, of which there are about six thousand. Having identified patterns, we can reduce all this set to a relatively small number of language families. The results obtained as a result of genetic classification are invaluable not only for linguistics, but also for a number of other related disciplines. They are especially important for ethnography, since the emergence and development of various languages is closely connected with ethnogenesis (the appearance and development of ethnic groups).
Indo-European languages suggests that the differences between them intensify over time. This can be expressed in such a way that the distance between them increases, which is measured as the length of the branches or arrows of the tree.
Branches of the Indo-European family
The genealogical tree of the Indo-European languages has many branches. It distinguishes both large groups and those consisting of only one language. Let's list them. These are Modern Greek, Indo-Iranian, Italic (including Latin), Romance, Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, Albanian, Armenian, Anatolian (Hitto-Luvian), and Tocharian. It also includes a number of extinct ones that are known to us from scarce sources, mainly from a few glosses, inscriptions, toponyms and anthroponyms from Byzantine and Greek authors. These are Thracian, Phrygian, Messapian, Illyrian, Ancient Macedonian, Venetian languages. They cannot be attributed with full certainty to one or another group (branches). Perhaps they should be separated into independent groups (branches), making up the genealogical tree of the Indo-European languages. Scientists do not have a consensus on this issue.
Of course, there were, in addition to those listed above, other Indo-European languages. Their fate was different. Some of them died out without a trace, others left behind a few traces in the substrate vocabulary and toponomastics. Attempts have been made to reconstruct some of the Indo-European languages from these meager traces. The most famous reconstructions of this kind include the Cimmerian language. He supposedly left traces in the Baltic and Slavic. Also of note is Pelagian, which was spoken by the pre-Greek population of ancient Greece.
Pidgins
In the course of the expansion of various languages of the Indo-European group, which took place over the past centuries, dozens of new ones - pidgins - were formed on the Romance and Germanic basis. They are characterized by a radically reduced vocabulary (1,500 words or less) and simplified grammar. Subsequently, some of them were creolized, while others became complete both functionally and grammatically. Such are Bislama, Tok Pisin, Krio in Sierra Leone, and the Gambia; Sechelva in the Seychelles; Mauritian, Haitian and Reunion, etc.
As an example, we give a brief description of the two languages of the Indo-European family. The first one is Tajik.
Tajik
It belongs to the Indo-European family, to the Indo-Iranian branch and the Iranian group. It is state in Tajikistan, distributed in Central Asia. Together with the Dari language, the literary idiom of the Afghan Tajiks, it belongs to the eastern zone of the New Persian dialect continuum. This language can be seen as a variant of Persian (Northeast). Mutual understanding is still possible between those who use the Tajik language and the Persian-speaking inhabitants of Iran.
Ossetian
It belongs to the Indo-European languages, to the Indo-Iranian branch, the Iranian group and the Eastern subgroup. The Ossetian language is spoken in South and North Ossetia. The total number of speakers is about 450-500 thousand people. It left traces of ancient contacts with Slavic, Turkic and Finno-Ugric peoples. The Ossetian language has 2 dialects: Iron and Digor.
The collapse of the base language
Not later than the fourth millennium BC. e. there was a collapse of a single Indo-European language-base. This event led to the emergence of many new ones. Figuratively speaking, the genealogical tree of the Indo-European languages began to grow from the seed. There is no doubt that the Hitto-Luvian languages were the first to separate. The timing of the allocation of the Tocharian branch is the most controversial due to the paucity of data.
Attempts to merge different branches
Numerous branches belong to the Indo-European language family. More than once attempts were made to combine them with each other. For example, hypotheses have been put forward that the Slavic and Baltic languages are especially close. The same was assumed in relation to the Celtic and Italic. To date, the most generally recognized is the union of Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages, as well as Nuristani and Dardic, into the Indo-Iranian branch. In some cases, it was even possible to restore the verbal formulas characteristic of the Indo-Iranian proto-language.
As you know, the Slavs belong to the Indo-European language family. However, it is still not exactly established whether their languages should be separated into a separate branch. The same applies to the Baltic peoples. The Balto-Slavic unity causes a lot of controversy in such an association as the Indo-European language family. Its peoples cannot be unequivocally attributed to one or another branch.
As for other hypotheses, they are completely rejected in modern science. Various features can form the basis for the division of such a large association as the Indo-European language family. The peoples who are the bearer of one or another of its languages are numerous. Therefore, it is not so easy to classify them. Various attempts have been made to create a coherent system. For example, according to the results of the development of back-lingual Indo-European consonants, all languages of this group were divided into centum and satem. These associations are named after the reflection of the word "hundred". In satem languages, the initial sound of this Proto-Indo-European word is reflected in the form "sh", "s", etc. As for the centum languages, "x", "k", etc. are characteristic of it.
The first comparativists
The emergence of comparative historical linguistics proper dates back to the beginning of the 19th century and is associated with the name of Franz Bopp. In his work, he for the first time proved scientifically the relationship of the Indo-European languages.
The first comparativists were Germans by nationality. These are F. Bopp, J. Zeiss, and others. They first drew attention to the fact that Sanskrit (an ancient Indian language) is very similar to German. They proved that some Iranian, Indian and European languages have a common origin. These scholars then grouped them into an "Indo-Germanic" family. After some time, it was established that Slavic and Baltic are also of exceptional importance for the reconstruction of the proto-language. So a new term appeared - "Indo-European languages".
The merit of August Schleicher
August Schleicher (his photo is presented above) in the middle of the 19th century summarized the achievements of his comparative predecessors. He described in detail each subgroup of the Indo-European family, in particular, its most ancient state. The scientist proposed to use the principles of reconstruction of a common proto-language. He had no doubts about the correctness of his own reconstruction. Schleicher even wrote the text in Proto-Indo-European, which he recreated. This is the fable "Sheep and Horses".
Comparative-historical linguistics was formed as a result of the study of various related languages, as well as the processing of methods for proving their relationship and the reconstruction of some initial parent-language state. August Schleicher has the merit of depicting schematically the process of their development in the form of a family tree. In this case, the Indo-European group of languages appears in the following form: the trunk - and the groups of related languages are branches. The family tree has become a clear image of distant and close kinship. In addition, it indicated the presence of a closely related common proto-language (Balto-Slavic - among the ancestors of the Balts and Slavs, Germanic-Slavic - among the ancestors of the Balts, Slavs and Germans, etc.).
Contemporary research by Quentin Atkinson
More recently, an international group of biologists and linguists established that the Indo-European group of languages originated from Anatolia (Turkey).
It is she, from their point of view, that is the birthplace of this group. The research was led by Quentin Atkinson, a biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Scientists have applied to the analysis of various Indo-European languages the methods that have been used to study the evolution of species. They analyzed the vocabulary of 103 languages. In addition, they studied data on their historical development and geographical distribution. Based on this, the researchers came to the following conclusion.
Consideration of cognates
How did these scientists study the language groups of the Indo-European family? They looked at the cognates. These are words with the same root that have a similar sound and a common origin in two or more languages. They are usually words that are less subject to changes in the process of evolution (denoting family relationships, names of body parts, as well as pronouns). Scientists compared the number of cognates in different languages. Based on this, they determined the degree of their relationship. Thus, cognates were likened to genes, and mutations were likened to differences in cognates.
Use of historical information and geographic data
Scholars then resorted to historical data on the time when the divergence of languages supposedly took place. For example, it is believed that in 270, the languages of the Romance group began to separate from Latin. It was at this time that the emperor Aurelian decided to withdraw the Roman colonists from the province of Dacia. In addition, the researchers used data on the modern geographical distribution of various languages.
Research results
After combining the obtained information, an evolutionary tree was created based on the following two hypotheses: Kurgan and Anatolian. The researchers compared the resulting two trees and found that "Anatolian" is statistically the most likely.
The reaction of colleagues to the results obtained by the Atkinson group was very ambiguous. Many scientists have noted that a comparison with the biological evolution of linguistic is unacceptable, since they have different mechanisms. However, other scientists found it justified to use such methods. However, the group was criticized for not testing the third hypothesis, the Balkan one.
Note that today the main hypotheses of the origin of the Indo-European languages are Anatolian and Kurgan. According to the first, the most popular among historians and linguists, their ancestral home is the Black Sea steppes. Other hypotheses, Anatolian and Balkan, suggest that the Indo-European languages spread from Anatolia (in the first case) or from the Balkan Peninsula (in the second).
