HR. 2.6.88. The era of primitive civilizations. World tree of languages.
Alexander Sergeevich Suvorov (“Alexander Suvory”).
CHRONOLOGY OF THE HISTORY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Experience in reconstructing the sequence of historical events in time and space in correlation with solar activity
Book two. DEVELOPMENT OF HUMANITY BCE.
Part 6. The era of primitive civilizations.
Chapter 88. World tree of languages.
Illustration from the open Internet.
Cenozoic era. Anthropocene period. Pleistocene.
Ancient Stone Age. Middle Paleolithic.
Pleistocene. Late Stone Age. Late Paleolithic.
69,000 BC
Earth. Eurasia. North hemisphere. Valdai glaciation. World ocean level. Everywhere. Migrations of primitive people. Primitive modern humanity. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis is a race of humanity of classical intelligent Neanderthals. Homo sapiens sapiens is a race of humanity of intelligent neoanthropes-paleo-Cro-Magnons. Primitive communal system (primitive civilization). Raceogenesis. Separation and mixing of races and languages. World tree of languages. Eurasian language macrofamily. 69,000 BC
Ancient Upper Pleistocene stage (134,000-39,000 BC). Würm, Vistula, Valdai, Wisconsin glaciations (70,000-11,000 BC).
The beginning of the early stage of the Valdai (Tver) glaciation, during which the climate on the territory of the East European (Russian) Plain became cold but humid. Continuation of the cooling stage “Würm II A (Périgord I-II) glacial” (78,000-67,000 BC). The level of the world's oceans is 100 meters below the current level.
The formation of modern races of primitive humanity is facilitated by the characteristic geographical isolation and disunity of human ethnic groups.
Almost all primitive people are cannibals and can hunt each other when they meet. At the same time, all races of primitive humanity are interconnected by transitional, intermediate races or types of local population.
In the course of historical development, human races constantly mix and do not exist in a pure form. The mixing of tribes, peoples and races inevitably and naturally leads to the mixing, adaptation and emergence (birth) of languages.
The emergence of the “world tree of languages” (70,000-60,000 BC).
The proto-Tower proto-language family “Turit” became the environment for the formation at this time of a group of proto-languages: Australian, Amerindian, Khoisan, Indo-Pacific, Nilo-Saharan, Eurasian and Niger-Congo languages.
The Amerindian language family has more than 50 groups and over 1000 languages.
The Australian language family has 32 groups and about 300 languages.
The Indo-Pacific or "Papuan" language family has over 800 languages, about 20 groups and macrofamilies that may not be particularly related.
The Khoisan language family unites Bushman-Hottentot languages and tribes.
The Nilo-Saharan language family includes about 350 distinct languages.
The Niger-Congo language family consists of Niger-Kordofanian, Kongo-Kordofanian (about 1000 languages) and Kordofanian languages proper.
The most numerous and grammatically richest is the Eurasian language macrofamily - a direct descendant of the proto-Tower proto-language “Turit”.
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The meaning of LINGUISTIC BRANCH in the Dictionary of Linguistic Terms
BRANCH LANGUAGE
A group of languages within a language family, united on the basis of genetic affinity. see, for example, Indo-European languages.
Dictionary of linguistic terms. 2012
See also interpretations, synonyms, meanings of the word and what a LANGUAGE BRANCH is in the Russian language in dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference books:
- BRANCH
- BRANCH in the Encyclopedic Dictionary:
, -i, pl. -and, -ey, w. 1. Same as branch (1 value). 2. A branch from something. main, main... - BRANCH
branch. When the stem of a seed shoot, stump shoot or root shoot develops, buds appear in the axils of the leaves covering them on the sides, ... - BRANCH in the Complete Accented Paradigm according to Zaliznyak:
ve"tvi, ve"tvi, ve"tvi, vetve"th, ve"tvi, vetvya"m, ve"tv, ve"tvi, ve"tvi, vetve"mi, ve"tvi, ... - BRANCH in the Thesaurus of Russian Business Vocabulary:
- BRANCH in the Russian Language Thesaurus:
‘part (of something)’ Syn: branch (ed.), branch, region, ... - BRANCH in Abramov's Dictionary of Synonyms:
shoot, sprout, offspring, ... - BRANCH in the Russian Synonyms dictionary:
part (of something) Syn: branch (ed.), industry, region, ... - BRANCH in the New Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language by Efremova:
- BRANCH in Lopatin’s Dictionary of the Russian Language:
branch, -i, plural -And, … - BRANCH in the Complete Spelling Dictionary of the Russian Language:
branch, -i, plural -And, … - BRANCH in the Spelling Dictionary:
branch, -i, plural -And, … - BRANCH in Ozhegov’s Dictionary of the Russian Language:
separate line of kinship Lateral c. kind. branch a branch from something main, main, part of something extending to the side V. mountain range. ... - BRANCH in Dahl's Dictionary.
- BRANCH in Ushakov’s Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language:
branches, plural branches, branches and (obsolete) branches, g. (book). 1. Same as branch (poet). Convulsive trembling through the cypress branches... - BRANCH in Ephraim's Explanatory Dictionary:
and. 1) A lateral shoot coming from the trunk of a tree or the stem of a herbaceous plant. 2) a) trans. Line of kinship in smb. pedigree. ... - BRANCH in the New Dictionary of the Russian Language by Efremova:
and. 1. A lateral shoot coming from the trunk of a tree or the stem of a herbaceous plant. 2. transfer A line of kinship in someone's ancestry. Ott. ... - BRANCH in the Large Modern Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language:
I 1. A lateral shoot coming from the trunk of a tree or the stem of a herbaceous plant. 2. transfer A part of something that branches off from the main... - GOLDEN BRANCH in the Dictionary-Reference Book of Who's Who in the Ancient World:
In the sixth book of Virgil's Aeneid, the wise priestess Sibyl tells Aeneas that to get to the king of the underworld and see his father he... - LANGUAGE POLICY
policy, a set of measures taken by the state, class, party, ethnic group to change or maintain the existing functional distribution of linguistic entities, to introduce new ones... - LANGUAGE SYSTEM in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
linguistic, 1) a set of units of a given language level (phonological, morphological, syntactic, etc., see Levels of language) in their unity... - LANGUAGE NORM in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
linguistic, historically determined set of commonly used linguistic means, as well as the rules for their selection and use, recognized by society as the most suitable in ... - LANGUAGE POLICY
—a set of ideological principles and practical measures to solve language problems in society and the state. Ya. p. in multi-ac is particularly complex. ... - LANGUAGE SYSTEM in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
(from the Greek sys-tema - a whole made up of parts; connection) - a set of linguistic elements of any natural language that are in relationships and ... - LANGUAGE NORM in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
- a set of the most stable traditional implementations of the language system, selected and consolidated in the process of public communication. N. as a set of stable and... - ANDROCENTRISM in the Dictionary of Gender Studies Terms:
- a deep cultural tradition that reduces universal human subjectivity (universal human subjectivities) to a single male norm, represented as universal objectivity, while ... - LANGUAGE
a complex developing semiotic system, which is a specific and universal means of objectifying the content of both individual consciousness and cultural tradition, providing the opportunity... - WITGENSTEIN in the Newest Philosophical Dictionary:
(Wittgenstein) Ludwig (1889-1951) - Austrian philosopher, professor at Cambridge University (1939-1947). The founder of two stages in the development of analytical philosophy in the 20th century. -... - LANGUAGE in the Dictionary of Postmodernism:
- a complex developing semiotic system, which is a specific and universal means of objectifying the content of both individual consciousness and cultural tradition, providing... - PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES in the Dictionary of Postmodernism:
(“Philosophische Untersuchungen”) is the main work of Wittgenstein’s late period. Despite the fact that the book was published only in 1953, ... - LINGUISTIC TURN in the Dictionary of Postmodernism:
- a term describing the situation that developed in philosophy in the first third - mid-20th century. and denoting the moment of transition from classical... - WITGENSTEIN in the Dictionary of Postmodernism:
(Wittgenstein) Ludwig (1889-1951) - Austrian-British philosopher, professor at Cambridge University (1939-1947), wanderer and ascetic. The founder of two stages in the development of analytical philosophy... - GOLOVINS (NOBILITY) in the Brief Biographical Encyclopedia:
The Golovins are an old Russian noble family, descended, according to legend, from Prince Stepan Vasilyevich Khovra, a Greek by birth, ruler of the cities of Sudak, Mankup... - POLISH LANGUAGE. DISTRIBUTION OF P. LANGUAGE. in the Literary Encyclopedia:
The P. language belongs to the group of Western Slavic languages. and together with Kashubian and the extinct Polabian language. constitutes their Lechitsky group (... - SHCHERBA LEV VLADIMIROVICH in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
Lev Vladimirovich, Soviet linguist, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1943) and the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR (1944). Graduated from St. Petersburg University... - STYLE (LANGUAGE) in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
language, 1) a type of language (language style) used in any typical social situation - in everyday life, in the family, in the official business sphere... - NORMATIVE GRAMMAR in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
grammar, a systematic presentation of the grammatical rules of a literary language: word formation, morphology, syntax. The N.G. also includes basic information on phonetics... - CRANIAL NERVES in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron:
nerves that extend from the brain, which is why they are also called the cephalic nerves, and exit the skull through special openings. At the highest... - CONIFEROS in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron.
- TRIGEMINAL NERVE in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron:
(n. trigeminus) - constituting the 5th pair of head nerves, in humans the thickest of the head nerves. It begins with two roots: the posterior... - TYROL in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron:
(Tirol) is a princely county (gef?rstete Grafschaft) belonging to the Cisleithan part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, united into one administrative region since 1782... - SLAVIC LANGUAGES in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron:
S. languages constitute one of the families of the Ario-European (Indo-European, Indo-Germanic) branch of languages (see Indo-European languages). Names Slavic, Slavic languages not only... - POLAR REGIONS in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron:
(addition to the article) (addition to the article. Polar countries of the northern and southern hemispheres). — 1) European Arctic Ocean (Barents Sea in a wide ... - FRUIT GROWING in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron:
a culture of fruit trees and berry bushes, the fruits of which are consumed by humans in raw or processed form. I) Historical and economic part. ... - ATLANTIC OCEAN in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Euphron:
I is the name given to part of the water surface of the globe, which, stretching from north to south, separates the Old World on the western side... - LINGUISTICS in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedia:
linguistics, otherwise linguistics (from Latin lingua, language), glottika or glottology (from Greek ??????, ?????? ? language) ? in a cramped... - LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGES
- CRANIAL NERVES in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedia:
? nerves that extend from the brain, which is why they are also called the cephalic nerves, and exit the skull through special openings. U... - CONIFEROS in the Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron.
- PLANT PHYSIOLOGY in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedia:
Contents: Subject F. ? F. nutrition. ? F. growth. ? F. plant forms. ? F. reproduction. ? Literature. F. plants...
An interesting dialogue about the origin of languages, clarifying the routes of human migration by analyzing the borrowings of everyday words, searching for the original language of the ancestor. Passionate people try to explain their complex science in simple words.
The genetic classification of languages, an analogue of the biological classification of species, systematizing the entire variety of human languages, came to a figure of 6000. But this diversity came from a relatively small number of language families. By what parameters can we judge the time separating a language from a proto-language, or two related languages from each other? Today after midnight, philologists Sergei Starostin and Alexander Militarev will discuss whether it is possible, using the tree of languages, to establish the ancestral homeland of all modern languages and reconstruct a single ancestral language.
Participants:
Sergey Anatolyevich Starostin – corresponding member of the RAS
Alexander Yurievich Militarev - Doctor of Philology
Topic overview:
Comparative-historical linguistics (linguistic comparative studies) is a science that deals with the comparison of languages in order to establish their kinship, their genetic classification and reconstruction of proto-linguistic states. The main tool of comparative historical linguistics is the comparative historical method, which allows one to effectively solve the problems listed above.
You can compare languages in various ways. One of the most common types of comparison, for example, is typology - the study of the types of linguistic phenomena encountered and the discovery of universal patterns at different linguistic levels. However, comparative historical linguistics deals only with the comparison of languages in genetic terms, that is, in the aspect of their origin. Thus, for comparative studies, the main role is played by the concept of the kinship of languages and the methodology for establishing this kinship. The genetic classification of languages is analogous to the biological classification of species. It allows us to systematize the entire multitude of human languages, numbering about 6,000, reducing them to a relatively small number of language families. The results of genetic classification are invaluable for a number of related disciplines, primarily ethnography, because the emergence and development of languages is closely related to ethnogenesis (the emergence and development of ethnic groups).
The concept of a family tree of languages suggests that as time goes on, the differences between languages increase: the distance between languages (measured as the length of the arrows or branches of a tree) can be said to increase. But is it possible to somehow objectively measure this distance, in other words, how to mark the depth of linguistic divergence?
In the case where we know well the history of a given language family, the answer is simple: the depth of divergence corresponds to the actually attested time of the separate existence of individual languages. So, for example, we know that the time of the collapse of the common Romance language (or folk Latin) approximately coincides with the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire. So, gradually, under the influence of local languages, the dialects of folk Latin begin to turn into separate languages. The French language, for example, is usually counted from 843, when the so-called Strasbourg Oaths were written... The example with Romance languages, it should be noted, is both very successful and extremely unfortunate, since these languages have their own, very specific history: each of them arose as a result of a kind of artificial “grafting” of Latin cuttings onto local soil. Usually, languages develop more naturally, more organically, and although we can probably say that the “decay time” of Romance languages is shorter, in principle, the pattern of measuring divergence in this way remains unchanged for all other groups of languages. In other words, it is possible to determine the time of collapse of a language family based on purely linguistic data only if any of the changes occur at a more or less constant rate: then, by the number of changes that have occurred, one can judge the time separating a language from its parent language, or two related languages from each other.
But which of the many changes can have a constant rate? American linguist Maurice Swadesh suggested that lexical changes can have a constant rate, and built on this thesis his theory of glottochronology, sometimes even called “lexicostatistics”. The main postulates of glottochronology come down to approximately the following:
1. In the dictionary of each language, you can select a special fragment, which is called the main or stable part.
2. You can specify a list of meanings that in any language are necessarily expressed by words from the main part. These words form the main list (OS). Let N0 denote the number of words in the OS.
3. The proportion p of words from the OS that will be preserved (will not be replaced by other words) during the time interval t is constant (i.e., it depends only on the size of the selected interval, but not on how it is selected or which words of which language are considered ).
4. All words that make up the OS have the same chance of being preserved (respectively, not being preserved, “disintegrating”) during this time interval.
5. The probability for a word from the OS of the parent language to be preserved in the OS of one descendant language does not depend on its probability to be preserved in a similar list of another descendant language.
From the totality of the above postulates, the main mathematical dependence of glottochronology is derived:
where the time elapsed from the beginning of the moment of development to some subsequent moment is denoted as t (and measured in millennia); N0 is the original OS; λ is the “rate of loss” of words from the OS; N(t) is the fraction of words of the original OS that have been preserved at time t. Knowing the coefficient λ and the proportion of words preserved in a given language from the OS list, we can calculate the length of the elapsed time period.
Despite the simplicity and elegance of this mathematical apparatus, it actually does not work very well. Thus, it was shown that for the Scandinavian languages, the rate of decay of vocabulary over the last thousand years in the Icelandic language was only ≈0.04, and in literary Norwegian - ≈0.2 (remember that Swadesh himself assumed a value of 0.14 as a constant λ ). Then we get completely ridiculous results: for the Icelandic language - about 100-150 years, and for the Norwegian - 1400 years of independent development, although from historical data it is known that both languages developed from the same source and existed independently for about 1000 years. In such cases, when we know historical data, they talk about the “arachic” nature of languages, such as Icelandic. But historical data is not always reliably attested, and the very concept of “archaic” is subjective and not scientifically controlled. Therefore, the entire glottochronological technique is sometimes called into question.
But, nevertheless, this technique continues to exist and “work”. The fact is that there is an immutable empirical fact that has to be taken into account: the closer languages are to each other, the more similarities in basic vocabulary there are between them. Thus, all Indo-European languages have about 30% overlap with each other; all Baltoslavic languages (i.e., Russian and Polish, Czech and Bulgarian, etc., respectively), as well as all Germanic languages, have approximately 80-90% overlap with each other. There is thus a clear correlation between the degree of relatedness and the number of matches in the basic vocabulary. But, probably, some revision of the basic postulates of the glottochronological method and taking into account additional points is necessary:
1. In the case of active contacts between languages and cultures (and the degree of activity of contact often does not depend at all on linguistic factors), numerous borrowings arise, including in basic vocabulary. We must understand that the replacement of one original word with another, but also original (and this is how the disintegration of the OS occurs) is subject to different mechanisms than the replacement of an original word with borrowing.
2. The time intervals during which a word exists in a language are discrete. Those. — at some point, an unmotivated change of old lexemes occurs (possibly due to accumulated cultural changes).
3. Among the words that make up the OS, there are more stable words, and there are also less stable vocabulary.
At one time, one hundred words were chosen to form the core of the basic vocabulary (we already had the opportunity to talk about this a year ago, when we talked about Nostratic linguistics). Naturally, they are constantly trying to adjust them somehow, but in fact it is better not to change this composition, for obvious reasons.
Over the past decades, it has become clear that glottochronology should be applied in a special way to ancient languages. The method used here is based on the fact that the rate of decay of the main list here is actually not a constant value, but depends on the time separating the language from the parent language. That is, apparently, over time this process seems to accelerate. Consequently, the same percentage of coincidences between modern languages and between languages recorded, say, in the 1st century. n. e., will correspond to different periods of divergence (provided that they all go back to the same proto-language). Then, in order to calculate the corresponding dating, it is necessary to use the tabular correlation method, which takes into account both the proportion of preserved vocabulary in one language and in a pair of languages. The data can then be presented in the form of a conventional family tree.
Genealogical classification of languages. The genealogical classification of languages is usually depicted in the form of a family tree. For example:
This diagram, naturally, is conditional and not complete, but it quite clearly reflects the existing ideas about linguistic kinship in one part of the Nostratic family. This image of linguistic kinship was established in comparative studies of the 18th and 19th centuries under the influence of biology.
This scheme reflects the idea that the emergence of related languages is associated with the division of the ancestral language. There were other ideas: N. S. Trubetskoy wrote in his article “Thoughts on the Indo-European Problem” that languages can be related as a result of convergence. For example, Indo-European are those languages that became related when they acquired the following six characteristics (precisely all six together, any of them separately is also found in non-Indo-European languages):
1. absence of syngarvonism;
2. consonantism at the beginning of a word is no poorer than consonantism at the middle and end of a word;
3. availability of consoles;
4. the presence of ablaut vowel alternations;
5. the presence of alternation of consonants in grammatical forms (so-called sandhi);
6. accusativeness (non-ergativity).
This work uses a different concept of linguistic kinship: languages are called “related” not if they have the same origin, but if they have a number of common features (of any kind and of any genesis). This understanding of linguistic kinship provides a diagram not in the form of a tree, but in the form of waves - each wave corresponds to an isogloss. It seems that it would be more useful to distinguish between these two concepts - "origin from a single source" and "the presence of a number of common features."
Depicting kinship in the form of a family tree implies this understanding of linguistic history: a language breaks up into separate dialects, then these dialects become separate languages, which in turn fall into separate dialects, which then become separate languages, etc. The less time has passed since the collapse of the common proto-language of the languages under consideration, the closer their relationship is: if the proto-language disintegrated a thousand years ago, then its descendant languages had only a thousand years to accumulate differences, but if the proto-language disintegrated 12 thousand years ago, then much more differences in the languages of the descendants during this time managed to accumulate. The family tree reflects the relative antiquity of the decay of proto-languages according to the degree of differences between the descendant languages.
Thus, the above diagram shows that the proto-language common to Russian and Japanese (Proto-Nostratic language) disintegrated earlier than the proto-language common to Russian and English. And the proto-language common to Russian and Polish, Proto-Slavic, collapsed later than the proto-language common to Russian and Lithuanian.
To build a family tree of any family of languages, it is necessary not only to make sure that these languages are related to each other, but also to determine which languages are closer to each other and which are further apart. The traditional way of constructing a family tree is by common innovation: if two (or more) languages exhibit a significant number of common features that are absent in other languages of the same family, then these languages are combined in the diagram. The more common features the languages in question have, the closer they will appear on the diagram. In essence, this means that the common features of these languages were acquired at a time when their common proto-language existed.
The main problems that arise when constructing a genealogical classification of languages are, firstly, determining the boundaries of each genetic unity (family, macrofamily or group) and, secondly, dividing this unity into smaller units.
In order to determine the boundaries of a language family (or macrofamily), it is necessary not only to find out which languages are included in it, but also to show that other languages are not included in it. Thus, for the Nostratic theory, it was of great importance to prove that, for example, the North Caucasian, Yenisei and Sino-Tibetan languages are not included in the Nostratic family. To prove this, it was necessary to reconstruct the common proto-language of the North Caucasian, Yenisei and Sino-Tibetan languages (this language was called Proto-Sino-Caucasian), and to show that it is not Nostratic.
In general, in order to postulate a certain language group (family), it is necessary to show that there was a proto-language common to all languages included in this group and only to them (that is, in order to assert, for example, that there is a Germanic group of languages, it is necessary to reconstruct the Germanic proto-language and show that for languages not classified as Germanic, it is not a proto-language).
Thus,
. absence of relationship cannot be proven
. but it is possible to prove non-inclusion in the group.
In order to build a family tree of languages, it is best to use the step-by-step reconstruction method: first reconstruct the proto-languages of the closest level, then compare them with each other and reconstruct more ancient proto-languages, etc., until eventually the proto-language of the entire family in question is reconstructed . (Using the Nostratic languages as an example: first we need to reconstruct Proto-Slavic, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Indo-Iranian, Proto-Finno-Ugric, Proto-Samoyed, Proto-Turkic, Proto-Mongolian, etc., then compare these languages and reconstruct Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic, Proto-Altai, as well as Proto-Dravedic, Proto-Kartvelian and Proto-Eskaleutian and , possibly Proto-Afrasian languages; finally, a comparison of these proto-languages makes it possible to reconstruct the Proto-Nostratic language. Theoretically, it will then be possible to compare the Proto-Nostratic language with some equally ancient proto-language and reconstruct even more ancient proto-linguistic states.)
If a stepwise reconstruction cannot be carried out, then it is extremely difficult to determine the genetic affiliation of the language; That is why such languages (they are called isolate languages, such as Basque, Sumerian, Burushaski, Kusunda) are still not reliably assigned to any one family. Note that close dialects in the dialect continuum, like the descendants of one proto-language, have common features. This means that it is necessary to be able to separate common features acquired as a result of interdialectal contacts from common features inherited from one language.
The glottochronology method also makes it possible to construct a lexical-statistical stratification of languages. For example, in the matrix of Germanic languages, each combined pair can subsequently be considered as one language and their shares of matches with other languages are accordingly combined. However, we must remember that when languages are closely related, their secondary convergence is possible, in which it is difficult to distinguish later borrowings from the original related vocabulary. Therefore, with a close, “noticeable” relationship, you should not average the percentages, but take the minimum percentage, most likely reflecting the true state of affairs. Thus, the Dutch had more active contact with the Scandinavians than the Germans: apparently, this is why the percentage of matches between the Dutch language and Scandinavian languages is slightly higher than that of German, and it can be assumed that it is the German-Scandinavian figures that better reflect the real picture of divergence. However, with more distant kinship, such a secondary rapprochement is no longer possible. All mutual understanding is lost between languages, and therefore the ability to maintain a common vocabulary under the influence of neighbors is lost. When constructing a family tree, we therefore take the minimum share of matches for close languages (more than 70% of matches), and for more distant ones we average the share of matches and dating.
In the proto-language, along with the basic vocabulary, there was also a cultural one (names of objects created by man, social institutions, etc.). Once a system of regular phonetic correspondences between descendant languages has been established, based on the analysis of the basic vocabulary, it is possible to determine which cultural vocabulary has proto-linguistic antiquity: those words inherited from the proto-language are those in which the same correspondences are fulfilled as in the basic vocabulary. Using these words, it is possible to establish some cultural features of the people who spoke the proto-language (not forgetting, however, that this people is not necessarily the ancestor of all those peoples who now speak the descendant languages of this proto-language). The method of restoring protoculture based on lexical data is called the German term Wörter und Sachen or in Russian - “Method of words and things.” It is based on the following simple observation: if in some culture (some people) there is a certain thing, then there is a name for it. Therefore, if we restore the name of a certain thing for a proto-language, this means that this thing was known to the speakers of the proto-language. True, it is quite possible that this thing did not belong to the culture of this ancestral people, but to the culture of its neighbors. If the name of a certain thing in the proto-language is not reconstructed, this does not mean that it did not exist in the protoculture. Firstly, there is always the possibility that with the development of science this reconstruction will appear (for example, new linguistic data will make it possible to project a certain word onto the linguistic proto-level), and secondly, the name of this thing could have been lost for various reasons in all descendant languages ( especially if the family is small). So, for example, the Proto-Austronesian language clearly had pottery terminology, since archaeologists find ancient Austronesians, but when they moved to Polynesia, they stopped making ceramics, because it turned out that on these islands there was no material suitable for pottery, and, accordingly, lost and terminology. Sometimes one variety of a given thing spreads, and its name gradually replaces the general name of the thing.
As with any reconstruction, when reconstructing a protoculture, isolated facts cannot serve as evidence, and the system as a whole must be considered. Indeed, if a people is engaged in agriculture, then in its language there will be not only the word “bread”, but also the words “plow”, “sow”, “harvest”, the names of the tools for cultivating the land, etc. Pastoral cultures, on the contrary, are characterized by a highly detailed system of naming domestic animals - separate words (often even different roots!) for the names of male and female, newborn cub, young male, etc. For hunters, the names of the male and female game animals may not differ, but the names of the hunting weapons will certainly be the same. Among peoples engaged in navigation, the names of ships, tackle, sails and oars will be restored in their original languages. Peoples who knew how to process metals had developed metallurgical terminology - several names for various metals, the designation of what they forge, the verb “forge” itself (for example, for Proto-North Caucasian, the designations for gold, silver, lead, tin/zinc, and the word “forge” are restored).
Strong evidence of the presence of a certain mastered thing in culture is also provided by the abundance of secondary meanings, various kinds of synonyms and, mainly, semi-synonyms for it - it indicates the importance of this category of objects for society. For example, there are a huge number of designations for camels in the Arabic language.
Why is it important to reconstruct the so-called cultural vocabulary common to the people? Those words that are reconstructed reliably enough for a certain group of languages, as a rule, indicate both the occupation of a given ancestral people and their main habitat. In other words, they help determine its ancestral home. To establish the ancestral home of each individual language family, there are certain principles, time-tested and partly transferred from other sciences. However, it should be noted that different researchers often approach this problem differently, which is why the “definition of the ancestral homeland” remains controversial. It is necessary to highlight the following principles and approaches:
1. The ancestral home of a language family is where the greatest density of the most distant languages and dialects of this family is observed. This principle is taken from biology, it was first formulated by Vavilov while studying the distribution of domestic animals. Let us explain how it works using a well-known historical example: in the small territory of England there are many more dialects than in the vast territories of America and Australia. This is explained simply: English dialects in England itself have been changing since about the 8th century. n. e., while the separation of the English dialects of America and Australia begins no earlier than the 16th century. And in general, sometimes the projection of a distant linguistic state onto an era much closer to us, a time about which we know a lot and quite reliably, helps to reconstruct some linguistic processes that occurred in distant times. But it should be noted that this principle may encounter two difficulties:
a) if the ancestral home was conquered (this was apparently the case with the ancestral home of the Austronesians - they could only come to Taiwan from the mainland, but on the mainland there is only the Cham subgroup of Malay-Polynesian languages that ended up there for the second time; an example from a region closer to us is the ancestral home of the Celts reconstructed, most likely, on the territory of modern Austria, where now, as is known, the language of the Germanic group dominates; here archeology appears to be in conflict with linguistic data).
b) in the presence of intensive contacts with languages of different genetic origins.
2. Another important principle for determining the ancestral home is the analysis of vocabulary. In any proto-language the names of natural phenomena, plants, and animals are restored. Based on these data, one can judge where the ancestral home of this language family was located. For example, for the Kartvelian language a word with the meaning “snow avalanche” is restored, and this allows us to conclude that the speakers of the proto-Kartvelian language lived in the mountains. For the Proto-Uralic language, “pine, spruce, cedar, fir” are reconstructed, which means that the Proto-Uralians lived in the distribution zone of these trees. But it should be remembered that the climate could have changed, so when reconstructing this type, paleobotany data should also be taken into account. But this method does not give results if the speakers of a given proto-language have gone to another zone, because in this case the designations of former plants and animals lose relevance and, naturally, are lost. Apparently, a similar situation arose in the Proto-Indo-European language after the separation of the Anatolian branch: apart from the names of wolf and bear, the Anatolians have no other designations for animals common to Indo-Europeans. The question of the ancestral homeland of the Indo-Europeans, we note, still remains open, despite significant research by Vyach.Vs.Ivanov and T.V. Gamkrelidze. It is not clear whether the Indo-Europeans lived first in Asia Minor, but then left there, leaving the Anatolians there, or whether they lived somewhere else, and the Anatolians eventually moved to Asia Minor. We should not forget about the so-called “migration terms” - designations of animals and plants, which in one form or another are recorded in different, usually in contact, including related, languages, which usually do not obey the laws of phonetic changes. For example, the designations of blackberries, mulberries in Europe and some others.
3. The analysis of borrowings can also bring us closer to solving the problem of localizing the ancestral home, since it is known that the largest number of borrowings naturally comes from the language with whose speakers the given people were in contact.
4. Some scientists attach great importance to such factors as cultural and archaeological data. For example, if a particular type of ceramics is widespread in a particular zone, then we can assume that the people who developed this technique spoke the same language. But here it is important to match the data of archeology and linguistics. For example, if an archaeologist finds a certain battle axe, even in multiple copies, and the corresponding word is not reconstructed, then we can conclude that this technique was borrowed by the population of a given area, or even that all these axes were imported. One of the most important achievements obtained using this method is the localization of the ancestral home of the Afroasiatic family. The cultural vocabulary of the Afrasians gives grounds to attribute their culture to the period of transition from an appropriating economy to a producing one. The collapse of the Proto-Afrasian linguistic community dates back to approximately 11-10 millennium BC. e., the names of plants and animals common in those days in Western Asia are restored. In 11-10 thousand BC. e. the only Central Asian culture that made the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic was the Natufian culture, widespread in the Syro-Palestinian region. Many economic terms restored for the Proto-Afrasian language reveal direct parallels with the historical realities of Nautfian culture. Consequently, Natuf is the ancestral home of the Afrasians. In the same way, it is difficult to determine the ancestral homeland of the Indo-Europeans, since the designations common to all languages for wolf and bear say little: there were a lot of Neolithic cultures in the zone.
5. A special area is the analysis of toponyms, especially the names of rivers and hydronyms, because they last longer (remember how often the names of cities change, but how rarely the names of rivers!). However, the names of hydronyms can be rethought, reinterpreted, or, in other words, take on such a distorted form that it is almost impossible to determine the original basis in them, which could be attributed to one or another proto-language. Let us note, however, the distribution of rivers with the consonants D-N (Dnieper, Don, Danube...) on the territory of Eurasia. All this speaks to the spread of Indo-Iranians there...
The problem of glottogenesis. The question of the origin of human language, strictly speaking, does not fall within the competence of comparative studies, but it is usually addressed to comparativists, since with the demonstrable possibility of reconstructing a single proto-language, the question inevitably arises: where did this language “origin” and, more importantly, How. This question was first posed in ancient science. According to one of the theories, the theory of “fusey” (“by nature”), language has a natural, natural character. According to another, the theory of “theseus” (“by establishment”), language is conditional and is in no way connected with the essence of things.
There are several points of view on the origin of language, looking at it from different angles:
1. Language was given to man by the gods.
2. Language is a product of the social contract.
3. Signs of language, words, reflect the nature of things.
4. Language developed from labor cries, when primitive people, in the process of labor, “had the need to say something to each other” (Engels).
5. All words originated from four elements, which were originally names of tribes (JON, SAL, BER, ROŠ, Marr’s theory, the further development of languages was determined by “sound interruptions”: for example, from *jon such words as the Russian horse and the German hund “dog” arose ").
6. Sound communication has replaced gesture communication.
7. The basic words of the first human language are onomatopoeia.
8. The formation of human language is associated with the emerging opportunity to communicate not only about what is happening “here and now,” but about distant spaces, objects and events.
This is all quite complicated; Probably, all these theories should be applied in a comprehensive manner, and we must constantly remember that the supposedly reconstructed proto-language of all mankind based only on linguistic data will still never answer the question of its own origin. Here we move into the field of paleoanthropology and even biology (communication systems in the animal environment). It is possible to determine what the first “sound” words looked like during the reconstruction of the proto-language of mankind (more likely, realistically, several proto-languages). Note that the problem of monogenesis cannot receive a positive solution within the framework of linguistics: even if it turns out that all known languages ultimately go back to one proto-language (and this proto-language was already the language of Homo sapiens sapiens), then there will still be the possibility that the rest of the proto-languages that arose from him died out, leaving no descendants known to us.
Reconstruction of the proto-language(s) of humanity can be carried out by sequentially comparing the proto-languages of macrofamilies (or more ancient genetic unities) with each other. Work in this direction is already underway, despite the fact that reconstructions of the proto-languages of many macrofamilies have not yet been made and their connections with each other have not been established. The proto-language of humanity, or rather of one macro-macro-family, received the code name “Turit”.
Speaking about the reconstruction of proto-languages, especially if we take into account glottochronological data, it is natural to ask about approximate dating. Thus, it is currently accepted to consider the conditional “date” of the collapse of the Indo-European linguistic community to be 5 thousand years BC. e., Nostratic - 10, Afrasian - also 10 (therefore, in recent years it has not been customary to include this family in the Nostratic), at an even earlier level the so-called “Eurasian” family is reconstructed, the collapse of which is conventionally dated 13-15 thousand BC. e. For comparison, we note that the collapse of the common Germanic family dates back to the end of the 1st millennium AD. e., i.e. already quite historical time. The Slavs became a separate group, apparently in the middle of the 1st millennium AD. e.
So, it is currently customary to distinguish the following macrofamilies:
. Nostratic (Indo-European, Uralic, Altai, Dravidian, Kartvelian, Escaleutian languages);
. Afroasiatic (ancient Egyptian language, Berber-Canarian, Chadian, Cushitic, Omotian, Semitic);
. Sino-Caucasian (Yenisei, Sino-Tibetan, North Caucasian, Na-Dene languages)
. Chukotka-Kamchatka
The remaining families, of course, also exist and are represented by a large number of languages, but they have been little studied and their descriptions are less structured and developed.
Bibliography
Arapov M.V., Herts M.M. Mathematical methods in historical linguistics. M., 1974 Burlak S. A., Starostin S. A. Introduction to linguistic comparative studies. M., 2001 Gamkrelidze T.V., Ivanov Vyach.Vs. Indo-European language and Indo-Europeans: reconstruction and historical-typological analysis of the proto-language and protoculture. Tbilisi, 1984 Dolgopolsky A. B. Hypothesis of the most ancient kinship of the languages of Northern Eurasia from a probabilistic point of view // Questions of linguistics. 1964. No. 2 Dresler V.K. On the issue of reconstruction of Indo-European syntax//New in foreign linguistics. M., 1988. Issue. 21 Dybo A.V. Semantic reconstruction in Altai etymology. M., 1996 Illich-Svitych V. M. Experience in comparison of Nostratic languages. M., 1971 Itkin I.B. Fish oil or hawk's eye//Studia linguarum. 1997. No. 1 Meillet A. Introduction to the comparative historical study of Indo-European languages. M.; L., 1938 Militarev A.Yu., Shnirelman V.A. On the problem of localization of the most ancient Afrasians: Experience in linguistic-archaeological reconstruction/Linguistic reconstruction and the ancient history of the East. M., 1984 Starostin S.A. The Altai problem and the origin of the Japanese language. M., 1991 Starostin S.A. On the proof of linguistic kinship/Typology and theory of language. M., 1999 Trubetskoy N. S. Thoughts on the Indo-European problem / Trubetskoy N. S. Selected works on philology. M., 1987 Ruhlen M. On the origin of languages. Stanford, 1994 Trask R. L. Historical linguistics. London-N.Y.-Sydney, 1996.
Language branch
A group of languages within a language family, united on the basis of genetic affinity. cm., for example, Indo-European languages.
Dictionary-reference book of linguistic terms. Ed. 2nd. - M.: Enlightenment. Rosenthal D. E., Telenkova M. A.. 1976 .
See what a “language branch” is in other dictionaries:
Linguistic taxonomy 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 basis of taxonomy... ... Wikipedia
Linguistic taxonomy 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
Linguistic taxonomy 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
Indo-European Taxon: family Homeland: Indo-European areas Centum (blue) and Satem (red). The presumed source area of satemization is shown in bright red. Habitat: the whole world... Wikipedia
Indo-Europeans Indo-European languages Albanian · Armenian Baltic · Celtic Germanic · Greek Indo-Iranian · Romance Italic · Slavic Dead: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkan ... Wikipedia
The Greek group is currently one of the most unique and relatively small language groups (families) within the Indo-European languages. At the same time, the Greek group is one of the most ancient and well-studied since the times... ... Wikipedia
I. Indo-European family of languages
1. Slavic group
East Slavic languages
…………………...Ukrainian
Belorussian
West Slavic languages
Polish
Czech Pomeranian (m – dead language)
Slovak Polabian (m)
Lusatian (Upper and Lower Lusatian)
Kashubian
South Slavic languages
…Bulgarian
...Macedonian Old Church Slavonic (m)
...Serbo-Croatian
…Slovenian
2. Baltic branch
Lithuanian
Latvian
Latgalian Old Prussian (m)
3. German group
Western subgroup
English
German
Flemish
Dutch (Dutch)
Afrikaans (Boer)
Frisian
Scandinavian subgroup
Swedish
Norwegian
Icelandic
Faroese
Eastern Gothic group (m)
4. Celtic group
Irish
Scottish
Welsh
Breton
5. Roman group
Spanish
Portuguese
French
Italian
Romanian
Moldovan Latin (m)
Catalan
Romansh
6. Indo-Aryan group
Punjabi
Marathi Sanskrit (m)
Gujarati Vedic (m)
Sinhalese
Nepali
Gypsy
7. Iranian group
Balochi Parthian (m)
Kurdish Old Persian (m)
Persian (Farsi)
Tajik
Ossetian
Albanian Thracian (m)
Armenian language ancient Greek (m)
Modern Greek language Byzantine (m)
Hittite (m)
Luwian (m)
Tocharian (m)
I. Ural family
Finno-Ugric group
Baltic-Finnish subgroup
Izhorian
Karelian
Estonian
Sami languages
Finnovolzhskaya subgroup
Mordovian (Erzya, Moksha)
Mari
Perm subgroup
Komi-Zyrian
Komi-Permyak
Udmurt
Ugric group
Hungarian
Khanty
Mansi
Samoyed group
Nenets
Enets
Nganasan
Selkup
III. Altai family
Turkic languages
Chuvash Bulgarian (m)
Khozarsky (m)
Tatar
Bashkir
Kazakh Pecheneg (m)
Kyrgyz Cuman (m)
Balkar
Karachay
Kumyk
Nogai
Karakalpak
Uzbek
Azerbaijani
Turkish
Turkmen
Tuvan
Yakut
Khakassian
Uigur
Altaic
Mongolian languages
Mongolian
Buryat
Kalmyk
Tungus-Manchu languages
Evenki
Evenki
Udege
Anai
Manchu (m)
Japanese
Korean
IV. Kartvelian family
Georgian
Mingrelian
Svan
Lazsky
V. Abkhaz-Adyghe family
Abkhazian
Abaza
Adyghe
Kabardian
Circassian Ubykh (m)
VI. Nakh-Dagestan family
Nakh group (Veinakh)
Chechen
Ingush
Dagestan group
Avar
Dargin
Lezgin
Tabasaran
VII. Dravidian family
Tamil
Kannada Elamite (m)
VIII. Sino-Tibetan family
Chinese
Burmese
Tibetan
IX. Thai family
Laotian
X. Austroasiatic family
Vietnamese
Khmer
XI.Austronesian family (Malayo-Polynesian)
Indonesian group
Malay
Indonesian
Javanese
Malagasy
Philippine languages
Tagalog
Polynesian languages
Maori
Samoa
Tahitian
Hawaiian
Melanesian languages
Fiji
Micronesian languages
Kiribati
XII. Chukotka-Kamchatka family
Chukchi
Koryak
XIII.Eskimo-Aleut family
Eskimo
Aleutian
XIV Semitic family
Arabic Ancient Egyptian (m)
Aramaic (m)
Akkadian (m)
Phoenician (m)
(Arabic dialects) Hebrew (m)
Egyptian Coptic (m)
…….Sudanese
Syrian
Iraqi
Maltese
XV. Afro-Asian family
Chadian languages
Berber languages
Cushitic languages
Somalia
Niger-Congo family
Fula
Yoruba
Wolof
Rwanda
ganda
Nilo-Saharan family
Songhai
Khoisan family
Bushman
Hottentot
Gulf family
Uto-Aztecan family
Hopi
Aztec (Nahuatl)
Sioux family
Dakota
Iowa
Iroquoian family
Mohawk
Cherokee
Algonquian family
dDelaware
Mohican
Caddoan family
Na-Dene family
Otomanga family
Arawak family
Quechua (language of the Inca Empire, forms a family)
Guarani (language, forms a family)
Mayan
Pama-nyunga
dirbal
Papuan languages
Unclassified languages:
Basque
Nivkh
Ainu Sumerian (m)
Yukaghir
Ket Etruscan (m)
The genealogical classification of languages is usually depicted in the form of a family tree.
Language Union
As a result of language contacts, language unions may arise in some areas. A linguistic union is an areal-historical community of languages, manifested in the presence of a certain number of similar features (structural and material) that have developed in the process of long-term and intensive interaction of these languages within a single geographical space. The proximity of the languages included in the linguistic union is acquired.
The term “linguistic union” was introduced into linguistics by N.S. Trubetskoy. A language union, in Trubetskoy’s understanding, is a group of languages that demonstrate significant similarities, primarily in morphology and syntax. The languages included in the linguistic union have a common fund of “cultural words”. Languages are not connected by a system of sound correspondences. They have no similarities in elementary vocabulary, for example, in the terminology of kinship, flora, fauna.
The main criterion for determining a linguistic union is the presence of a complex of similarities in contacting languages, affecting units of different levels. An example of a language union is the Balkan language union, which unites the Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Romanian, Albanian and Modern Greek languages. These languages belong to different branches of the Indo-European family of languages, but in the process of their historical development they developed a number of common features:
Coincidence of dative and genitive cases (in Albanian and Greek);
Formation of the analytical future tense using an auxiliary verb with the meaning “to want” (in Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek);
Postpositive use of the definite article (in Albanian, Bulgarian and Romanian), etc.
Another example of a language union is the Volga-Kama language union, which includes Finno-Ugric languages (Mari, Udmurt) and Turkic languages (Bashkir, Chuvash). The languages of this union have developed the following common features:
Vowel reduction;
Similarities in the tense system;
Similarities in the formation of the subjunctive mood;
Similarities in the methods of constructing direct speech;
Similarities in the functioning of participial phrases, etc.
The formation of a linguistic union is a process of long-term, versatile interaction of areally adjacent languages. It develops under the influence of general social conditions, the general economic structure, and the general elements of culture.
In the structure of any language, if it did not develop in isolation, one can find various layers that are a consequence of the language entering certain linguistic unions. In eras of widespread ethnic migration, such communities could arise at the intersections of very different cultures and languages, leading to the emergence of common regional innovations.
Some scientists also highlight cultural-linguistic unions, i.e. groups of languages united by a common cultural and historical past, reflected in the similarity of the vocabulary (especially the semantics of a number of words), the similarity of the writing system, etc. In each such association of languages, languages are identified that play the role of international languages in a given region. Having given rise to a huge number of internationalisms, such languages enriched other languages with “cultural” vocabulary.
One cultural-linguistic union covers the languages of Europe, another covers the countries of Asia and Africa (where Islam is widespread), the third covers India and the countries of Southeast Asia, and the fourth covers China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.
The European cultural and linguistic union began to take shape in the first centuries of the new era. Two languages played a huge role in its formation: Greek and Latin. The first examples of European international vocabulary were Latin borrowings from Greek, which were then adopted by all European languages. It was vocabulary represented mainly by three thematic groups:
Science and education ( atom, university);
Christianity ( Bible, apostle);
Names of exotic animals, plants, substances ( the Dragon, tiger, balm);
In the Middle Ages, the unity of the European cultural-linguistic union was supported by the dominance of the Latin language as the main written language. Borrowings from the Latin language covered a variety of areas: government ( maternity leave, document); religious ( cardinal, mass); scientific ( globe, proportion); medical ( medicine, infection); art ( play, statue).
By the Renaissance, such a stock of Greco-Latin material had accumulated in European languages that it became possible to create new words from it: humanist, oculist, nostalgia, molecule, geology etc. These words are European internationalisms. Today, hundreds and thousands of such words are created and cover almost all areas of science and life.
The second cultural-linguistic union was formed in Muslim countries. The Arabic language played a huge role here. Words of Arabic origin dominate in religious vocabulary, in the vocabulary of science and education, art and literature, in socio-political and military vocabulary. The second most important language in this cultural-linguistic union was the Persian language, which also gave rise to many internationalisms ( vizier, bazaar, barn).
The third cultural-linguistic union has been formed since ancient times in the sphere of influence of Indian culture and Sanskrit.
In the fourth cultural-linguistic union, the Chinese language, especially Chinese characters, played an important role. Chinese loanwords in Korean and Japanese still retain the old hieroglyphic spelling.
The languages of the world are distributed over several large zones, areas that have arisen around the most important languages of civilization. Each area is characterized by a certain unity of culture, and from the point of view of language, by the similarity of such linguistic features that do not depend on the common or non-common origin of these languages, but are acquired as a result of contacts. A group of languages united by such similarities, as mentioned above, forms a linguistic union. There may be several linguistic unions in one area. The boundaries of linguistic unions may partially overlap the boundaries of the area.
Linguistic unions were formed in the primitive communal system. Such linguistic unions consisted of languages at the stage of a pre-national language, or of dialects.
In the VIII - XIII centuries. the ancient Uyghur language was the basis of the linguistic area, which included the Turkic languages of Central Asia (ancient Uzbek, ancient Turkmen, etc.). Later, this area was covered by a larger area, which arose as a result of the spread of Arabic writing and the Arabic language as a cultural language and included, in addition to Arabic, also Turkic and even Indo-European languages (Persian and Tajik).
Modern language unions are made up of national languages. The basis of modern language unions is interethnic communication, contacts at the level of regions and national languages.
Within the framework of a linguistic union, a number of common linguistic categories arise. Thus, in the European Language Union, which includes our language, there is an active process of formation of analytical adjectives and their further grammaticalization. For example, in Russian some full adjectives are abbreviated: city = city council, state = state apparatus, and so on. The number of elements that can join elements of this class on the right increases. Elements of this class approach the position of affixes, and a process of grammaticalization occurs.
Areal linguistics (lat. area- 'space'). The task of areal linguistics is to characterize and interpret the area of a particular linguistic phenomenon in order to study the history of the language, the process of its formation and development. By comparing the territory of distribution of mapped linguistic facts, it is possible, for example, to establish which of these facts is more ancient, how one of them replaced the other, i.e. identify archaisms and innovations.
The term “areal linguistics” was introduced by the Italian scientist M. Bartoli. The theory of areal linguistics is currently being developed based on the material of various languages.
COGNITIVE-PSYCHOLOGICAL
ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE LEARNING
Language, consciousness, thinking
The consciousness of an individual is formed through his appropriation of the culture of society (A.A. Leontyev). L.S. Vygotsky believed that consciousness is a system of closely interconnected mental processes, which is not given to a person as something innate and is not simply included when a child enters the established system of social relations. This system gradually takes shape and develops, is refined, and enriched with the mental development of the child.
Consciousness includes an attitude to reality in the form of thinking, as well as in other forms - emotional, aesthetic, volitional, concrete-sensual, etc. Consciousness – this is an attitude towards the world with knowledge of its objective laws. Knowledge mediates a person’s attitude to reality. Consciousness is knowledge that functions in the process of human mastery of reality. The presence of consciousness in a person means that in the process of life, communication, learning, he has developed (is developing) such a set (or system) of more or less generalized knowledge objectified in words, through which he can be aware of the environment and himself, recognizing the phenomena of reality through relationships with this knowledge.
Consciousness, having absorbed historical experience, knowledge and methods of thinking developed by previous history, masters reality ideally, setting new goals and objectives, creating projects for future tools, directing all practical human activities. Consciousness is formed in activity in order to, in turn, influence this activity, defining and regulating it. By practically realizing their creative plans, people transform nature, society, and thereby themselves.
Consciousness is a set of sensory and mental images, which under normal conditions is characterized by a clear knowledge that I am the one who experiences these images [Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary 2000].
By consciousness is meant:
The highest form of generalized and purposeful reflection of reality, characteristic only of man and associated with speech;
The ability to think, reason and determine one’s attitude to reality; property of higher nervous activity of a person;
The state of a person of sound mind, sound memory; the ability to be aware of one’s actions and feelings [SES 2000, p. 325].
It is now believed that consciousness has structure. Thanks to this structure, every content takes its specific form. The content of consciousness is an ideal, physically imperceptible product of the brain. “Consciousness can realize itself and become a real fact only in the material of sign embodiment” [Voloshinov 1930]. Consciousness materializes in sound, is objectified, and thanks to this it is given to other people in sensation.
Language has become the most effective social mediator between individual consciousnesses. With the help of symbols, a person transcends his individual boundaries and participates in a collective mental process.
One of the spheres of consciousness is thinking. Thinking is the process of reflecting objective reality in concepts, judgments, conclusions, etc. [FES 2000, 190]. This is a complex cognitive process, the highest form of human creative activity. The source of thinking is sensations, perceptions, ideas, but thinking goes beyond the boundaries of the sensory and allows one to obtain knowledge about directly non-observable phenomena: ultrasounds, elementary particles, etc. Thinking consists of conceptual modeling of any problems, objects and processes. Thinking means planning and solving any problems, being able to adjust your actions in accordance with your goals. Thinking is an internal active desire to master one’s own ideas, concepts, impulses of feelings and will, memories, expectations, etc. in order to receive the directive necessary to master the situation [FES 2000]. Thinking in its structure can be cognitive or emotional thinking. It consists of a constant regrouping of all possible states of consciousness and the formation or destruction of connections existing between them. In this case, a result can stand out, which takes a certain form and can be called a thought. The form of thought under normal conditions is its linguistic expression.
L.S. Vygotsky drew attention to the fact that the relationship between language and thinking cannot be viewed in a simplified manner, that every thought cannot automatically correspond to a ready-made form. “A thought is not expressed in a word, but is accomplished in a word (L.S. Vygotsky). Internal mental activity of a person is the activity of “producing” one’s consciousness, which is reflected in speech activity.
Linguistic picture of the world
Picture of the world - general ideas about the world, its structure, types of objects and their relationships. There are general, particular and individual pictures of the world. The general picture of the world is a scientific picture of the world of a certain period. A private picture of the world is a private scientific picture of the world, for example physical, biological, chemical, etc. For example, the physical picture of the world is an idea of the world and its processes, developed by physics on the basis of empirical research and theoretical understanding.
Each independent sphere of social consciousness - mythology, religion, philosophy, etc. has its own special means of world perception, its own “prisms” through which a person sees the world. The result of such a worldview are the corresponding pictures of the world - mythological, religious, philosophical, etc. All these pictures of the world are complementary.
There is also a sensory-spatial picture of the world, spiritual-cultural, metaphysical.
The picture of the world that is formed in the consciousness of the individual is understood as a holistic, global image of the world, which is the result of all spiritual activity of a person. A person’s picture of the world arises in the course of all his contacts with the world (everyday contacts, subject-related practical activity of a person, contemplation of the world, etc.). All aspects of human mental activity take part in the formation of the picture of the world, starting from sensations, perceptions, ideas and ending with the highest forms - human thinking and self-awareness. A person’s image of the world is formed in the course of his entire life activity, during all his contacts with the world and on the basis of all his abilities. The picture of the world is influenced by the subject’s sphere of activity.
The picture of the world is a subjective image of objective reality. This is an ideal formation, which is objectified in iconic forms. Like any ideal formation, the picture of the world has a dual existence - non-objectified and objectified - in the form of objectified formations - various “traces” left by a person in the process of his life. “Fingerprints” of the picture of the world, its fossils can be found in language, in texts, in the visual arts, in music, rituals, etiquette, fashion, farming methods, technology of things, sociocultural stereotypes of human behavior, etc.
There are conceptual and linguistic. pictures of the world. Language signifies individual elements of the conceptual picture of the world. This signification is usually expressed in the creation of words and means of communication between words and sentences. Languages can capture the categorization of the world in different ways. In each language, a picture of the world created by native speakers of a given language is recorded, and a linguistic picture of the world is formed.
Conceptual systems are largely implemented by lexical semantics. There is no isomorphism between the conceptual and linguistic picture of the world. Already Aristotle drew attention to the fact that, for example, intermediate concepts do not always have names. Wed. far/close, high/low, good/bad etc. The extreme points of the scale are richly represented in the language, but the middle part is poorly represented.
One more regularity can be noted in the recording of the conceptual picture of the world by linguistic means. Non-normative phenomena, deviations from the norm (deviations), and anomalies have a priority right to designation [Arutyunova 1987]. Wed. lazy, lazy, parasite, scoundrel, scoundrel and etc.
The concept of “way of designation” comes from Humboldt. A word, denoting an object, is, according to Humboldt, not “the equivalent of an object revealed to the senses,” but an expression of the subjective perception of the object or a specific concept about it that dominated at the time of naming. This is the main source of diversity of expressions for the same subject. If in Sanskrit an elephant is sometimes called twice-drinking, sometimes two-toothed, sometimes equipped with an arm, then these express different concepts, although the same object is implied. For language never represents objects, but always only concepts about them, spontaneously formed by the mind in the process of language creation [Humboldt 1984].
The subjectivity of language, according to Humboldt, stems from the sensual contemplation, fantasy and emotions of the people, from the “national spirit”. The structure of each language, its grammatical structure and its inherent methods of word creation constitute the “internal form of the language”, its original and inimitable features.
The concept of a linguistic picture of the world allows us to more deeply address the issue of the relationship between language and reality, invariant and idioethnic (national-specific) in the processes of linguistic “representation” of reality as a complex process of human interpretation of the world.