Classification of languages ​​in linguistics briefly. Classification of languages ​​Principles of classification of languages ​​of the world (genealogical, typological, areal, functional, cultural-historical classifications)

Linguistics knows two approaches to the classification of languages: grouping languages ​​according to the commonality of linguistic material (roots, affixes, words), and thus according to the common origin - this is a genealogical classification of languages, and the grouping of languages ​​according to the common structure and type, primarily grammatical, regardless of origin - this is a typological, or, in other words, morphological, classification of languages.

The genealogical classification of languages ​​is directly related to the historical fate of languages ​​and peoples, the speakers of these languages, and covers primarily lexical and phonetic comparisons, and then grammatical ones; morphological classification is connected with the structural-systemic understanding of the language and relies mainly on grammar.

The first attempts to classify languages ​​are associated with the search for the "kinship" of languages ​​and the identification of related families, the question of morphological classification arose later. We will begin our review with a genealogical classification of languages.

1) Genealogical classification languages. The foundations of genealogical classification were developed primarily on the material of the Indo-European languages ​​as a result of the establishment of a comparative historical method. A major role in the approval of the genealogical (historical-genetic) classification belongs to F. Bopp and A. Kh. Vostokov, A. Schleicher and F. Dietz, who laid the foundations of Indo-European studies. Following the Indo-European languages, other families of languages ​​are distinguished and classified - Semitic-Hamitic (T. Benfey, Fr. Müller, M. Kozn), Finno-Ugric (M. A. Kastren, J. Budenz), Turkic (F. E. Korsh , V. V. Radlov, N. F. Katanov, V. A. Bogoroditsky), Iberian-Caucasian (A. Tsagareli, P. K. Uslar, A. Dirr), etc.

Related languages ​​are such languages ​​that, having arisen from the same source, reveal ancient common roots and affixes, regular phonetic correspondences. The relationship of languages ​​is not a complete identity, but a natural development from the same proto-language.

The presence of different degrees of kinship caused the introduction of "terms: family, branch (group), group (subgroup) of related languages.

A family is the whole set of languages ​​of a given kinship. The family of languages ​​is formed by Indo-European, Semitic, Turkic and many other languages. It should be noted, however, that the association of languages ​​into large families leads to a confusion of genealogical classification with areal and typological classifications. So, in the Indo-European and Semitic languages, a certain number of common roots are found, which still does not give grounds to deny the existence of two families - Indo-European and Semitic-Hamitic.

M. A. Kastren, M. Bötlink and some other researchers believe that the Turkic, as well as other Altaic languages, together with the Finno-Ugric (Uralic) languages, constitute a more extensive family, which they called the Ural-Altaic. The proof of this assumption is about three hundred lexical correspondences in the Altaic and Uralic languages. However, this fact can be explained not only by the very ancient relationship of these languages, but also by ancient borrowings in them.

Groupings within a family of languages ​​are called branches or groups of related languages. The branches of the language family unite languages ​​that show great material closeness to each other. This can be observed, for example, between the languages ​​of the Slavic and Baltic groups.

When a group covers not two or three, but more languages, then, naturally, these languages ​​are divided into subgroups. For example, the Slavic group of Indo-European languages ​​is divided into three subgroups.

In order to get better acquainted with the headings of the kinship classification, we will talk in more detail about the Indo-European family of languages ​​and the Slavic group.

Indo-European family of languages- the most common. Indo-European languages ​​are common for the most part in Europe, but they are now used in Asia (eg India) and America and even in Australia and Africa. Among the Indo-European languages, we know not only living, but also dead languages ​​- unwritten and written.

Dead unwritten languages ​​are, for example, Polabian, Scythian, Gaulish, Prussian, Oka, Parthian. So, the Polabian language, close to Kashubian and Polish, was widespread in the basins of the Laba (Elbe) and Odra (Oder) rivers - right up to the shores of the Baltic Sea. The last representatives of the once numerous West Slavic tribe lived in the middle of the 18th century. in the state of Hanover.

Among the Indo-European languages, dead written languages ​​are also known - Sanskrit, Old Persian, Pali, Pahlavi, Ancient Greek, Latin, Byzantine (Middle Greek), Old Church Slavonic, Gothic, etc. In the 20th century. Tocharian and Hittite languages ​​were discovered, constituting special groups of Indo-European languages. Monuments of the Tocharian language of religious and medical content were found in Eastern Turkestan - in the Kucha region and in Turfan. These are monuments of the VI-VII centuries; they reflect two dialects called Tocharian A (Turfan) and Tocharian B (Kuchan).

The Hittite language is the oldest written Indo-European language. It is known from the monuments of cuneiform writing of the 18th-13th centuries. BC e. The Hittite Old Kingdom was in Asia Minor. The decoding of the Hittite texts and the establishment of the Indo-European character of the language were made in 1916-1922. Czech scientist B. Grozny. In addition to the Hittite language, this group of languages ​​included the Hittite hieroglyphic language (XIV-XIII centuries BC), Palai and Luwian languages ​​(II millennium BC).

The discovery and study of ancient written languages ​​played an exceptional role in the development of linguistics, led to the creation of a genealogical classification of languages ​​and a comparative historical method.

Indo-European languages ​​have a long history. Modern Indo-European languages are represented by various social types of languages: from dialect languages ​​to languages ​​of world functioning. The genetic groups of the Indo-European family also differ in the number of languages ​​represented (from one to 31) and in the degree of their proximity to each other. Anatolian(Hittite) and Tocharian group represented only by dead languages. Albanian, Armenian And Greek group now presented each in one language.

The historical variants of the Greek and Armenian languages ​​differ significantly from each other. Therefore, the Greek group is represented by one living (Modern Greek) and two dead languages ​​- Ancient Greek and Middle Greek (Byzantine). The Armenian group is represented by ancient Armenian (Grabar) and modern Armenian (Ashkharabar).

Indo-Iranian branch form Indian, Iranian and Dardic languages; the last group occupies an intermediate position between the Indian and Iranian languages ​​(most often it is ranked among the Iranian languages). Of all the Dardic languages ​​(there are 13 of them), only Kashmiri is written; literature in Kashmiri is printed in three scripts - in Devanagari and Sharad, which are used by Hindus, and in Arabic, which are used by Muslims.

Indian (Indo-Aryan) languages have long-term written records. The ancient Indian language was Sanskrit, the Middle Indian languages ​​were Pali, Prakrits (for example, Maharashtri), Apabhransha. Modern Indian languages, according to the classification of S. K. Chatterjee, are divided into five subgroups - northern (Sindhi, Lahnda, Punjabi), western (Gujarati, Raja Stani), central (Western Hindi), eastern (Eastern Hindi, Bihari, Oriya, Bengali, Assamese) and southern (Marathi). There are at least

24. The official languages ​​in India and Pakistan are Hindi and Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, only in India - Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Assamese, only in Pakistan - Sindhi, in Nepal - Nepali, in Ceylon - Sinhala.

Iranian languages have a written history. The ancient Iranian languages ​​were Median, Avestan, Old Persian, Scythian (from the 2nd millennium BC to the 4th-3rd centuries AD); Middle Iranian (until the 8th-9th centuries) - Pahlavi, Sogdian, Alan (Middle Ossetian), etc. The modern Iranian languages ​​are Ossetian, Tajik, Persian, Dari (Farsi-Kabuli), Afghan (Pashto), Balochi, Kurdish, Tat and a number of unwritten languages ​​(Pamir, Yagnob, Talysh).

The main role in the formation of the literary and written language Dari (Farsi) belongs to the Eastern Iranians - Tajiks. This language was in the X-XV centuries. the common language of Tajiks and Persians, it has created the richest literature.

Italo-Celtic branch covered Greek, Albanian, Celtic, Germanic and Romance languages. The Celtic group of languages ​​is divided into two subgroups - Gaelic (languages ​​Irish, Scottish) and British (languages ​​Breton and Weils, or Welsh). Celtic was the language of the ancient Gauls, supplanted by the Latin language, which developed in Gaul into French. The most widespread of the Celtic languages ​​is Irish, it is literary.

Romance languages- is Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian; The Romance languages ​​also include Moldavian, Romansh (since 1938 it has been recognized as one of the four state languages ​​of Switzerland), Provencal (the language of a national minority in southeastern France), Catalan (spread in eastern Spain), and Sardinian (on the island of Sardinia).

The most widely spoken of the Romance languages ​​is Spanish. After the victory over Carthage, Rome declared Spain to be its possession, Romanization mostly affected the southern part of the country. The basis of the Spanish language was the dialect of Castile, which is why the Spanish language was called Castal for a long time.

The vocabulary of the Spanish language goes back to vernacular Latin, although there are also words of Germanic, Franco-Italian and Arabic origin. The sound and grammatical structure has undergone significant changes. For example, nouns and adjectives are no longer inflected, while the verb has 115 synthetic and analytic (with an auxiliary verb haber have) forms expressing various temporal and specific meanings and their shades.

Modern Germanic languages are divided into two subgroups - northern and western (the East Germanic subgroup is represented by a dead language - Gothic). The North Germanic (or Scandinavian) languages ​​are Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese (the language of the Faroe Islands); they all have a literary written form (there are two versions of the literary language in Norway - riksmol and lansmol); The oldest monuments of the Scandinavian languages ​​are runic inscriptions of the 3rd-9th centuries.

The West Germanic languages ​​are English, German, Dutch (Dutch and Flemish), Frisian; Yiddish, which arose in the 10th-12th centuries, adjoins the West Germanic languages. based on Eastern High German dialects; German Yiddish morphology, vocabulary and syntax arose under the influence of Hebrew and Slavic languages.

English is the most widely spoken Germanic language. By its origin, it is the language of the Germanic tribes of the Jutes, Saxons and Angles, who migrated in the 5th-6th centuries. to Britain with downstream the Rhine and Elbe rivers (from the territory of modern Schleswig and southern Denmark). Modern English began to take shape at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th century, when the works of art by W. Shakespeare and the scientific prose of F. Bacon appeared. In the XIX-XX centuries. English has become the language of many nations and has gained worldwide functioning.

Baltic group currently represented in two languages ​​- Lithuanian and Latvian; Prussian language, recorded in the monuments of the XIV-XVI centuries. (texts with a grammar and a dictionary published in 1910 by R. Trautman), disappeared from use, since the Prussians were partly exterminated, partly forcibly Germanized.

The beginning of writing among the Baltic peoples is associated with the Reformation era, when translations into Prussian, Lithuanian and Latvian of a number of religious monuments (catechisms) appeared.

The Baltic languages ​​are so close to the Slavic languages ​​that there is an assumption about the existence of a Balto-Slavic language union in the past.

Slavic belongs to the Indo-European family. By genetic proximity, modern Slavic languages ​​are divided into three subgroups: 1) East Slavic (this includes Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian languages), 2) West Slavic (this is Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Luzhitsky), 3) South Slavic (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian).

The linguistic community of the Eastern Slavs arises in the 8th-9th centuries, when Slavic speech passes from division into dialect zones to division into independent languages, and when the Old Russian language arises, which in the 10th-11th centuries. becomes written. Until the 8th century there were Slavic tribes and dialects that did not yet have a division into language zones. Therefore, the use of the terms "Eastern Slavs", as well as "Western Slavs" and "South Slavs", to refer to the Slavic tribes of ancient times is conditional. “In relation to the VI-VII centuries. and especially to an even earlier time, - writes F. P. Filin, - these terms can only denote geographical, and not ethno-linguistic concepts, they should receive specific ethno-linguistic content when it comes to a later time.

The South Slavic languages ​​fall into two groups - Bulgarian-Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian-Slovene.

The languages ​​of the Indo-European language family have been studied to a greater extent than the languages ​​of other families. Indo-European languages ​​show their relationship quite clearly. Kinship relations are clearly found among the Semitic, Turkic, Finno-Ugric languages.

Genetic affinity is not so clear in the languages ​​of other families - Indian, African, Papuan. Along with this, there are widespread families (Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Malayo-Polynesian, Semitic-Hamitic, Dravidian) and individual languages, such as Japanese and Korean.

Altai languages. The Altaic languages ​​essentially unite three families (or branches) of languages ​​- Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu. The material commonality of the Altaic languages ​​was discovered during a comparative study of vocabulary and partly of morphology; however, whether they are an areal and typological community or a genetic community - this is now a serious historical and linguistic problem. The genetic place of the Japanese and Korean languages ​​has not been determined.

The Tungus-Manchu languages ​​are spoken by the peoples Eastern Siberia and the Far East, Northeast China. The Tungus-Manchu languages ​​are divided into two groups - the Tungus, which includes the languages ​​Evenk (Tungus), Even (Lamut), Negidal, and Manchu (Amur), which includes the languages ​​Manchu, Nanai (Gold), Udege, Ulch, Oroch. According to the morphological classification, the Tungus-Manchu languages ​​belong to suffix-agglutinative languages.

The dead written languages ​​are the Manchu literary language and the Zhurzhen language. The Manchu literary language was created in the 16th century. based on the Mongolian script; he has undergone in the field of vocabulary a strong influence of the Mongolian and Chinese languages. Official and private correspondence was conducted in the literary Manchu language, translations of fiction (from Chinese) were made, and training was conducted. However, since the educated strata of society and the feudal elite spoke Chinese, the literary language limited its functions and became a book and office language.

The Mongolian languages ​​are divided into two groups - the northern (Mongolian, Buryat, Kalmyk languages) and the southeastern (Dagur, Dunsyan, Mongor, Baon languages). The languages ​​of the southeastern group are unwritten, the languages ​​of the first group have a written form. The Mongolian written language arose at the beginning of the 13th century. and experienced three periods in its history - ancient, middle (XV - half of the XVII century) and classical (XVII - first quarter of the XX century). Both ancient and classical written languages ​​differ significantly from all dialects and dialects of the Mongolian tribes and modern languages and dialects.

Turkic languages ​​are the most numerous and diverse group of Altaic languages. Among the Turkic languages ​​there are dead ones - such as Bulgar, Khazar, Polovtsian, Oghuz, Old Uzbek. The oldest writing was created on the basis of Arabic, then Latin; from 1938-1939 writing based on the Russian alphabet (with the exception of Turkish).

The Turkic family of languages ​​is divided into two groups - Western and Eastern. The Western Turkic languages, in turn, are divided into four subgroups - Bulgar (now it is represented by the Chuvash language), Oguz (this includes Gagauz, Turkmen and Trukhmen, Turkish (Ottoman) and Azerbaijani languages, Kypchak (languages ​​such as Tatar and Bashkir, Karaim, Kumyk and Karachay-Balkarian, Nogai, Karakalpak, Kazakh) and Karluk (now represented by Uzbek and Uighur languages).

The Eastern Turkic languages ​​are divided into two subgroups: Uyghur-Tukyuy [this includes Tuva and Karagas, Yakut, Khakass, Shor, Kuerik (the language of the Chulym Tatars), Kamasin (Kangalas) and Sary-Uighur] and Kirghiz-Kypchak (represented by the Kyrgyz and Altai languages) .

The Uzbek language as a national language was formed in the 14th-16th centuries, when two main dialects took shape (north-western, or Kipchak, and south-western, or Oguz) and the old Uzbek written language was created, in which the works of Alisher Navoi and historical prose were written. 3. M. Babur. Until 1927, the Uzbeks used the Arabic alphabet, in 1928-1938 - the alphabet based on the Latin alphabet, since 1938 the Uzbek writing was transferred to the Russian graphic basis.

Uralic languages. The Uralic family unites the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic languages. Paleoasiatic and Kett languages ​​are also widespread in Siberia.

The Finno-Ugric (or Finno-Ugric) family is divided into four groups: the Baltic-Finnish (these are Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, Vepsian, Izhorian, as well as the Votic and Liv languages), Permian, Volga, to which the Mari (meadow-eastern and Mountain Mari) and Mordovian languages ​​(Erzya and Moksha), and a group of Ugric (Ob-Ugric), covering the Hungarian, Mansi and Khanty languages. A separate language of the Saami (Lapps), living in Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula, is closest to the Baltic-Finnish languages. The most common Finno-Ugric languages ​​are Hungarian and Estonian.

Paleoasian languages. So it is customary to call the genetically and typologically heterogeneous languages ​​of the small peoples of Siberia. It is believed that these peoples are the remnants of the ancient inhabitants of Siberia, who during the time of the Turkic-Mongol invasion were partially assimilated, partially forced out to North America, and only individual islands have survived in modern Siberia. So, from the Ket-Asan group (Ket, Kot, Aryan, Asan), only the Yenisei Ostyaks have survived now, using the Ket language (its genetic links have not been determined).

There is also a typological difference. Agglutination in some languages ​​is suffixal, in others it is prefix-suffixal, and infixation is also found. Some Paleoasiatic languages ​​are incorporating, others are not; some have ergative sentences, others do not.

The main groups of Paleo-Asiatic languages ​​are: Chukchi-Kamchatka (Chukot, Koryak, Alyutor, Kerek, Itelmen) and Eskimo-Aleut (Eskimo and Aleut). The Nivkh, Yukagir and Ket languages ​​adjoin the Paleoasian languages.

Caucasian languages. They are also called Ibero-Caucasian languages. They are distributed almost exclusively in the Caucasus, where Turkic and Indo-European languages ​​are also widely represented. However, the Caucasian languages ​​reveal not only areal compactness, but also genetic connections and typological similarities. Common Caucasian typological properties are: rich consonantism (up to 82 consonants), caused by the ternary rows of stops and affricates (voiced, aspirated and stop-laryngeal), prefix-agglutinative system.

According to various classifications, there are from 30 to 40 Caucasian languages. Historical and genetically Caucasian languages ​​are divided into four groups - Kartvelian (southern), Adygo - Abkhazian (northwestern), Nakh and Dagestan. The Kartvelian languages ​​are Georgian, Zan and Svan. Abkhazian, Abaza, Adyghe, Kabardian (Kabardino-Circassian) and Ubykh belong to the Adyghe-Abkhazian languages. The Nakh group is formed by the Chechen, Ingush and Batsbi languages. The most fractional and numerous is the Dagestan group, it is divided into three subgroups: Avar (Avar, Andi, Tsez, etc., in total 14 languages), Lak-Dargin (Lak and Dargin) and Lezghin (Lezgin, Tabasaran, Rutul, Tsakhur , Agul and others, 10 languages ​​in total).

The original Caucasian language is Georgian. Ancient Georgian writing arose in the 5th century, from the middle of the 11th century. there is a new Georgian letter. From the 12th century the Novo-Georgian literary language is being formed (Shota Rustaveli "Vephis-Tkaosani" ("The Knight in a Leopard's Skin")). In the second half of the XVIII century. Catholicos Anthony I and his followers began to impose artificial norms of the three styles. However, since the 1860s the language of literature was recognized as a single literary language, focused on colloquial Kartli; samples of New Georgian poetry and prose by I. Chavchavadze, A. Tsereteli, V. Pshavela were created on it.

Overseas Europe inhabits about 60 indigenous peoples, as well as many people from other parts of the world. The vast majority of the population speaks Germanic (Central and Northern Europe), Romance (Western and South-Eastern Europe) and Slavic languages ​​(Eastern and South-Eastern Europe). Celtic languages ​​are found in Europe, Albanian, Greek and Gypsy speech sounds. In Europe, the languages ​​of the Uralic (Finnish, Hungarian), Semitic-Hamitic (Maltese), Altaic families are represented. Special place occupies the language of the Basques - the descendants of the most ancient population of the Iberian Peninsula.

Languages foreign Asia. On the territory of foreign Asia, where more than half (56%) of all mankind lives, several hundred peoples are settled. Almost 3/4 speak the languages ​​of two families - Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European; other large families are also found here (Malayo-Polynesian, Dravidian, Altaic, Semitic-Hamitic) and separate languages ​​\u200b\u200b- Japanese and Korean.

The Sino-Tibetan family ranks second in terms of the number of speakers (after the Indo-European); the peoples of this family live mainly in China and Indochina. According to the morphological classification, this family belongs to the isolating-analytical type. The genealogical links of the Sino-Tibetan family have not been studied enough.

Sino-Tibetan languages ​​are usually divided into two groups - Thai-Chinese and Tibeto-Burmese. The Tai-Chinese group is divided into two subgroups - Chinese (Han and Hui languages, i.e. Dungan) and Tai-Zhuang; it includes the following languages: Zhuang, Thai (Thai, formerly Siamese), Lao, etc. Chinese scientists distinguish another subgroup of the Miao-Yao (languages ​​of the Miao, Yao, She, etc.) peoples. The Vietnamese language adjoins Thai-Chinese, although it reveals an undoubted relationship with the Muong language, forming the Viet-Muong group. Among the Tibeto-Burmese languages, subgroups are distinguished: Tibetan, Himalayan, Burmese, Kachin, Itsu and Karen (the last subgroup shows signs of the Tai Zhuang group).

Among the Sino-Tibetan languages, there are small and large languages, languages ​​that are unwritten and have a long historical tradition. The most common are Chinese, Burmese, Thai (Siamese). The Chinese language has significant dialect fragmentation and a long written history.

Languages ​​of America. The vast majority of the American population speaks Indo-European languages ​​- English, Spanish, Portuguese. These are the languages ​​of the European conquerors of America. On their basis were created in the XIX-XX centuries. literary languages. Despite the barbaric extermination and eviction from their native places, indigenous people- Indian peoples retained their languages. The name "Indians" is associated with the mistake of X. Columbus, who believed that the part of the world he had discovered was India. Before colonization in the XVI-XVIII centuries. Indians were at various stages of economic, social and cultural development. According to the root word and grammatical structure, the languages ​​\u200b\u200bof the Indians are very diverse: there are incorporating (many Uto-Aztec), agglutinative (Otomi), inflectional languages ​​\u200b\u200b(for example, Takelmi, Yuma and Salina from the Hoka family).

The American Indian languages ​​(or American languages) are a vast conglomeration of individual languages ​​and language groups. According to W. Schmidt's classification, there are 109 groups and isolated Indian languages. The American linguist Brinton tried to unite the Indian languages ​​into five branches - North Atlantic, North Pacific, Central, South Pacific and South Atlantic. The question of the mutual relationship of numerous Indian languages ​​has not been resolved even in an approximate version. Therefore, the groupings of Indian languages ​​are of a mixed, genetic and geographical nature.

Indian languages ​​are divided into North American, Central American and South American. Large groups in North America are Athabas (languages ​​of Apache, Navajo, Pueblo, etc.), Algonquian (languages ​​of Algonquian, Ojibwe, Ottawa, etc.), Sius (languages ​​of Dakota, Ofo, etc.), Iroquois (languages ​​of Iroquois, Cherokee, Tuscarora, etc.), Muscogian (languages ​​Creek, Seminole, etc.). The most common languages ​​and culture of the Apaches and Iroquois.

Large groups of Central American languages ​​are the Mayan languages ​​(Mayan languages, Quiche, Mem, Chol, Huakstek, etc.), Otomi (Otomi languages, Zapotec, Mixtec, etc.) and Aztec (Uto-Aztec - languages: Aztec (Nahua), Hopi, etc.). The Aztecs and Mayans, like other Indian peoples, are the creators of pre-Columbian civilizations, including the Mayan hieroglyphic script, which is associated with the writings of the neighboring Mayan peoples of Mexico - the Olmecs, Zapotecs, Toltecs and Aztecs.

large groups of languages South America are Echua (Quichua), Tupi-Guarani (languages ​​of Tupi, Guarani, etc.), Aymara, Araucanian (Mapuche, languages ​​​​of the Indian population of Chile - Araucans, Diagits, etc.), Arawakan and Pano (languages ​​of the Indians of Peru and Colombia), Chibcha (languages ​​Muisca, Kuna, Talamanca, etc.).

The Quechua are the largest Indian people in America. Now the Quechua make up the majority of the population of the three states of South America - Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. In the middle of the XV century. The Incas, having united with related tribes of Quechua, Aymara and other tribes of the Andean Highlands (Mochika, Puquina, etc.), formed the state of the Incas with the capital Cuzco. Quechua became the national language; the Quechua language and culture were assimilated by the united tribes; the incas created ancient culture and knot letter quipu. From the first half of the 16th century The Spanish conquerors, possessing firearms and horses, captured and destroyed

the state of the Incas, partially enslaving, and partially destroying the Indian tribes. The Inca language is dead; The Incas dissolved into the Quechua people, which, under more favorable historical conditions, could have turned into a modern nation. Now the literary languages ​​are Guarani (the second official language of Paraguay), Quechua and partly Aymara.

African language. This continent is multilingual. Along with European and Asian languages, their own languages ​​are found here, which have not yet been studied enough. The American linguist J. Greenberg groups the languages ​​of Africa into families: Semitic-Hamitic (Afro-Asiatic), Hottentot-Bushman (Koisan), Niger-Congo, Shari-Nile, Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Kordofan. Linguist D. A. Olderogge identifies three main African language families proper: 1) Semitic-Hamitic, 2) Zinj, 3) Hottento-Bushmen.

The Semitic-Hamitic family is divided into three groups - Semitic, Berber and Cushite. The Semitic group includes languages: Arabic, Amharic (the most common language of Ethiopia), Hebrew (the state language of Israel), etc. The Berbers include: Kabyle, Tamazigh, Shlekh and other languages ​​​​and dialects of Southern Morocco, Sahara, Mauritania. Cushite languages ​​- Galla, Somali, Afar, Kaffi, etc. Dead Semitic-Hamitic languages ​​​​are Akkadian (with dialects of Babylonian and Assyrian), Phoenician, Ethiopian, Libyan, as well as ancient Egyptian and Coptic.

Close to the Semitic-Hamitic language of Hausa - the language of the people of Western Sudan (Nigeria and Niger). The lexical composition of Hausa is motley: there are Semitic-Hamitic roots, but there are also roots of a different origin; now there are many words of English origin. Even before the arrival of Europeans in the Sudan, the Hausa language had an Arabic-based script; now it has been replaced by writing on the Latin basis. The following languages ​​are adjacent to the Hausa language: Bade, Kotoko, Masa, Mubi, Bura, Tera, etc. The Hausa language is relatively widespread as a second language among neighboring peoples.

Bantu languages ​​cover almost a quarter of Africa's population. These languages ​​are agglutinative with elements of inflection. They are divided into seven groups: northwestern (languages ​​of duala, Fang, etc.), northern [languages ​​of Ganda (Luganda), Rwanda, etc.], group of the Congo River [languages ​​of Kongo, Mongo, Ngala (Lingala), etc.] , central (languages ​​of Luba, Bemba, Tonga, etc.), eastern (languages ​​of Nyamwezi, Swahili, etc.), southeastern (languages ​​of Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, etc.), western (languages ​​of Mbundu, salt, etc.) .

Swahili (Swaheli) is the most common language of the Bantu family: it is spoken by about 40 million people, that is, almost half of all Bantu. There are old poems and legends in Swahili. A characteristic grammatical feature of Swahili and all Bantu languages ​​is agglutinative synthetism, which arose on the basis of the prefix design of nominal classes, that is, the division of nouns into the names of people, animals, plants, things, etc. For example, the prefix of a class of things is ki-: kiti - chair; it accompanies all the words of the sentence: Kite kite kimeanguka (literally: a chair he - that he - he fell).

A group of languages ​​adjoins the Bantu languages, which received the name - semi-Bantu languages, or Bantu languages. They are divided into three subgroups - eastern, central (languages ​​of Gur or Mosi-Grusi) and western (Atlantic). The eastern subgroup includes the Tiv (Mungi), Nso, Katab, and others languages; to the central - the languages ​​\u200b\u200bof Senufo, Lobi, mine (sea), pear, gourmet, etc .; to the western - the languages ​​of Wolof, Ful (Fula), Kisi, etc.

The Guinean languages ​​(or languages ​​k in a) belong to the isolating type. The Kwa languages ​​are Akan, for (Igbo), Yoruba, Ewe, and others. The Akan peoples constitute the ethnic core of the emerging Ghanaian nation; the basis of the literary and written language was the Akvapim dialect. The Kwa languages ​​adjoin the Kru languages ​​(Bete, Bakwe, etc.) and Ijo. The Nilotic languages ​​are the languages ​​of the tribes and peoples of the middle and upper Nile: the Nubian language, Dinka, Nuer, Bari, Suk (Pokot), etc.

language Australia and Oceania. This part of the world consists of the Australian mainland and a large number of islands in the central and southwestern Pacific Ocean. These islands are called Oceania. Geographically and ethnographically, Oceania is divided into four parts - Melanesia (it includes one of the largest islands in the world - New Guinea), Micronesia, Polynesia and New Zealand. The population of Australia and Oceania consists of three groups - Europeans, Asians and Aborigines. By language, the natives are divided into two different families - Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) and Papuan.

The Austronesian family unites four groups of languages ​​- Indonesian (Malay), Polynesian (11 languages, among them - Maori, Hawaiian, Samoan), Melanesian (for example, the language of the Fijians) and Micronesian (for example, the language of the Gilberts). The Malagash language adjoins Indonesian; it is (along with French) the official language of the Malagasy Republic on the island of Madagascar.

The most widespread and most studied is the Indonesian group of languages. It covers about 100 peoples of Indonesia, 40 peoples of the Philippines and a number of other islands. It is the language of such peoples as the Javanese, the Suidaites, the Madurians, the Malays, the Tagalogs, the Visayans, and many others.

The most widespread language of the Malays of the island of Sumatra is Indonesian (or Malay). The advancement of this language to the fore is explained by historical conditions. Sumatra was the center of state associations and trade in the 7th and 13th-15th centuries. Until the 13th century the Malay language had an alphabet dating back to the Indian; adopted in the thirteenth century. Islam, the Malays switched to Arabic script; in the first half of the 19th century. it was replaced by Latin. The vocabulary of the Malay language, in addition to the original words - root or formed by affixation or word formation, contains a large number of ancient Sanskrit and modern Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Dutch, and Russian words. When in 1945 the free state of Southeast Asia was formed on the territory of the former Dutch colony, the Malay language was recognized as the state language of the Indonesian Republic. The government's introduction of a single Indonesian state language contributes to the rapprochement of nationalities (Javanese, Sunds and Madurese), as well as tribal groups (for example, Batak) .

The Papuan languages ​​are the non-Austronesian languages ​​of New Guinea, West Irian (part of Indonesia) and some other Melanesian islands. All Papuan languages ​​are unwritten; their number is very large, and the languages ​​and dialects are not clearly defined, and the number of speakers of a language in many cases does not exceed a thousand. The most common Papuan languages ​​are: Hagen (Medlpa), Chimbu (Kuman), Khuli, Kamano, Abelam (Maprik), Ngalum, Siane.

The multiplicity of languages ​​and at the same time the small number of each of them speaks of an older state of the Papuan languages, which, moreover, are all unwritten. Dani language is used in schooling; in 1967 there were only four college-educated natives in New Guinea.

History shows that the number of languages ​​is decreasing, tribal languages ​​are turning into the languages ​​of nationalities, and then of nations. However, the process of development of languages ​​and the unification of dialects is slow, and modern humanity continues to be multilingual.

2) Typological Classification of Languages arose on the basis of morphological data, regardless of genetic or spatial proximity, relying solely on the properties of the linguistic structure. The Typological Classification of Languages ​​seeks to cover the material of all languages ​​of the world, to reflect their similarities and differences, and at the same time to identify possible language types and specifics of each language or group of typologically similar languages. The modern typological classification of languages ​​is based not only on morphological data, but also on phonology, syntax, and semantics. The basis for including a language in a typological classification of languages ​​is the type of language, that is, a characteristic of the fundamental properties of its structure. However, the type is not implemented absolutely in the language; in fact, each language has several types, that is, each language is polytypological. Therefore, it is appropriate to say to what extent in the structure given language there is one type or another; on this basis, attempts are made to give a quantitative interpretation of the typological characteristics of the language. The main problem for the typological classification of languages ​​is the creation of descriptions of languages, sustained in a single terminology and based on a single concept of linguistic structure and a system of consistent and sufficient criteria for a typological description. The most accepted typological type is the isolating (amorphous) type - unchangeable words with the grammatical significance of word order, a weak opposition of meaningful and auxiliary roots (for example, ancient Chinese, Vietnamese, Yoruba); agglutinating (agglutinative) type - advanced system unambiguous affixes, the absence of grammatical alternations in the root, the same type of inflection for all words belonging to the same part of speech, a weak connection (the presence of distinct boundaries) between morphs (for example, many Finno-Ugric languages, Turkic languages, Bantu languages); the inflectional (inflectional) type combines languages ​​with internal inflection, that is, with grammatically significant alternation at the root (Semitic languages), and languages ​​with external inflection, fusion, that is, with the simultaneous expression of several grammatical meanings with one affix (for example, hands - instrumental case, plural), strong connection (lack of distinct boundaries) between morphs and heterogeneity of declensions and conjugations (to some extent - Somali, Estonian, Nakh languages); in ancient and some modern Indo-European languages, internal inflection and fusion are combined. A number of typologists also distinguish incorporating (polysynthetic) languages, where there are “sentence words”, complex complexes: the verb form includes (sometimes in a truncated form) nominal stems corresponding to the object and circumstances, the subject, as well as some grammatical indicators (for example, some languages ​​of the American Indians, some Paleo-Asiatic and Caucasian languages). This typological language, which is basically morphological, cannot be considered final, mainly because of its inability to reflect all the specifics of a particular language, taking into account its structure. But it contains in an implicit form the possibility of its refinement by analyzing other areas of the language. For example, in isolating languages ​​such as classical Chinese, Vietnamese, and Guinean, one-syllable words equal to a morpheme, the presence of polytony, and a number of other interrelated characteristics are observed.

Lecture #14

Language classifications

Similarities and differences between languages. The similarity is material and typological.

Genealogical classification of languages. The concepts of "linguistic kinship", "comparative-historical method".

III. Typological classification of languages.

I. One of the tasks of linguistics is the systematization of existing languages ​​(about 2500), which differ in prevalence and social functions, features of the phonetic structure and vocabulary, morphological and syntactic characteristics.

There are two approaches to the classification of languages:

grouping according to the commonality of linguistic material (roots, affixes, words), and thus according to the common origin - genealogical classification;

grouping according to the common structure and type, primarily grammatical, regardless of origin - typological classification.

When comparing languages, you can find easily perceptible lexical

and phonetic, i.e. material correspondences, which imply certain patterns or regularities in the relationship between languages ​​and peoples - speakers of these languages.

The commonality of linguistic material (material closeness) is associated with the differentiation of dialects of the once common language. Differences in dialects were caused by various reasons: changing socio-historical conditions, migrations, contacts with other languages ​​and dialects, geographical and political isolation, etc. Tribes that spoke different dialects of the same, previously common language, settling in new territories remote from each other, could not communicate as before. Contacts weakened, and linguistic differences grew. The strengthening of centrifugal tendencies led over time to the formation of new languages, although they were genetically related. The systematization of related languages ​​reflects the genealogical classification.

In the languages ​​of the world, common features are also found in the structure of sentences, the composition of the main parts of speech, in the form and word-formation structures - the so-called typological similarity.

This similarity is due to the fundamental unity of human nature, the unity of its biological and mental organization, which manifests itself in a number of dependencies between the communicative and intellectual needs and capabilities of a person and the structure of his language. If in a number of languages ​​the observed typological similarity

covers a large series of systemically interconnected phenomena, then such languages ​​can be considered as a certain language type. The systematization of the languages ​​of the world according to certain types is reflected in typological classifications.

II. Genealogical classification of languages- the study, description and grouping of the languages ​​of the world on the basis of a common origin from a single source language.

Genealogical classification proceeds from the concept of kinship of languages. related languages languages ​​are recognized that originate from one base language - the parent language and, therefore, have some features:

the presence of materially related roots and affixes;

the presence of regular sound correspondences.

Establishing the genetic identity of languages, elucidating the degree of their

family relations and connections is carried out using the comparative historical method. Comparative historical method- this is a set of research techniques used in the study of related languages ​​in order to establish the general patterns of their development and reconstruction of the parent language.

The comparative-historical method is based on a number of requirements, the observance of which increases the reliability of the conclusions.

The establishment of the genetic identity of languages ​​should be done by comparing the most archaic forms. Because related languages ​​have undergone changes and diverged from each other, it is necessary to penetrate into their pre-written state.

Comparison of supposedly related languages ​​begins with a dictionary comparison, and not the entire array is examined common words, but only those that are the most ancient in their meaning. These are the following semantic groups of words:

Forms of the verb of being, 3rd person singular. and pl. the present tense of the indicative mood (cf.: Skt. á sti - sá nti "is", lat. est – sunt, goth. ist – sind, other slav eat - network);

Terms of kinship (for example, "mother": Skt. mā tá r, lat. mater, other isl. moder, other slav mater, modern English mother, German Mutter);

The names of some plants and animals (for example, "mouse": Skt. mū h, lat. mus, other upper mus, other slav mouse, modern English mouse, German Mouse);

The names of parts of the human body, some tools, some natural phenomena (for example, "tooth": Skt. dá ntam- win.pad unit, lat. dentem - wine fall unit, modern English teeth, German Zahn, French dent );

Names of pronouns, numerals up to 10 (for example, "two": Vedic. d(u)vā , lat. duo, OE dau, other slav two, modern English two, German zwei).

These groups of words must be equally represented in the compared languages, since unwritten languages ​​lack the vocabulary associated with civilization. The purpose of their comparison, in addition to establishing the nature of the correlation of common words in different languages, is also the analysis of the phonetic and morphological structures of the word. The relationship of languages ​​is manifested both in the coincidence of whole words, and in the similarity (formal and semantic) of the minimum meaningful units of the language - morphemes.

Therefore, the next stage of the study is the comparison of morphemes, which expands the base of comparison. There are much more common morphemes in related languages ​​than there are common words. This is one of the signs of the relationship of languages. The importance of the criterion of grammatical correspondences lies in the fact that inflectional forms, unlike words and grammatical models of words, as a rule, are not borrowed (cf., lat. am- a- t, German lieb- t, russ. loves).

Comparison of morphemes makes it possible to show the phonetic similarity and dissimilarity of words and parts of words in related languages. This similarity and dissimilarity is called phonetic correspondences. Establishing sound correspondences is an important link for comparison.

According to the rule of phonetic correspondences, a sound that changes in a certain position in one word undergoes similar changes in the same conditions in other words (for example, the initial Slavic b in Latin in some cases corresponds to f, dating back to Indo-European * bh: Brother – frater, bean -faba, take -ferunt).

When establishing sound correspondences, it is necessary to take into account historical changes that, due to the internal laws of the development of each language, appear in the latter in the form of phonetic laws (for example, Russian wife corresponds to Norwegian kona, because in Scandinavian Germanic languages ​​[k] comes from [g], and in Slavic [g] in the position before front vowels changed to [g], cf. Greek gyne "woman").

All indications regarding each element under consideration in several related languages ​​should be taken into account, since the correspondence of elements of only two languages ​​may be accidental.

The use of the comparative historical contributes to the reconstruction of the proto-language. Protolanguage reconstruction- a set of techniques and procedures for recreating unattested forms and phenomena by comparing the corresponding units of related languages. For example, knowing the phonetic, grammatical and semantic correspondences of the Indo-European languages, it is possible, on the basis of lat. fumus "smoke", ancient Greek. thymos "breath, spirit", ancient Slav. smoke and others. to restore the protoform for this word dhumos. The base language cannot be completely restored, but the basic data of phonetics, grammar and vocabulary (to the least extent) can be reconstructed.

The results of studies of languages ​​by the method of comparative historical linguistics are summarized in the genealogical classification of languages.

Different degrees of kinship of languages ​​are conveyed by the terms "family", "group", "subgroup".

Family- this is the whole set of languages ​​​​of a given kinship (for example, Indo-European family).

Group (branch) is an association within a family of languages ​​that show great material proximity (for example, Slavic group, Germanic group etc.).

Subgroup- an association within a group of languages, the family ties of which are quite transparent, which makes it possible for their speakers to understand each other almost freely (for example, East Slavic subgroup: Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages).

III. The comparative study of the structural properties of languages, regardless of the nature of the genetic relationships between them, is called typology. The subject of structural typology is the internal organization of language as a system, i.e. the similarity of the structure of languages ​​at one of the levels. There are formal and contensive typologies.

Formal typology studies the means of expressing the meanings of the language, i.e. grammatical categories that are necessarily expressed in an utterance in this language.

Contensive typology is focused on the semantic categories of the language and ways of expressing them, which, unlike grammatical ones, can be expressed by units of all levels.

The basis for classification in typology may be different. Traditional typological (morphological) classification reflects the desire to distinguish types of languages ​​based on general principles structures of grammatical forms. This classification is based on the opposition of roots and affixes.

In the morphological classification, the following types of languages ​​are usually established: root (or isolating), agglutinative (or agglutinating), inflectional, incorporating (or polysynthetic).

insulating (or root ) languages - these are languages ​​in which words do not change, each root in which is isolated from the other, and grammatical connections between them are expressed using word order and intonation (for example, Chinese).

The absence of external signs of belonging to a grammatical category contributes to the development of grammatical conversion of 1 words of one grammatical form into another under the influence of the grammatical environment.

All isolating languages ​​into root-isolating and base-isolating, i.e. having derivational affixes.

TO root isolating languages once A.V. Schlegel used the term amorphous (formless), because. words in these languages ​​are devoid of any form. This subtype is characterized by the following features:

In such languages ​​there are not only inflectional, but also

derivational affixes;

These languages ​​lack parts of speech;

Each word represents a pure root, and a sentence

a sequence of invariable roots (for example, in Chinese cha

boo heh, Where [cha]"tea", [in]"I", [boo]"No", [heh]"to drink", translated into

Russian I don't drink tea);

New concepts, new words are formed by adding roots (for example,

in Chinese Shui"water", ugh"carry", Shui+ ugh"water carrier");

A system of tones has been developed, depending on which the meaning of the word changes.

Foundation languages are modern languages ​​in which the words do not change, but in these languages ​​there are some derivational and formative affixes (for example, in the Malay language roemah "house", be- roemah"to live, live").

Agglutinative or agglutinating (lat. agglutinare"glue") languages - these are languages ​​that are characterized by a developed system of word formation and inflection, the absence of morphological alternations, a single system of declension and conjugation (for example, the Turkic languages).

This type of language differs from other affixing languages ​​by the technique of adding affixes and the functions that they perform: unambiguous, standard affixes are mechanically attached to the stem of a word.

In an agglutinative word, the boundaries between morphemes are quite distinct, the root has no variants, while each affix has only one meaning and each meaning is expressed by only one affix (for example, kaz. mektep-ter-ge"schools" -ter- expresses the value of the plural. numbers, -ge- date value. case).

In agglutinative languages, the positional method of formal expression of grammatical meanings dominates: a polysemantic word is built according to the principle of gradual concretization of the stem, from affixes with a wider meaning to affixes with more private and less wide meaning (for example, kaz. uy-ler-imis-de-gi-ler-den"from those who are at home": each subsequent affix, expressing the grammatical meaning, specifies the root).

Since in agglutinative languages ​​the connection between morphemes is weak, they have developed a phonetic means for bonding morphemes - synharmonism- in all joining affixes, a vowel of the same row as in the root is used (for example, Kaz. ande r-le R"lands").

Agglutinating languages ​​are divided into languages ​​with suffix agglutination(Kazakh language), languages ​​with prefix agglutination(languages ​​of Africa), languages ​​with suffix-prefix agglutination(Georgian language).

inflectional or fusional (lat. fusio"fusion") languages - these are languages ​​that are characterized by the multifunctionality of grammatical morphemes, the presence of fusion, morphological combinations, an extensive system of declension and conjugation (for example, Indo-European languages).

In languages ​​of this type, as in agglutinative ones, the main way of expressing grammatical meanings is affixation. But along with external inflection, internal inflection is widely used, i.e. a change in the composition of the root, expressing a grammatical meaning (for example, in English. man – men “man - men”: plural meaning is transmitted by alternation in the root).

Another characteristic feature of the inflectional structure is the fusion technique of combining morphemes in a word. In a fusion word, the boundaries between morphemes are indistinct (for example, in the word shoes morphemes are closely soldered, the root is connected, i.e. without service morphemes is not used); service morphemes simultaneously express several grammatical meanings (for example, in the Russian word wife flexion -A has three meanings: feminine, nominative, singular).

Inflectional languages ​​are also characterized by homonymy and synonymy of affixes (for example, in Russian –in- can have the value of singularity: pea and the value is big: house-in-a; in words tables, houses, children different inflections express the plural); different position of affixes in relation to the root (roots, prefixes, suffixes, infixes).

Incorporating (lat. in "V", corpus"body", i.e. "Introducing something into the body" incorporere "insert") or polysynthetic (gr. poly "many" and synthesis "connection, combination") languages - these are languages ​​\u200b\u200bfor which the incompleteness of the morphological structure of the word is characteristic, allowing the inclusion of other members of the sentence in one member (for example, a direct object can be included in the verb-predicate). The incorporating languages ​​include the languages ​​of the Indians of North America, Chukchi-Kamchatka, etc.

A word in such languages ​​acquires a structure only as part of a sentence: there is no word outside the sentence, the sentence is the main unit of speech, which includes words (for example, the Chukchi word-sentence you - ata-kaa - nmy - rkyn"I kill fat deer", the basis of this word-sentence you are rkyn, which incorporates kaa"deer" and its definition ata"fatty").

Many languages ​​occupy an intermediate position on this scale of morphological classification. Often, the terms "analytical languages" and "synthetic languages" are also used to characterize the grammatical structure of a language.

Analytical languages or analytical languages called languages ​​in which grammatical meanings are expressed using independent words, i.e. dissected transmission of lexical and grammatical meanings is carried out. The analyticity of the language is manifested in the morphological immutability of the word and the presence of complex structures in which the grammatical meaning is conveyed either by a functional word or by an independent one (for example, the Russian form will love- analytical, the meaning of the future tense of the 1st person singular is transmitted by an auxiliary verb) in the presence of complex structures in which the grammatical meaning is transmitted either by a function word or by an independent speech).

Synthetic languages or synthetic languages are called those in which grammatical meanings are expressed mainly by affixes, i.e. grammatical meaning and lexical meaning are transmitted undividedly, in one word with the help of affixes, internal inflection, etc. (for example, in the word move-and-l-a with the help of affixes, the values ​​​​of the past tense, feminine, singular are transmitted. numbers).

In its pure form, analyticism and synthetism are not represented in any language of the world, because in each language there are both elements, although their ratio may be different (for example, in the Russian language, along with the predominance of synthetism, there are also analytical forms; English is an inflectional language of the analytical type, but synthetic forms are also observed in it).

In addition to the morphological typological classification, there are classifications built on the basis of other structural criteria - syntactic, phonemic, etc. Thus, the phonological classification of the Slavic languages ​​is known. Typological patterns are also revealed in syntax.

educational:

1. Kodukhov V.I. Introduction to linguistics. M.: Enlightenment, 1979. -

2. Maslov Yu.S. Introduction to linguistics. M.: Higher School, 1987. - p.221-

3. Reformatsky A.A. Introduction to linguistics. M.: Aspect Press, 2001. - p.

additional:

1. Amanbayeva G.Yu. Linguistic typology: Proc. student allowance

humanitarian universities. Karaganda: Publishing house of KarSU, 2002.

2. Mechkovskaya N.B. General Linguistics: Structural and Social Typology

languages: Proc. manual for students of philological and linguistic

specialties. M.: Flinta: Nauka, 2001.

3. Theoretical foundations of the classification of languages ​​of the world. M., 1980.

4. Theoretical foundations of the classification of world languages. Relationship problems.

1Conversion(lat. conversion "transformation") - the formation of a new word by moving it from one part of speech to another.

CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES- structuring, subordination of various languages ​​of the world according to several principles - genealogical, geographical, sociolinguistic or otherwise.

genealogical principle

The most common and widely known is the genetic or genealogical classification, which is based on the concept of linguistic kinship and the family tree metaphor. This metaphor interprets the relationship of languages ​​as their origin from some common proto-language. Externally, linguistic kinship manifests itself materially - in the similarity of the sound of significant elements (morphemes, words) with a close meaning (such elements are recognized as etymologically identical, i.e. having common origin, cm. ETYMOLOGY). The material similarity of closely related languages ​​(for example, Russian and Belarusian) can be so significant as to make them mutually intelligible to a high degree. However, material similarity alone is not enough to recognize languages ​​as related; it can be explained by intensive borrowings: there are languages ​​in which the number of borrowings exceeds half of the vocabulary. To recognize kinship, it is necessary that the material similarity be systematic, i.e. differences between etymologically identical elements should be regular and obey phonetic laws. Material similarity is sometimes accompanied by structural similarity, i.e. similarity in the grammatical structure of languages. Thus, the genetically close Russian and Bulgarian languages ​​are grammatically very different, while there can be significant structural similarities between completely unrelated languages. The French linguist E. Benveniste at one time demonstrated the structural proximity between the languages ​​of the Indo-European language family and the Indian language Takelma, common in US state Oregon and having no material resemblance to the Indo-European languages.

The justification of linguistic kinship, which is recognized as strictly scientific, is carried out with the help of the so-called comparative-historical, or comparative method. It establishes regular correspondences between languages ​​and thereby describes the transition from some initial general state (reconstructed proto-language) to a real one. existing languages. In practice, however, genealogical groupings are initially distinguished on the basis of a superficial intuitive assessment of material similarity, and only then a foundation is laid under the hypotheses about genealogical relationship and a search for the parent language is carried out. One of the largest practitioners of genealogical classification, J. Greenberg, attempted a methodological justification for such an approach, which he called the method of mass, or multilateral comparison. However, for many quite universally recognized language groups, comparative historical reconstruction has not been carried out to this day, and even in not all cases there is confidence that it can be carried out in principle (this is especially true for language groupings in which there is not a single language with a long written language). tradition). A method that occupies an intermediate place between comparative historical reconstruction and impressionistic comparison is a special kind of lexico-statistical method called glottochronological ( cm. GLOTTOCHRONOLOGY) and proposed in the middle of the 20th century. American linguist M. Swadesh.

When comparing, hierarchical family relations of languages ​​are established, uniting two or more languages ​​into a certain grouping; they can later be combined into larger groupings, and so on. Terms denoting hierarchically ordered genetic groups are still not used very consistently. The most common in the domestic nomenclature is the following hierarchy: dialect - language - (subgroup) - group - (subfamily / branch) - family - (macrofamily). In foreign terminology, the term “fila” introduced by Swadesh and its derivatives are sometimes also used; other terms are occasionally encountered. In practice, one and the same genetic grouping may be called a group by one author, and a family by another (or even the same one elsewhere). The term "macrofamily" began to be used much later than the other designations listed; its appearance is associated primarily with attempts to deepen linguistic reconstruction, as well as with the realization of the fact that traditionally distinguished families differ greatly in the degree of divergence of the languages ​​\u200b\u200bincluded in them (and in the estimated time of decay of the parent language corresponding to one or another family). The decay time, for example, of the Afroasian proto-language is dated, according to modern estimates, to the IX-VIII millennium BC. or even more early time, Turkic - by the end of the 1st millennium BC, and Mongolian - by the end of the 16-17th century. AD At the same time, the Semitic-Hamitic (= Afroasian), Turkic and Mongolian language families were traditionally meant. At present, the designation of the Afroasian languages ​​as a macrofamily has become established, and the Mongolian languages ​​are often defined as a group.

The idea of ​​the development of languages ​​as an exclusively divergent process of the disintegration of a single proto-language into descendant languages ​​that are increasingly moving away from each other, finally established in neogrammatism, has been repeatedly criticized. One of its main positions was an indication that in the development of languages ​​there are not only divergent (divergence), but also convergent (convergence due to parallel development and especially language contacts) development, which significantly complicates a simple scheme. However, the lists of world languages ​​in reference publications are always ordered in accordance with the genealogical classification, while all other classifications are of an auxiliary nature and are used purely for research, and not for "reference and presentation" purposes.

Typological principle

These include, first of all, classifications that involve the unification of languages ​​into certain groups based on similarities and differences in their grammatical structure. Such classifications, called (structural-)typological, have been known since the beginning of the 19th century. Since the grammar of a language is complex and multifaceted, many different typological classifications can be built. The most famous classifications are:

Based on the technique used to combine significant units in a word (there are inflectional, agglutinative, isolating and incorporating, or polysynthetic languages);

Based on the methods of encoding semantic roles in a sentence and their combination into various hyperroles (languages ​​of accusative-nominative, ergative and active systems differ);

Based on whether this connection is marked in the main or dependent element of a syntactically connected construction (languages ​​with vertex and dependency coding);

Based on the laws of word order, the relationship between syllable and morpheme, etc. More about the various typological classifications cm. TYPOLOGY LINGUISTIC.

Geographic principle

Languages ​​can also be classified geographically. For example, on the basis of geographical criteria, Caucasian or African languages ​​are distinguished, and in the names of more fractional groupings, definitions such as “northern”, “western” or “central” are very often present. It is obvious that such classifications are external to the actual linguistic facts. There are language families (for example, Austronesian) and even individual languages ​​(for example, English, Spanish or French), distributed over vast and often not bordering territories. On the other hand, there are many places in the world where native speakers of languages ​​who are not closely related by linguistic kinship live in a compact area. Such is the Caucasus, where languages ​​of various branches are spoken Indo-European family, in Kartvelian, Abkhaz-Adyghe, Nakh-Dagestan and Turkic languages, and even in the Kalmyk language belonging to the Mongolian family. Such are the east of India, many regions of Africa, the island of New Guinea.

Test work in linguistics on the topic:

"Languages ​​of the world: classification and methods of study"

Plan

1. The main classification of world languages

2. Typological classification of languages: languages ​​of analytical and synthetic structure

3. Genealogical classification

a) comparative-historical method in linguistics

b) the question of the ancestral home of Europeans

4. language families, branches and groups in the modern world

5. The essence of the Indo-European languages

Bibliography

1. The main classification of world languages

Currently, there are from 3 to 5 thousand languages ​​on earth. The difference is connected with the difference between dialects and languages, secondly, with the definition of the area and the scope of use, and thirdly, with the assessment of the "vitality" of the language.

The plurality of languages ​​necessitates classification. In modern linguistics, 4 classifications have been developed:

1) Areal (geographical)

2) Functional

3) Typological (morphological)

4) Genealogical

The first is based on the study of the language map of the world. Describes the boundaries of the distribution.

The second is based on the study of the functions and areas of language use (cultural, diplomatic, language of education, etc.)

The most important are typological and genealogical classifications.

2. Typological classification of languages: languages ​​of analytical and synthetic structure

The second direction is working out the typological (morphological) classification of languages, based on morphological data, regardless of genetic or spatial proximity, relying solely on the properties of the linguistic structure. The typological classification of languages ​​seeks to cover the material of all languages ​​of the world, reflect their similarities and differences, and at the same time identify possible language types and specifics of each language or group of typologically similar languages, while relying on data not only from morphology, but also from phonology, syntax, and semantics.

The basis for including a language in the typological classification of languages ​​is the type of language, that is, a characteristic of the fundamental properties of its structure. However, the type is not implemented absolutely in the language; in fact, each language has several types, that is, each language is polytypological. Therefore, it is appropriate to say to what extent this or that type is present in the structure of a given language; on this basis, attempts are made to give a quantitative interpretation of the typological characteristics of the language.

The following typological classification of languages ​​is most accepted:

isolating (amorphous) type - unchangeable words with grammatical significance of word order, weak opposition of meaningful and auxiliary roots (for example, ancient Chinese, Vietnamese, Yoruba);

agglutinating (agglutinative) type - a developed system of unambiguous affixes, the absence of grammatical alternations in the root, the same type of inflection for all words belonging to the same part of speech, a weak connection (the presence of distinct boundaries) between morphs (for example, many Finno-Ugric languages, Turkic languages, Bantu languages);

the inflectional (inflectional) type combines languages ​​with internal inflection, that is, with grammatically significant alternation at the root (Semitic languages), and languages ​​with external inflection, fusion, that is, with the simultaneous expression of several grammatical meanings with one affix (for example, hands - instrumental case, plural), strong connection (lack of distinct boundaries) between morphs and heterogeneity of declensions and conjugations; in ancient and some modern Indo-European languages, internal inflection and fusion are combined.

The typological classification of languages ​​cannot be considered final, mainly because of its inability to reflect all the specifics of a particular language, taking into account its structure. But it contains in an implicit form the possibility of its refinement by analyzing other areas of the language. For example, in isolating languages ​​such as classical Chinese, Vietnamese, and Guinean, one-syllable words equal to a morpheme, the presence of polytony, and a number of other interrelated characteristics are observed.

The concept of linguistic relativity is a theory of the dependence of the style of thinking and fundamental worldview paradigms of a collective native speaker on the specifics of the latter. “The language of a people is its spirit, and the spirit of a people is its language,” and in this sense, “every language is a kind of worldview” (Humboldt). Thus, the typology of social life can and should be explained in terms of the variability of cultures expressing themselves in different languages. In this regard, within the framework of the linguistic relativity of the concept, a hypothetical model of the development of world culture is being formed, which could be based not on the Indo-European language matrix and the corresponding European rational-logical deductivism and the linear concept of irreversible time, but on a radically different language material. It is assumed that this would lead to the formation of a world culture of a fundamentally different type.

Typical synthetic languages ​​include the ancient written Indo-European languages: Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old Slavonic; now largely Lithuanian, German, Russian (although both with many active features of analyticism); to analytical: Romanesque, English, Danish, Modern Greek, New Persian, New Indian; from Slavic - Bulgarian.

Languages ​​such as Turkic, Finnish, despite the predominant role of affixation in their grammar, have a lot of analyticity in the system due to the agglutinating nature of their affixation; languages ​​like Arabic are synthetic because their grammar is expressed within the word, but they are rather analytic in terms of the agglutinating tendency of affixation. Of course, in this respect there are deviations and contradictions; so, in German, the article is an analytical phenomenon, but it declines according to cases - this is synthetism; the plural of nouns in English is expressed, as a rule, once - an analytical phenomenon.

3. Genealogical classification

Genetic classification is based on the sign of kinship - common origin, which was established only after the emergence of the concept of linguistic kinship and the establishment of the principle of historicism in linguistic studies (19th century). It develops as a result of studying languages ​​with the help of a comparative-historical method. At the same time, the relationship of some languages ​​is recognized as proven if a common origin of a significant part of the morphemes of these languages, all grammatical affixes and many roots is found. Including in those parts of the vocabulary that are usually distinguished by particular stability: pronouns, names of certain parts of the body, words with the meaning "water", "fire", "sun", "to be", "give", "eat", "drink » and others. The common origin of roots and affixes is confirmed by the presence of regular interlingual phonetic correspondences in them. If a comparative historical phonetics has been created that makes it possible to approximately reconstruct the roots of an ancestor language and trace (according to strict rules) their transformation into the roots of descendant languages, then the relationship of the latter is considered established.

In this sense, the relationship of the following families of languages ​​in the Old World is indisputable: Indo-European, Uralic (with Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic branches), Turkic, Mongolian, Tungus-Manchurian, Dravidian, Kartvelian, Semitic-Hamitic (Afrasian), in the 60s. 20th century united in the Nostratic (Borea) language family. It was possible to build a comparative phonetics of these languages ​​by tracing regular phonetic correspondences in more than 600 roots and affixes. Among the languages ​​of Eurasia, the Sino-Tibetan family of languages, the Yenisei, Andaman families, isolated languages: Basque, Burusha, Ainu and some ancient languages: Sumerian, Kassite, Hattian, etc. remain outside the groupings. All the numerous language groups of Africa (except for the Semitic-Hamitic) are united into three hypothetical families: Niger-Kordofanian, Nilo-Saharan and Khoisan.

The genetic classification of languages ​​exists in the form of a single scheme. Being linguistic, it does not coincide with anthropological and, in particular, does not imply that peoples speaking related languages ​​belong to a single race. Although the formation of language families occurs constantly, their formation, as a rule, dates back to the era before the emergence of a class society. The modern genetic classification of languages ​​does not provide grounds for supporting the concept, popular in the old linguistics, of the monogenesis of the languages ​​of the world.

Comparative historical method originates at the end of the 19th century, when, in the course of studying languages, factors of similarity of these languages ​​were established.

Based on the established similarity, a hypothesis arises about the relationship of these languages ​​​​and the unity of their origin, so gradually the comparative historical method became the basis for the formation of a special branch in linguistics.

The key to the formation and development was and remains the question of habitat - carriers. In pre-war literature, the north of Europe was often postulated as the ancestral home, while they were declared the purest carriers of "".

After the idea of ​​​​the northern European ancestral home was debunked (in the Indo-European languages ​​​​there is not even a common designation for the sea), the following main teachings about the ancestral home of Europeans were formed:

academic hypotheses

4. - based on the assumption that speakers of Indo-European languages ​​have continuously inhabited Europe for tens of thousands of years.

A number of historians identify several centers of the formation of the Indo-European community at different times - from the isolation of the Indo-European proto-language from (VIII millennium BC) and to the formation of the first Indo-European states (ser. III and III / II millennium BC) Comparatively The historical method is based on two approaches:

1. first, a synchronous approach (based on the data of modern languages, their relationship is established).

2. based on the established relationship of languages, the problem of the language-ancestor is solved (diachronic approach).

Research method according to A. Schleicher: genealogical classification is not based on the historical method, i.e. to establish kinship and degree of kinship and to derive the language of the ancestor.

Genealogical units:

subgroup

4. Language families, branches and groups in the modern world

I. The Indo-European family of languages ​​is the largest. 1 billion 600 million speakers.

1) Indo-Iranian branch.

a) Indian group (Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi)

b) Iranian group (Persian, Pashto, Forsi, Ossetian)

2) Romano-Germanic branch. The specialties of this branch are Greek and Arabic.

a) Romance (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Provençal, Romanian)

b) German group

North German subgroup (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic)

c) Celtic group (Irish, Scottish, Welsh).

3) Balto-Slavic branch of languages

a) Baltic group (Lithuanian, Latvian)

b) Slavic group

West Slavic subgroup (Polish, Chechen, Slovak)

Southern subgroup (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian)

East Slavic subgroup (Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian).

II. Altai family. 76 million speakers.

1) Turkic branch (Turkish, Tatar, Bashkir, Chuvash, Ayzeirbojan, Turkmen, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Yakut)

2) Mongolian branch ( Mongolian languages, Buryat, Kalmyk)

3) Tungus-Shandyur branch (Tungus, Evenk)

III. Uralic languages.

1) Finno-Ugric branch (Finnish, Estonian, Korelian, Udmurt, Mari (mountain and meadow), Mordovian, Hungarian, Khanty, Mansi).

2) Samoyed branch (Nenets, Enen, Selkups)

IV. Caucasian family. (Georgian, Abkhazian, Chechen, Kabardian)

V. Sino-Tibetan family

1) Chinese branch (Chinese, Thai, Siamese, Lao)

2) Tibeto-Burmese branch (Tibetan languages, Burmese languages, Himalayan languages)

VI. Afroasian family (Semito-Hamitic family)

1) Semitic branch (Arabic, Hebrew)

2) Barbary branch (languages ​​of the Sahara, Morocco and Mauretania)

The place of the Russian language in the typological classification: The Russian language belongs to inflectional languages, of a synthetic structure, with elements of analyticism.

Place of the Russian language in the genealogical classification: The Russian language belongs to the Indo-European family of languages, the Balto-Slavic branch, the East Slavic subgroup.

5. The essence of the Indo-European languages

Indo-European languages ​​(or Ario-European, or Indo-Germanic), one of the largest linguistic families of Eurasia. The common features of the Indo-European languages, which oppose them to the languages ​​of other families, are reduced to the presence of a certain number of regular correspondences between formal elements. different levels associated with the same content units (borrowings are excluded). A concrete interpretation of the facts of the similarity of the Indo-European languages ​​may consist in postulating a certain common source of known Indo-European languages ​​(Indo-European proto-language, the base language, a variety of ancient Indo-European dialects) or in accepting the situation of a linguistic union, which resulted in the development of a number of common features in originally different languages.

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18 . Principles of classification of languages ​​of the world. Genealogical, typological and cultural-historical classification of languages.

There are 2500-3000 languages ​​on Earth. These languages ​​differ both in their prevalence and social functions, as well as in the peculiarities of the phonetic structure and vocabulary, morphological and syntactic characteristics. In linguistics, there are a number of classifications of languages. The main ones are: genealogical (or genetic), typological (or morphological), functional, areal (geographic) And cultural and historical.

Genealogical classification

Genealogical classification of languages, a classification based on the genetic principle, i.e., grouping languages ​​related by origin into language families. At the same time, the common origin of related languages ​​is proved and their development from a single, often reconstructed in special ways, language, which is called the parent language, is demonstrated. In the genealogical classification of languages, first of all, the degree of their kinship and ties is ascertained.

The genealogical classification of languages ​​became possible only after the emergence of the concept of linguistic kinship and the establishment of the principle of historicism in linguistic studies (19th century). It develops as a result of studying languages ​​with the help of a comparative-historical method. Language families usually break down into smaller groups that combine languages ​​that are genetically more closely related to each other; many of them are of very late date.

Most of the world's languages ​​are combined into families, some languages ​​are considered isolated (that is, they are monolingual families) or remain unclassified. A family of languages ​​is considered to be a genetic linguistic association of approximately the same level of depth as the Indo-European languages, that is, it fell apart about 6-7 thousand years ago. Genealogical classification of languages ​​- on the basis of kinship, i.e. common origin. The relationship of any languages ​​is recognized as proven if a common origin of a significant part of the morphemes of these languages, all grammatical affixes (if any) and many roots is found.

The main method of research is comparative-historical, the main classification category is a family, a branch, a group of languages.

Genealogical classification is closely connected with the historical fate of languages ​​and peoples. It covers vocabulary and phonetics - the vocabulary of the language and the similarity in sound.

Typological classification

Typological classification of languages ​​- a classification based on the similarity and difference of the linguistic structure (morphological, phonological, syntactic, semantic), regardless of genetic or territorial proximity.

It operates with classes of languages ​​that are combined according to those characteristics that are chosen as reflecting the most significant features of the linguistic structure (for example, the way morphemes are combined). The best known is the morphological classification of languages, according to which languages ​​are distributed through the abstract concept of type into the following four classes:
1) insulating, or amorphous such as Chinese, Vietnamese.
2) agglutinative, or agglutinating, for example, Turkic, some Finno-Ugric, Mongolian, Tungus-Manchu, Korean, Japanese, Basque, part of the Indian.
3) inflectional languages, such as Slavic, Baltic.
4) incorporating (polysynthetic), for example, Chukchi-Kamchatka, some Paleo-Asiatic, Caucasian languages.

Basic concepts typological (morphological) classification - morpheme And word; main criteria: the nature of the morphemes combined in the word(lexical - grammatical), way their associations(pre- or postposition of grammatical morphemes, which is directly related to syntax; agglutination - fusion, which refers to the field of morphonology); morpheme ratio and words(isolation, when a morpheme = a word, analytic/synthetic word formation and inflection) associated with syntax.

The typological classification seeks to characterize not specific languages, in which several morphological types are always represented, but the main structural phenomena and trends that exist in languages.

Modern typology, while maintaining as the most important typological categories the representations developed by the founders of the typology - "analytical type of language", "synthetic type", "agglutination", "fusion", etc. - abandoned the idea of ​​a single and general typological classification languages. It became obvious that only one typological classification (for example, morphological) is not enough, because on different language levels there are typologically significant features that are independent of the structure of other levels of the language. Therefore, in addition to the morphological classification, various other classifications of languages ​​were required: depending on the type of phonological system, the nature of stress, the type of syntax, the type of lexicon, the nature of word formation, the functional (communicative) profile of the language, the type of normative-stylistic structure of the language (in the typology of literary languages ​​and etc.).

Cultural-historical classification

Cultural-historical classification deals almost exclusively with literary and written languages, with written variants of languages ​​that serve ethnic groups of peoples or nations.

The cultural-historical classification examines languages ​​from the point of view of their relationship to the history of culture. In accordance with this classification, which takes into account the historical sequence of the development of culture, unwritten, written languages, literary languages ​​of the people and the nation, languages ​​of interethnic communication are distinguished.

TYPOLOGICAL (MORPHOLOGICAL) CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES

For the first time, the question of the "type of language" of romance was raised. Their thought was this: "the spirit of the people" can manifest itself in myths, in art, in literature and in language. Hence the natural conclusion that through the language you can know the "spirit of the people."

Friedrich Schlegel came to the conclusion: 1) that all languages ​​can be divided into two types: inflectional and affixing, 2) that any language is born and remains in the same type, and 3) that inflectional languages ​​are characterized by "richness, strength and durability", and affixing "with the very emergence lacks living development”, they are characterized by “poverty, scarcity and artificiality”.

The division of languages ​​into inflectional And affixing F. Schlegel did it based on the presence or absence of a change in the root.

Brother F. Schlegel - August-Wilhelm Schlegel(1767-1845) revised the typological classification of his languages ​​and identified three types: 1) inflectional, 2) affixing, 3) amorphous(which is typical of the Chinese language), and in inflected languages, he showed two possibilities of grammatical structure: synthetic And analytical.

Within the limits of the languages ​​available to them, the Schlegel brothers correctly noted the difference between inflectional, agglutinating and isolating languages.

He went much deeper into the question of the types of languages Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835).

Humboldt saw particular criteria for defining languages: 1) in an expression in the language of relations (transfer of relational meanings; this was also the main criterion for the Schlegels); 2) in the ways of forming sentences (which showed special type incorporating languages) and 3) in sound form.

In inflectional languages, Humboldt saw not only “internal changes” of the “wonderful root”, but also “addition from the outside”, i.e., affixation, which is carried out differently than in agglutinating languages ​​(a century later, this difference was formulated by E. Sapir. Humboldt explained, that the Chinese language is not amorphous, but isolating, i.e., the grammatical form in it manifests itself differently than in inflectional and agglutinating languages: not by changing words, but by word order and intonation, thus this type is a typically analytical language.

In addition to the three types of languages ​​noted by the Schlegel brothers, Humboldt described a fourth type; the most accepted term for this type is incorporating.

(A feature of this type of languages ​​(Indian in America, Paleo-Asiatic in Asia) is that the sentence is built as a compound word, i.e. unformed word roots are agglutinated into one common whole, which will be both a word and a sentence. Parts of this whole - both the elements of the word and the members of the sentence. The whole is a word-sentence, where the beginning is the subject, the end is the predicate, and additions with their definitions and circumstances are incorporated (inserted) in the middle. Humboldt explained this using the Mexican example: ninakakwa, where ni - "I", naka - "ed-" (i.e. "eat"), and kwa - object "meat-". One example from the Chukchi language: ty-ata-kaa-nmy-rkyn - "I am fat deer I kill”, literally: “I-fat-deer-killing-do”, where the skeleton of the “corps” is: you-nmy-rkyn, which incorporates kaa - “deer” and its definition of ata - “fat”; a different location is the Chukchi language does not tolerate, and the whole is a word-sentence, where the above order of elements is also observed.)

August Schleicher returned to the Schlegel typological classification, only with a new justification. Schleicher's typological classification does not provide for incorporating languages, but indicates three types in two possibilities: synthetic And analytical.

Simultaneously with Schleicher, he proposed his own classification of types of languages X. Steinthal(1821-1899).. Steinthal divided all languages ​​into languages with form And tongues without form, and by the form one should understand both the form of the word and the form of the sentence. Steinthal called languages ​​with no inflection as joining languages: without a form - the languages ​​of Indochina, with a form - Chinese. Steinthal defined languages ​​with the presence of inflection as modifying, without form: 1) through repetition and prefixes - Polynesian, 2) through suffixes - Turkic, Mongolian, Finno-Ugric, 3) through incorporation - Indian; and modifying, with the form: 1) through the addition of elements - the Egyptian language, 2) through internal inflection - Semitic languages ​​and 3) through "true suffixes" - Indo-European languages.

In the 90s. 19th century revised Steinthal's classification F. Misteli(1893), who carried out the same idea of ​​dividing languages to formal And shapeless, but introduced a new language feature: wordless(Egyptian and Bantu languages), pseudo-words(Turkic, Mongolian, Finno-Ugric languages) and historical(Semitic and Indo-European). Incorporating languages ​​are singled out in a special category of formless languages, since in them the word and the sentence are not distinguished. The advantage of F. Misteli's classification is delimitation of root isolating languages(Chinese) and basic insulating(Malay).

F. N. F i n k(1909) based his classification on the principle of constructing a sentence and the nature of the links between the members of the sentence, in particular the issue of agreement. As a result, Fink shows eight types: 1) Chinese, 2) Greenlandic, 3) Subiya, 4) Turkish, 5) Samoan (and other Polynesian languages), 6) Arabic (and other Semitic languages), 7) Greek (and other Indo-European languages). languages) and 8) Georgian.

Morphological classification of languages F. F. Fortunatova(1892). F. F. Fortunatov takes as a starting point the structure of the word form and the correlation of its morphological parts. On this basis, he distinguishes four types of languages:

1) agglutinating or agglutinating languages... "T. i.e. actually gluing ... because here the stem and affix of words remain, in their meaning, separate parts of words in the forms of words, as if glued together.

2)Semitic languages - inflectional-agglutinative(the relationship between stem and affix in these languages ​​is the same as in agglutinating languages).

3) " Indo-European - inflectional languages.

4) root(like Chinese).

Fortunatov distinguishes Semitic languages ​​- "inflectional-agglutinative" and Indo-European - "inflectional".

Based on their classification E. Sapir puts the expression different type concepts in the language: 1 ) root, 2) derivational, 3) mixed-relational and 4) purely relational; the last two points should be understood in such a way that the meanings of relations can be expressed in the words themselves (by changing them).

T. Milevsky divides the languages ​​of the world according to one more principle into four groups: "isolating, agglutinative, inflectional and alternating"