It still remains a mystery. However, the first historical reference the appearance of tongues is given in the biblical story about Tower of Babel. Babylon was a place where people lived in harmony and peace and spoke the same language. The inhabitants of Babylon decided to build a tower “high to the heavens... so as not to be scattered over the face of the earth,” thereby challenging God. As a result, God punished them and scattered them across the face of the earth and confused their languages. This, however, is all that we know about the origin of languages.
Do you know how many languages exist on planet Earth today? Apparently, in the world 2700 spoken languages And 7000 dialects. In Indonesia alone there are 365 different languages, while in Africa there are more than 1000. The most complex language The world's most popular language is the Basque language, spoken in North-West Spain and South-West France. Its main feature is that it is unlike any other language in the world and is classified as an isolated language. The self-name of the language is Euskara.
The youngest language- Afrikaans, spoken in South Africa. One of the world's oldest languages, Aka-Bo or Bo, is now considered an extinct language as the last native speaker of Bo died on January 26, 2010, at the age of about 85. Bo is ancient language, once common in the Andaman Islands in India. The languages of the Andaman Islands are believed to have their origins in Africa, and some may even be as old as 70,000 years.
The Chinese language, or more precisely the Putonghua dialect, is the most widely spoken language in the world after English, and probably one of the most interesting and most complex. Among China's many other languages, Mandarin is by far the dominant one: it is spoken by about 800 million people, and another 200 million recognize it as a second language. Putonghua is spoken in much of northern and southwestern China. If you ever find yourself there to say hello to your interlocutors, all you have to do is say: “Nĭ hăo.”
Rotokas is the language of the province of Bougainville, on an island east of New Guinea. This language is known for having the smallest range of sounds. In the Rotokas language, the alphabet consists of twelve letters that represent eleven phonemes (AEIKOPRSTUV). The language has six consonants (K, P, R, S, T, V) and five vowels (A, E, I, O, U). The letters "T" and "S" represent the same phoneme /t/, while the letter "V" is sometimes written as "B".
The Vatican is the only state in the world where Latin is the official language. In addition, the Vatican has the only ATM in the world, where you can read the instructions on Latin. And yet Latin counts dead tongue, since there are no people who would consider it their native language. Latin is still taught in schools and universities and is spoken fluently by various scholars and clergy. It is enough to cite well-known Latin phrases: alea jacta est (“the die is cast”), veni vidi vici (“came, saw, conquered”), carpe diem (“break the day”), divide et impera (“divide and conquer”).
Tribute to tradition
The very peak of the development of medicine occurred in antiquity, so it is not surprising that the works of the Aesculapians were created in the two most common languages of that time - ancient Greek and ancient Roman, that is, in Latin. If the peak of medicine fell on the Sumerians, who are considered the first written civilization on Earth (IV-III millennium BC), then most likely the recipes would now be cuneiform. But it is also possible Feedback- the development of writing and the education system made it possible to transfer knowledge from generation to generation.
Versatility
In the Middle Ages, Europe was fragmented into dozens of states, and the number of languages and dialects exceeded a dozen. At that time, students from all over the Old World came to the first established universities. To teach them all, they began to use Latin. It was not difficult to master it, since it was the basis of many European languages. This is how a universal tool for communication between philosophers, lawyers, and doctors appeared, and their books, treatises, and dissertations were in Latin. Catholic Church also significantly influenced this process, Latin was its official language.
The connecting role of Latin has not been lost to this day. Doctor with classic medical education from any country in the world, can easily understand the works written by his foreign colleague. The fact is that all drug names and anatomical names are Latin. A Russian doctor can open an English-language medical journal and general outline understand what the article is about.
Aptitude test
Invia est in medicina via sine lingua Latina - the path in medicine without Latin is impassable, says popular saying. Students' ability in short time learning another language has become a filter for professional suitability. English-speaking students have a harder time learning Latin than Russian because it has more in common with modern Russian than with English. For example, grammatical categories in Latin they are also expressed by inflection (declension, conjugation), and not service units speech. Like the Russian language, Latin has 6 cases, 3 genders, 2 numbers, 3 persons, etc.
This is interesting
The famous Latin saying goes like this: “Mens sana in corpore sano” (“In healthy body - healthy mind"). In fact, the original looked different: “Orandum est, uit sit mens sana in corpore sano” (“We must pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body”). Such subtleties are interesting to study. Modern medical and biological Latin is a kind of Newspeak that arose during the Renaissance by “crossing” classical Latin with ancient Greek.
Latin language (lat. lingua latina), or Latin, - the language of the Latin-Faliscan subgroup of the Italic languages of the Indo-European language family. Today it is the only actively used Italian language (although there have been no people with native Latin for at least a millennium and a half, therefore it should be considered a dead language).
Latin is one of the most ancient written Indo-European languages.
Today, Latin is the official language of the Holy See (Vatican City State), as well as Roman Catholic Church and other Catholic churches.
The Latin alphabet is the basis of writing for many modern languages.
Latin Wikipedia(lat. Vicipdia listen)) is a Latin section of Wikipedia, opened in 2002. As of January 1, 2008, there were 17,621 articles (55th place); in May 2008, it exceeded the threshold of 20,000 articles. It is also interesting because the Latin language is considered a dead language (although more than 20 members of the English Wikipedia and a number of members of other language versions of Wikipedia call Latin their native language).
Articles about Latin
Project "Living Latin" (www.school.edu.ru)
Visiting the Russian general education portal. Site editor Mikhail Polyashev answers questions
Wap version of the portal (version for mobile phone) is available from any mobile phone at: wap.linguaeterna.com
In Defense of the Teaching of Latin (filolingvia.com)
Unfortunately, everyone knows that teaching Latin in our universities has turned into a tedious task, painful for both students and professors. All hope is for high school. Not only in specialized gymnasiums, where Latin is now fashionable, but also in simple schools it is necessary to introduce courses “ Ancient civilization”, where there would be a little bit of everything: the basics of the Latin language, Greek roots words, aphorisms, historical facts, mythology, philosophy, art, epigraphy.
How necessary and in demand is a course in popular practical Latin, where it would be studied as if it were alive, almost colloquial. And it is very useful to accustom our schools to this, so that students (and the teachers themselves) can always easily apply their knowledge at any step in life. So that they can immediately find Latin roots in complex scientific terms, foreign words, understand derivatives, read numerous epigraphs in Latin, quotes, inscriptions on houses and objects, mottos of companies and states. “Classics” guarantee: even if outwardly you are far from antiquity, the knowledge gained in this area will never lie as a dead weight on your soul. Someday they will definitely come in handy and help you.
We all sometimes want to impress the attention of our interlocutor in a conversation or to show off in a beautiful phrase correspondence. Good way to do this is to use phrases from the Latin language. The Latin tribe, which once inhabited the territory of modern central Italy, communicated with each other in Latin. According to legend, the most famous representatives This tribe - the brothers Romulus and Remus - are the founders of Rome. Sometimes we use Latin expressions without even knowing their origin. They are so firmly entrenched in the Russian language that we use these phrases without realizing their origin. For example, these are the words “alibi”, “alter ego”, “alma mater”. What other phrases will be of interest to those who would like to show off their oratory skills? We present to your attention several such expressions.
Achieve success from scratch
One of the most popular Latin aphorisms is often attributed to the philosopher Seneca: Per aspera ad astra, which literally translates as “Through thorns to the stars.” What does it mean? Each person goes through many stages on the path of his development. For some they are easy, but for others they have to make serious efforts in order to move to a new level. This expression can be used, for example, in cases where a person has managed to open own business, not having large amount for start-up capital. A year ago, he was “counting pennies,” but through hard and long work he managed to make his life and the life of his family comfortable. In this case, we can say that he went to his success through thorns and to the stars.
Man to man...
And here is another Latin aphorism, firmly rooted in ordinary speech: Homo homini lupus est. It is translated as “man is a wolf to man.” This expression is usually used when a speaker or letter writer wants to emphasize that people are usually strangers to each other. Few people will help to a stranger, and someone else’s misfortune rarely bothers anyone. This expression was first heard in the comedy “Donkeys” by the ancient Roman playwright named Plautus. In one of the most everyday scenes in this comedy, a man was supposed to transfer money to another through a slave, but refused to do so.
When asked again, he said, “You can’t convince me to put money in the hands of a stranger. A man is a wolf to a man if he does not know him.” We see that initially it was a matter of simple mistrust. But more late time this Latin aphorism acquired a slightly different meaning. It began to be applied to a society where everyone fights only for their own interests. This phrase was also used in T. Hobbes’s work “Leviathan”.
A beard is not an indicator of intelligence
Here's another Latin aphorism that the Romans liked to use to make a point: age is not always prerequisite mind. Barba crescit, caput nescit, which means "The beard grows, the head does not know." It often happens that a person, having reached a certain age, still has not gained enough practical knowledge. In this case, age is just a mark in the passport, which in no way indicates the presence life experience. The ancient Romans had another analogue of this aphorism: Barba non facit philosophum, which means “the beard has grown, but there is no intelligence.”
Forgive mistakes of yourself and others
And the following Latin aphorism is well suited for those who tend to take a philosophical view of things: Errare humanum est, which means “to err is human” (or “to err is human”). With the help of mistakes, a person really has a chance to gain invaluable experience. We also often say that only those who do nothing make no mistakes - that is, insurance against committing wrong actions can only be their complete absence. They knew about this back in Ancient Rome. Why not use this Latin aphorism when the opportunity arises?
The principle of power
Divide et impera - and this phrase translates as “divide and conquer.” This phrase can often be heard when we're talking about about governing a country divided into several parts. But it is often used in cases where we are talking about managing a group of people, for example in an enterprise. Who was the author of these words? Scientists have long wanted to find out who first said them. These words were a maxim in the Roman Senate, but are absent from classical Latin texts. But the expression “divide and conquer” is often found in French literature, for example, in the work “Roman History” by the author Charles Rollin.
The meaning of this phrase boils down to the following: a large team needs to be divided into several small ones - this will make it much easier to manage. Small groups are unlikely to be able to fight back existing form board.
Carpe diem
And here is a Latin aphorism with a translation that is probably known to everyone who is more or less familiar with the English language: Carpe diem, which translated means “seize the day.” This phrase is often translated as “seize the day” or “enjoy life.” For many, the ability to live in the present moment is a certain psychological difficulty. But in fact, every person who wants to live a full life must master the ability to “seize the moment.” healthy life. People, unlike our smaller brothers, have the gift of abstract thinking. This allows us not only to perceive the situation around us, but also to analyze it. Thanks to abstract thinking, we are able to adequately assess the situation and make the right decisions.
However, this same gift is also an obstacle, which makes it difficult for a person to relax and enjoy the current moment.
Failure to live according to the advice of the Romans always results in trouble. For example, if a young man wants to approach a girl, but begins to feel shy, then no matter how attractive he may be in appearance, most likely it will be very, very difficult to start a conversation. The same thing happens in interviews. When an applicant constantly pays attention to how he looks, whether he says everything correctly and appropriately, then the focus of his attention is constantly lost, which leads to unpleasant consequences. Most likely, the employer will not be interested in the personality of such a candidate and is unlikely to consider his ideas seriously.
Carpe noctem
There is another aphorism in Latin, which is the antonym of the above: Carpe noctem, or “catch the night.” This expression can be used to get additional motivation to adhere to the daily routine. It is better to finish all work before dark, and devote the evening and night to rest. Night rest is no less important than daytime work - after all, if a person does not rest in the dark, then he is unlikely to work productively during the day.
Useful phrases
Latin aphorisms V modern culture occupy an important place - and first of all they can be found in literary works. The widespread distribution of phrases from the Latin language is a consequence of the literacy of the population, mass education. But earlier, in the Middle Ages and even in modern times, knowledge of the Latin language and various phrases was the privilege of a few words of the population.
Here is a list of several aphorisms that will be useful both in writing a letter and for those who would like to create some kind of work of art - for example, write a book, a script for a movie, and possibly a song:
- Alea jacta est - [Alea jacta est]. “The die is cast,” in other words, there is no turning back.
- Docendo discimus - [docendo discimus]. This phrase translates as “by teaching, we learn.”
- Festina lente - [festina lente]. "Hurry slowly."
- Tertium non datur - [tertium non datur]. "There is no third".
These Latin aphorisms with translation and transcription will help you demonstrate your erudition and decorate any speech.
History of Archimedes
Both the ancient Greeks and Romans valued education very highly. Often learned men were under the tutelage of rulers. This position was occupied by one of the most famous mathematicians and engineers of that time - Archimedes. The fact is that during the Second Punic War, Archimedes’ inventions more than once saved the city of Syracuse, where the scientist lived, from enemy attacks.
But, unfortunately, respect for the scientist was not universal. According to historical sources, Archimedes was killed at the age of 75 by a Roman soldier for alienating him while immersed in work. Then the mathematician uttered one of the phrases that turned into an aphorism: “Don’t touch my circles!” (Noli turbare circulos meos!).
Latin aphorisms about medicine
Catchphrases that relate to human health, may be of interest to both the common man and those who are somehow connected with medicine.
For example, here is one of these expressions: Hygiena amica valetudinis. It is translated as “hygiene is the friend of health.” Of course, it’s hard to argue with this phrase: where there is unsanitary conditions, there is always a risk of various diseases.
And here is another Latin medical aphorism: Medica mente, non medicamentis. Its literal translation is in the following way: “Treat with your mind, not with medicine.” Indeed, if a person is simply prescribed medications that will affect one or another symptom, it will be extremely difficult to cure the disease once and for all. For example, many diseases have psychological roots. In this case, it is necessary to treat the root cause. By eliminating the psychological component that causes a person to experience constant stress, you can achieve a noticeable improvement in his condition. Moreover, if the disease is treated with conventional medications, then perhaps an improvement will occur, but the remission is unlikely to be long. Once the person is under the influence again negative factor, which will cause stress, the symptoms of the disease will make themselves felt again.
Phrases about love
There are also many Latin aphorisms about love. An example is the phrase Amor Caecus, which means “love is blind.” Another phrase is also known - Amor vincit omnia. It translates as “love conquers all.” Yes, the ancient Romans knew a lot about love. And therefore, Latin expressions can be successfully used in romantic correspondence.
Today there are more than 6 thousand in the world different languages. Among them are the most complex, the most common and other “most”.
1. There are only six in the United Nations official languages: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish.
2. In the language of the tribe Australian Aboriginals, living in the Murray River Valley, 1 sounds like “enea”, 2 sounds like “petcheval”, and 5 can be said as eight different ways, for example, “petcheval petcheval enea.”
3. The most meaningful word on Earth is considered to be “mamihlapinatana”, which means “looking at each other in the hope that someone will agree to do something that both sides want, but do not want to do.”
4. In Arabic there are 28 letters that are written differently at the end of a word than in the middle, in Hebrew - 5 such letters, in Greek - one, and in the rest European languages there are no such letters.
5. AD and BC in date designations mean Anno Domini and Before Christ.
6. Those whom we call “new Russians” in Cuba are called “masetos”.
7. “Absurd” translated from Latin means “from the deaf” (ab surdo).
8. " Solar eclipse" in Latin would sound like "defectus solis".
9. Abbreviated English name Christmas “Xmas” contains in the first place not the Latin letter “X” at all, but greek letter"hi", which was used in medieval manuscripts as an abbreviation of the word "Christ" (i.e. xus=christus).
10. Residents of Papua New Guinea speak almost 700 languages (this is approximately 15 percent of all languages in the world). Among these languages there are many local dialects, used for communication between people between villages.
11. B Explanatory dictionary 1940, edited by Ushakov, there is the following definition of the word “Figli-migli”(!): “... used to denote some tricks, jokes or some approaches to achieve something, accompanied by pleasantries, antics, tricks, with a wink."
12. The names of the Zodiac signs in Latin sound like this: Aquarius - Aquarius, Pisces - Pisces, Aries - Aries, Taurus - Taurus, Gemini - Gemini, Cancer - Cancer, Leo - Leo, Virgo - Virgo, Libra - Libra, Scorpio - Scorpius , Sagittarius - Sagittarius, Capricorn - Capricornus.
13. “Hermitage” translated from French means “place of solitude.”
14. Cartoon "Cinderella" on Polish language called "Kopciusezek".
15. “Symposium” translated from Latin means “shared libation.”
17. The world's longest palindrome word is the Finnish word "saippuakivikauppias", meaning "silk merchant".
18. Karamzin came up with the word “industry,” Saltykov-Shchedrin came up with the word “softness,” and Dostoevsky came up with the word “to shy away.”
19. On African continent more than 1000 different languages. And the Berber language has North Africa There isn't even a written form.
20. The names of the days of the week among the Akan tribe are pronounced as (respectively): Judah, Beneda, Munuda, Yauda, Fida, Meneda and Kwasida.
21. In Chinese writing, the character for “difficulty, trouble” is depicted as two women under one roof.
22. Almost - the most long word English, in which all the letters are arranged in alphabetical order.
23. Words Persian origin“pajamas” and “suitcase” have the same root (“pi-joma”, “joma-dan”).
24. The name of the island of Curacao literally translated from Spanish means “fried priest” (cura asado).
25. The word “mediocrity” was introduced into the Russian language by the poet Igor Severyanin.
26.V Ancient Egypt The apricot was called the “sunny egg.”
27. In Filipino, “hello” would sound like “mabuhay.”
28. “Fujiyama” means “steep mountain” in Japanese.
29. Until the 14th century in Rus' everything obscene words were called "ridiculous verbs".
30. There are no words in English that rhyme with month, orange, silver and purple.
31. The Khmer alphabet has 72 letters, and the alphabet of the natives of the island of Bougainville has only 11.
32. The words “vigor” and “tea” are denoted by the same hieroglyphs in Chinese.
33. In Georgian kebab is called “mtsvadi”, and in Armenian it is called “khorovts”.
34. In the 19th century, in Russian translations, “Ivanhoe” was called in Russian - “Ivangoe”.
35. In Spanish, a UFO is called OVNIS (“objeto volador noidentificado”).
36. The junior clergy - novice, in Georgian is called... mtsyri.
37. Yes grammar rule, according to which native Russian words do not begin with the letter “a”(!).
38. The word "subway" in Japanese consists of three characters meaning "bottom", "soil" and "iron".
39. Artificial international language Esperanto was created in 1887 by the Warsaw doctor L. Zamenhof.
40. Dahl suggested replacing foreign word“atmosphere” in Russian “kolozemitsa” or “mirokolitsa”.
41. Swahili is a combination of African tribal languages, Arabic and Portuguese.
42. The longest English words, in which there is not a single vowel - “rhythms” and “syzygy”.
43. In the Eskimo language there are more than 20 words for snow.
44. The nickname of Alexander the Great’s horse “Bucephalus” literally means “bull-headed”.
45. The oldest word in the English language is “town”.
46. In Chinese, the sounds “r” and “l” are not distinguished.
47. “Sahara” means “desert” in Arabic.
48. In Ukraine Milky Way called Chumatskiy Shlyakh.
49. The Serbian alphabet is called Vukovica.
50. There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet.
51. The Viking alphabet was called Futhark.
52. There are more than 600,000 words in the English language.
53. Latin name Mickey Mouse - Mikael Musculus.
54. The words “for future use”, “all-in” and “full face” are adverbs.
55. latin letters W in Latin alphabet No.
56. Chinese writing has more than 40,000 characters.
57. Writer Ernest Vincent Wright has a novel called Gadsby, which is over 50,000 words long. There is not a single letter E (the most common letter in the English language) in the entire novel.
58. Pomors have a sign: “The mother makes a fool of shame.” In modern language it would sound like this: “During aurora The compass doesn't work."
59. American President Benjamin Franklin collected more than 200 synonyms for the word "drunk", including such masterpieces as "cherry-merry", "nimptopsical" and "soaked".
60. Where are the most languages spoken? Record country - Papua - New Guinea. More than seven hundred Papuan and Melanesian languages and dialects are spoken here. It is logical that it was difficult to agree on which of them would become the state one. Therefore, according to the country's constitution, official language is absent here, and the documentation uses English and its local variant - pidgin English (in Papuan "Tok Pisin").