Plungyan wrote a wonderful book in which he talks about the language in a structured, detailed and fascinating way. As a linguist and in general a person who loves this science, I rate it very highly. In fact, he went through the main areas of linguistics such as comparative studies (also known as comparative historical linguistics), typology, sociolinguistics, phonetics - however, everything complex was left out, not fitting into the format. However, the book fully fulfills its popular science function - and nothing more is required of it, it is still not a textbook.
I really liked the presentation of the material. That is, you rarely see such interconnection and a smooth transition from one topic to another. First about how languages change over time, then about their relationships and the dialects from which related languages develop - and all this is explained through historical causes and human behavior. There is that same feeling of connectedness between one thing and another, which I especially love when learning a language in the broad sense of the word. However, Plungyan does not deny himself the pleasure of joking:
...Youth jargons are not the last source of linguistic changes: after all, when they grow up, speakers of these jargons do not always forget them, and some “youth” words may well be lucky - they will remain in the “big” language. Who knows, suddenly the now popular youth slang "braking" (meaning “to think poorly; to act slowly”) and brake (respectively, “one who is inclined to slow down”) will someday enter the “real” Russian language, and no one will be surprised by this, for example, an advertisement in a newspaper:
I give lessons in Latin and Greek.
Unique modern technique.
Special program for training with brakes.
Closer to the last chapters, I recalled with terrible nostalgia the first course and the test on the genealogical classification of languages (“If someone doesn’t know the Slavic branch, they’ll get a bad mark!”). It seems that I still remember the Indo-European family completely. And even then there was a funny story when we were required to read an article by A. A. Zaliznyak, in which he refuted Fomenko’s reasoning about languages: I don’t know how much this was designed to ensure that we would not believe in such a heresy, but I had some kind of reverse reaction - I heard about Fomenko for the first time in my life, immediately became interested, and spat for a long time.
...On the other hand, the word meaning “bad” sounds, one might say, almost the same in both English and Persian. In English it is written bad, and is pronounced approximately like bad; it is written in Persian (if written in Latin letters - although in Iran they usually write in Arabic) bäd and is pronounced approximately the same. Both English and Persian are Indo-European languages, however, linguists categorically refuse to consider English bad and Persian bäd words-relatives. Linguists say their similarity is a coincidence. [...]
Until now, many people who are not familiar with the methods of scientific study of languages are trying to prove the kinship of the most distant languages by simply selecting similar words. It turns out that some words of the African Hausa language are similar to the words of the English language, and even the language of the ancient Egyptians or Sumerians. Or two or three words from the language of the inhabitants of one of the Polynesian islands will suddenly almost coincide with the words of the ancient Greek language.
However, such coincidences do not prove anything. In general, in all the languages of the world there are so many words (and quite a few sounds) that it is not surprising if suddenly out of ten, twenty, thirty thousand words, five or six words in different languages turn out to be similar.
Here’s another piece that’s most interesting for non-linguists about something they probably haven’t even thought about. And at the same time part of the answer to the question asked in the title of the book.
Every language has a grammar. And this means, as we now understand, that every language has special rules that force speakers to communicate what is considered obligatory in this language - that is, grammatical. Moreover, this does not depend at all on the wishes of the speakers: grammar does not ask them about this.
Let's say we decide to talk about some event. It turns out that, in addition to the fact that we ourselves want to talk about it, speaking in one language or another, we are obliged (just so that it is the correct sentence in a given language!) to report something about the time of the event (it happened in the past or in the present, long ago in the past or not very long ago, whether it ended or is still ongoing), about the number of its participants, about whether they were people or not people, men or women; or whether the speaker himself observed this event, or someone told him about it, etc., etc. What exactly from this list we are obliged to report depends on the specific language we speak. [...]
The main way languages differ from each other is what each language's grammar forces us to do. Languages differ from each other not in that you can talk about something in one language, but not in another: it has long been known that in any language, in principle, you can express any thought. The situation is different: languages differ from each other in the information that, speaking in each of them, one cannot help but communicate - that is, in other words, in what must be reported in these languages.
The book is intended not only for adults seeking to understand the world around them, but also for children; I would especially recommend it to teenagers who are now thinking about where to go to study and are initially inclined towards languages. There is nothing here about mathematical models or mathematics in linguistics in general (and there is actually plenty of it), but in general it gives a good idea of what science does. The material is presented in a fairly concentrated manner, i.e., no unnecessary lyrical digressions or lengthy linguistic tales (which linguists can usually tell about any phenomenon), but the examples chosen are non-standard and memorable. So it was not in vain that the book received the Enlightener award that year.
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Vladimir Aleksandrovich Plungyan At the presentation of the volume “Slavic Languages” of the publication “Languages of the World” (Languages of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, March 2005) ... Wikipedia
V. A. Plungyan at the presentation of the volume “Slavic Languages” of the publication “Languages of the World”, Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, March 2005 Vladimir Aleksandrovich Plungyan (b. September 13, 1960, Moscow) Russian linguist, specialist in the field of typology and ... ... Wikipedia
V. A. Plungyan at the presentation of the volume “Slavic Languages” of the publication “Languages of the World”, Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, March 2005 Vladimir Aleksandrovich Plungyan (b. September 13, 1960, Moscow) Russian linguist, specialist in the field of typology and ... ... Wikipedia
Plungyan, Vladimir Aleksandrovich V. A. Plungyan at the presentation of the volume “Slavic Languages” of the publication “Languages of the World”, Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, March 2005 Vladimir Aleksandrovich Plungyan (b. September 13, 1960, Moscow) Russian... ... Wikipedia
V. A. Plungyan at the presentation of the volume “Slavic Languages” of the publication “Languages of the World”, Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, March 2005 Vladimir Aleksandrovich Plungyan (b. September 13, 1960, Moscow) Russian linguist, specialist in the field of typology and ... ... Wikipedia
V. A. Plungyan at the presentation of the volume “Slavic Languages” of the publication “Languages of the World”, Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, March 2005 Vladimir Aleksandrovich Plungyan (b. September 13, 1960, Moscow) Russian linguist, specialist in the field of typology and ... ... Wikipedia
Why are languages so different? V. A. Plungyan
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Title: Why are languages so different?
About the book “Why languages are so different” by V. A. Plungyan
The author of the monograph “Why languages are so different” is Vladimir Plungyan, a famous Russian linguist with a Doctor of Philology degree and an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The main area of his scientific activity is grammatical typology and morphology, as well as the theory of grammar.
Despite the complexity of the subjects under study, Vladimir Plungyan writes books that are close and understandable to every person. His work “Why languages are so different” will be interesting and understandable for both teenagers and adults whose linguistic knowledge is limited only to school lessons. Well, people with a philological education will even more so find a lot of new and useful things for themselves.
No one will argue that language is the greatest natural gift, without which it is impossible to imagine the development of mankind. With its help, we not only communicate and express our thoughts and feelings. Thanks to the language “frozen” in literature, we have a chance to learn the wisdom of our ancestors. It is he who guarantees that our accumulated knowledge will not be wasted, but will be preserved for future descendants.
But why is the perception and knowledge of one’s native language inherent in a person at the genetic level, while mastering a foreign speech poses a whole problem? Why can we, without thinking, express ourselves competently, but explaining why this or that word is used is often an impossible task? How exactly does Chinese differ from Russian? These and many other questions are answered by Vladimir Plungyan in his book “Why are languages so different”.
The monograph consists of three parts, popularly setting out the basic linguistic laws. The first part, “How Languages Live,” talks about how changes occur in grammar, pronunciation and meaning of words, how language relatedness arises, and how the speech of not only entire nations, but also individuals, differs, depending on their gender, status and love of jargon.
The second part, “How languages work,” is devoted to a specific analysis of languages from a syntactic, phonetic and grammatical perspective. Do you still think that there are many cases in the Russian language? Then you will be interested to know that the Tabasaran language involves the use of forty-six cases!
In the third part, “Languages of Six Continents,” the author paints a fascinating linguistic picture of the world.
“Why Languages Are So Different” is an excellent popular science book that makes you fall in love with language, understand its inner beauty and realize that all linguistic laws hide within themselves the whole philosophy of a particular people.
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Before we say what this book is about, let's try to answer this question:
What's the most amazing thing about human language?
It is, of course, not easy to answer. There is so much mystery in language, this gift that unites people in space and time, that, perhaps, it would be fair to be surprised at absolutely everything that is in language and constitutes its essence. And yet, even if we agree that everything in the language is amazing, we can notice one feature of it that has always caught the eye and occupied the minds and imagination of people since ancient times.
We started with the words human language.
Indeed, this is often said and written. But in fact, people do not have one common language. People speak different - and even very different - languages, and there are a lot of such languages on earth (it is now believed that there are about five thousand in total or even more). Moreover, there are languages that are similar to each other, and there are those that seem to have nothing in common. Of course, people in different parts of the earth are not alike; they differ in height, eye, hair or skin color, and finally, in customs. But different people, no matter where they live, still differ from each other much less than different languages can differ from each other.
This, perhaps, is the most amazing property - the extraordinary diversity of human languages.
This is what we will talk about in this book, which is called “Why are languages so different?” We will talk about what languages there are in different countries, how they differ from each other, how they influence each other, how they appear and disappear - after all, languages, like people, can be born and die. And they, also like people, can be “relatives” - and even form “families”.
Answers to these questions (and many others related to language) are sought by a science called linguistics. Modern linguistics is a relatively young science; it really began to develop only in the 20th century. Of course, people have always been interested in language, trying to compile grammars and dictionaries to make it easier for them to study foreign languages or understand what is written in ancient books. The writing of grammars helped to give birth to linguistics, but linguistics is not about writing grammars: to care for a pet parrot, it is useful to know something of biology, but biology is not the science of how to care for parrots. So linguistics is not the science of how to study foreign languages.
Why did it arise so late? The reason lies in another mystery of language. Each of us has been fluent in at least one language since birth. This language is called the native language of a person. A baby is born dumb and helpless, but in the first years of life, it’s as if some miraculous mechanism turns on in him, and he, listening to the speech of adults, learns his language.
An adult can also learn a foreign language if, for example, he lives in a foreign country for a long time. But he will do it much worse than a baby - nature seems to dampen the ability to acquire language in adults. Of course, there are very gifted people (sometimes called polyglots) who speak several languages fluently, but this is rare. You will almost always distinguish a foreigner who speaks Russian (even very well) from a person for whom Russian is his native language.
So, the mystery of language is that a person has the ability to master language, and this ability is best manifested in early childhood.
And if a person can learn a language “just like that,” “on its own,” then does he need the science of language? After all, people are not born with the ability to build houses, drive cars or play chess - they take a long time to learn this on purpose. But every normal person is born with the ability to master a language; he does not need to be taught this - you just need to give him the opportunity to hear human speech, and he will speak on his own.
We all know how to speak our own language. But we can't explain how we do it. Therefore, for example, a foreigner can confuse us with the simplest questions. Indeed, try to explain what the difference is between Russian words now and now. The first instinct is to say that there is no difference. But why can you say in Russian:
I Now I'll come -
I Now I'll come
sounds weird?
Likewise, in response to the request
Go here!
we answer:
Now! -
but not at all
Now!
On the other hand, we will say:
Lisa lived in Florida for a long time, and now she knows English well, -
and it’s probably impossible to replace now with now (...and now she knows English quite well) in this sentence. Unless you're a linguist, you can't say exactly what mean words now and now and Why In one sentence one word is appropriate, and in another - another. We just know how to use them correctly, and all of us who speak Russian do it in the same way (or at least in a very similar way).
Linguists say that every person has a grammar his native language is a mechanism that helps a person speak correctly. Of course, each language has its own grammar, which is why it is so difficult for us to learn a foreign language: not only do we need to remember a lot of words, we also need to understand the laws by which they are combined into sentences, and these laws are not similar to those that operate in our own language .
Speaking our language, we use them freely, but we cannot formulate them.
Is it possible to imagine a chess player who would win games of chess, but could not explain how the pieces move? Meanwhile, a person speaks his own language in approximately the same way as this strange chess player. He is not aware of the grammar that is hidden in his brain.
The task of linguistics is to “pull” this grammar into the light, to make it explicit from secret. This is a very difficult task: for some reason nature took care to hide this knowledge very deeply. This is why linguistics did not become a real science for so long, which is why it still does not know the answer to many questions.
For example, we need to honestly warn that linguistics does not yet know about the languages of the world:
Why are there so many languages in the world?
Did the world once have more languages or fewer?
Will the number of languages decrease or increase?
Why do languages differ so much from each other?
Of course, linguists are trying to answer these questions. But some scientists give answers that other scientists disagree with. Such answers are called hypotheses. For a hypothesis to turn into a true statement, everyone must be convinced of its truth.
Nowadays in linguistics there are many more hypotheses than proven statements. But she has everything ahead.
Now let’s talk about what we know about different languages.
Part I. How languages live
Chapter first. How languages change
1. Languages are similar and dissimilar
Languages can be completely different from each other, but on the contrary, they can be very similar. Sometimes two languages are so similar that someone who knows one of these languages can understand everything or almost everything that is said in the other language. For example, Russian and Belarusian are different languages, but they are very similar. No language is as similar to Russian as Belarusian. For those who know Russian and have learned to write in Russian, the Belarusian text looks a little unusual, but if you think about it, you can understand almost everything in it. Here is the beginning of one Belarusian poem (in which, just in case, I added accents to make it easier to read):
I flocked the pancake la veski,
yak paradozhnik mizh daro´g.
The hoops fell brightly,
niby snyazhynki, on muro´g...