Genealogical classification

Principles of language classification

1. Languages in the world
2. Genealogical classification
3. Typological (morphological) classification
4. Areal classification
5. Functional classification

There are about 5000 languages on the planet. The number is not precise, because in many cases it's problematic to decide whether it's a separate language or just a dialect. Besides, there are archaic or dead languages that don't function anymore and they are not always included in this number.

Languages also differ as for the number of speakers. They vary from 1,5 bln speakers (Chinese) to only several hundreds (Asia and Caucasus).

10 most wide-spread languages are spoken by 2/3 of the population. (3,8 bln, other 4990 - by other 1,9 bln):

Top-10

1. Chinese is the most wide-spread language (1,5 billion)
2. English
3. Hindi+Urdu
4. Spanish
5. Russian
6. Indonesian
7. Arabic
8. Bengali
9. Portuguese
10. Japanese

Our knowledge of different languages and their development is not the same. Some languages (Greek, Sanskrit) are known for 3000 years already. Most languages appeared in IV – VII centuries.

The 3^rd group of languages are called young ones, because they appeared in the Medieval period (14-15^th century) (Lettish, Albanian).

Some ancient languages became known only in the XIX century thanks to archeological researches (Egyptian).

Linguists try to bring a systematic description of all languages. Different classifications were introduces that described languages in all perspectives. Up to now genealogical and typological classifications are most elaborate. Areal and functional classifications were introduced in the XX century, but they are still in research.

This classification deals with identification of genetic similarities in languages. It was created by historical comparative linguistics in the 19^th century. The most important names – Frenz Bopp, Jacob Grimm, Rasmus Rask, Alsexandr Vostokov.

The essence of this method consists in comparison of genetically related forms. It helps to identify the common ancestor form. This form later gave birth to related words in new languages.

ед.число

1 — bhárami (Sanskrit), baira (Gothic), phero (Greek), fero (Latin), берў (Old Russian)

Russian – вода, Belarus – вода, Polish – woda, Czech – voda

море - ---- - morze – more

сто - ---- - sto – sto

Genetic relations between languages are not always determined by geographical position, e.g. most languages that function in Eurasia belong to IE. But there are several territories on these continents where languages of other families are spread. Within one and the same family different branches can be singled out. But it is so only for wide families. (IE family is the champion – it includes most languages – 40% of all languages. It includes 12 branches)

Slavic branch is decided into Southern, Eastern(Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian) and Western (Polish) groups.

Japanese is a family by itself.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-13