Chinese language language family. Chinese-Tibetan languages. Genetic commonality of Sino-Tibetan languages
a family
generally accepted
Southeast, East, South Asia
Languages of Eurasia
Sino-Caucasian macrofamily (hypothesis)
Chinese, Tibeto-Burmese
ser. 5 thousand BC NS.
Sino-Tibetan languages(formerly also called Chinese-Tibetan) - large language family, common in East, Southeast and South Asia. It unites about 300 languages. The total number of speakers of these languages is at least 1.2 billion people, thus, in terms of the number of speakers, this family ranks second in the world after Indo-European.
The Sino-Tibetan family is subdivided into two subfamilies - Chinese (Sinite), consisting of several Chinese languages (traditionally called dialects), including Dungan and Bai languages, and Tibeto-Burmese (all other languages). The number of native speakers of Chinese exceeds 1 billion people.
According to one of the controversial theories, it is assumed that the Sino-Tibetan languages are included in the hypothetical Sino-Caucasian macrofamily.
Possessiveness
Possessiveness(possessiveness) in Sino-Tibetan languages is expressed using possessive postpositions (particles) after the word being defined. For Tibetan and Burmese, the coincidence of these particles is one of the manifestations of their distant relationship.
Chinese
Service word 的 (de).
Example
- 我 的 书 (wode shu) - My book.
The indicator of possessiveness is the particle dreldra(yi, ki, gi, kyi). in grammars oriented to the Indian tradition, possessiveness was described as genitive.
Example
- Ngaran gi dep - My book.
Possessiveness is either a special particle symbol pineseinhmuvibe(Burmese. I), or the short tone symbol aukamin. Example: Chenno and Saou - My book.
Another form of expressing possessiveness without a noun in Burmese is the particle Ha... Example: Chennoha is Mine.
see also
- Swadesh Lists for Sino-Tibetan Languages
Bibliography
- Starostin S.A. A comparative vocabulary of five Sino-Tibetian languages (with I.I.Peyros, 1996).
- Benedict P. K. Sino-Tibetan: A conspectus. J. A. Matisoff (Ed.). Cambridge: The university Press, 1972. ISBN 0-521-08175-0.
- Coblin W. S. A Sinologist's Handlist of Sino-Tibetan Lexical Comparisons. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series 18. Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1986. ISBN 3-87787-208-5
- Shafer R. Introduction to Sino-Tibetan (Part 1-5). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1966-1974.
- Thurgood G., LaPolla R.J. (Eds.) Sino-Tibetan Languages. Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0-7007-1129-5
| Language families of Eurasia | ||
|---|---|---|
| Language families | Abkhaz-Adyghe Austro-Asian Austronesian Andaman Dravidian Yenisei Indo-European Kartvelian Mongolian Miao-Yao Nakh-Dagestan Semitic sino-tibetan Tai-Kadai Tungus-Manchu Turkic Ural Chukchi-Kamchatka Shompen Eskimo-Aleutian Yukaghir Japanese-Ryukyu | |
| Isolated languages | ainu basque burushaski korean kusunda nihali nivkh | |
| Disappeared | Paleo-Hispanic languages Tyrrhenian family Hatti Hurrian-Urartian family Elamite Sumerian | |
| Geographical associations | Caucasian languages Paleo-European languages Paleo-Asian languages | |
| Hypotheses | Altai Austric Indo-Ural Nostratic Sino-Caucasian North Caucasian Ural-Yukagir Ural-Altai | |
Sino-Tibetan languages of India, Sino-Tibetan languages of the world, Sino-Tibetan languages of flame, Sino-Tibetan programming languages
(all other languages). The number of native speakers of Chinese exceeds 1 billion people.
According to one of the controversial theories, it is assumed that the Sino-Tibetan languages are included in the hypothetical Sino-Caucasian macrofamily.
Genetic commonality of Sino-Tibetan languages
Given the large typological differences in the Sinic and Tibeto-Burmese branches, as well as in the subgroups of the Tibeto-Burmese languages, do the Sino-Tibetan languages represent a genetic community, that is, do they come from a single Proto-Sino-Tibetan language? All modern scholars professionally engaged in Sino-Tibetan languages in their works (Benedict 1972, Hale 1982, van Driem 2001, Matisoff 2003, Thurgood 2003) unanimously confirm: Sino-Tibetan languages are a genetic community... Many Sino-Tibetan protoforms lend themselves to reconstruction. The general lexical material is extremely rich and more and more refined thanks to the research of an increasing number of languages (see the table of lexical correspondences). In addition to the lexical material, these languages have many similarities in phonology and grammar, confirming their relationship. For a detailed review of comparative material (both lexical and phonological) see Matisoff 2003.
Below are the general phonological, grammatical and lexical features of the Sino-Tibetan languages.
Syllable structure and phoneme
Proto-Sino-Tibetan was a monosyllabic language. Reconstruction of its syllabic structure looks like this:
According to Benedict 1972 and Matisoff 2003, the consonant set in Proto-Sino-Tibetan - which was fully used primarily for the initial consonants of the root - consisted of the following phonemes:
/ p, t, k; b, d, g; ts, dz; s, z, h; m, n, ŋ; l, r, w, y /.
V different languages in groups as the initial consonants of the root of the word, these phonemes have the following sound correspondences:
| Shino-tib. | Tib. | Kachin. | Burma. | Garo | Miso |
| * p | p (h) | p (h), b | p (h) | p (h), b | p (h) |
| * t | t (h) | t (h), d | t (h) | t (h), d | t (h) |
| * k | k (h) | k (h), g | k (h) | k (h), g | k (h) |
| * b | b | b, p (h) | p | b, p (h) | b |
| * d | d | d, t (h) | t | d, t (h) | d |
| * g | g | g, k (h) | k | g, k (h) | k |
| * ts | ts (h) | ts, dz | ts (h) | s, ts (h) | s |
| * dz | dz | dz, ts | ts | ts (h) | f |
| * s | s | s | s | th | th |
| * z | z | z | s | s | f |
| * h | h | ø | h | ø | h |
| * m | m | m | m | m | m |
| * n | n | n | n | n | n |
| *ŋ | ŋ | ŋ | ŋ | ŋ | ŋ |
| * l | l | l | l | r | l |
| * r | r | r | r | r | r |
| * w | ø | w | w | w | w |
| * y | y | y | y | ts, ds | z |
Exceptions in these correspondences, as a rule, are secondary, aspiration appears only under certain conditions and is not phonemically significant. This table is based on Benedict 1972, where lexical comparisons are also given for these sound matches.
Sino-Tibetan vowel system is reconstructed as / a, o, u, i, e /. Vowels can be in the middle or at the end of a syllable, but not at the beginning. It should be noted that in the proto-language, all vowels, except / a /, are extremely rare at the end of a syllable. And the endings in / -Vw / und / -Vy / (where V is a vowel), on the contrary, are the most common.
Morphology of word formation
According to the general opinion of researchers of the proto-language, there was no classical syntactic morphology (as well as systemic morphological changes of nouns and verbs in such categories as case, number, time, person, voice, etc.). The syntactic morphology of nouns and verbs traced in modern Tibeto-Burmese languages should be understood as an innovation, which they owe to the local influence of neighboring languages, as well as substratum languages. Due to the wide variety of such influences, completely different morphological types could be formed.
Nevertheless, it is safe to speak about the elements of derivational morphology common to many Sino-Tibetan languages. Among them, one should highlight consonant prefixes and suffixes, as well as changes in the unlaw that change the meaning of verbs and nouns. The existence of common derivational affixes and alternation in the unlaut, which have the same or similar semantic effect in almost all groups of Sino-Tibetan languages, is a convincing sign of their genetic commonality. (Examples taken from Benedict 1972, Matisoff 2003, and Thurgood 2003; transcriptions of words from German sources use / y / instead of / j /.)
S- prefix
Almost all Sino-Tibetan languages have pairs semantically related words, which in their sound differ from each other only sonority or deafness initial consonant. The voiced variant usually has transitional meaning, and the deaf - intransitive... There is a theory according to which changes in the unlapping are due to the once-existing prefix * h - a non-syllable pharyngeal transition sound (Edwin G. Pulleyblank 2000).
The languages of East Asia are among some of the largest language families in the world. In the first place in terms of the number of speakers is the Sino-Tibetan family of languages that has developed in this territory. The Altai family has representatives of all branches here, and the sphere of its formation, albeit in part, fell within the boundaries of East Asia.
Geographically, the spread of languages in East Asia can be represented as follows: the Sino-Tibetan languages almost completely occupy the entire central and southern parts of this territory. Only in two places on the outskirts are foreign components interspersed: Mon-Khmer in Yunnan and Malay-Polynesian in Taiwan. The languages of the Altai family encircle the entire area under consideration along its northern outskirts. This belt is closed in the extreme west by the languages of the mountain Tajiks belonging to the Indo-European family, and in the extreme east by the Ainu language. 1
Sino-Tibetan language family
The discrepancy in the vocabulary and grammatical structure between the individual branches and languages of the Sino-Tibetan family is much greater than in the other language families mentioned here, ylov, denoting the degree of kinship, body parts, as well as natural phenomena, are often completely different even in the languages of one branch. On the other hand, the numbers are very close, almost the same in languages even of different branches. Reconstruction of any proto-language for a Sino-Tibetan family is comparatively unlikely. Their similar features can rather be explained by the partial preservation of a region with a primitive linguistic continuity that once existed here. Multiple migrations have broken this continuity, but traces of it persist in the nature of the differences between languages.
The common features for the entire Sino-Tibetan family are as follows: with very rare exceptions, each primary unit of speech - a root that coincides with a single-root word, represents one syllable. Moreover, any such syllable, taken separately, already gives us, if not in a modern living language, then at least in its ancient meaning, a completely finished word - a part or a particle of speech. This gives some linguists a reason to characterize modern Sino-Tibetan languages as monosyllabic, that is, monosyllabic. However, in fact, most of the specific words of any living language of this family are polysyllabic, representing a combination of several root syllables. Cornish syllables - parts of speech, when combined, give complex-compound words: for example, in the New Chinese language, the Cornish words ho j / c "fire" and chae $ 1. cart ", connecting, give a new word hoche train".
Such two-part words are usually called binomials. Words composed of three or more root syllables can be regarded as secondary binomials. So, the word “to type on a typewriter” in Chinese is rendered by the binomial dazi from the Cornish words yes “to beat” and tzu ”sign 7. The notion "typewriter" consists of three syllables: dazi ji but this is also essentially a binom of two meanings: dazi "print" and ji "mechanism".
While there are relatively few such compound words in Russian and other Indo-European languages, in the Sino-Tibetan languages they make up most of all vocabulary; root syllables - particles of speech and words that have lost their independent semantic meaning, joining other words, at the beginning or end, pass into prefixes or suffixes that serve for word formation and inflection.
Potentially, syllables in Sino-Tibetan languages fall into three elements: a consonant initial, consisting of one or more consonants, a vowel (simple or diphthong, triphthong) and a consonant final. A vowel is a carrier of a certain tone and is called a tonal. Tonal is an obligatory element in a word; so, in the Chinese language, the root syllable man f! the curtain 'contains an initial simple consonant (initial) m, a simple vowel a (tonal) and a final n'. There are also possible root syllables ma YL sacrifice ', an' VTs twilight 'and a ppf - an interjection. It should be noted that the initials are usually all consonants found in this language, and in many languages and their combinations. Initials - combinations of consonants - were, for example, in the ancient Tibetan language. However, the Sino-Tibetan languages tend to simplify the composition of initials, to converge consonant combinations into simple consonants.
The ending of syllables can be stopped consonants, and not all of them. For example, in modern literary Chinese, only two final and n are preserved. In the Yue dialect (Cantonese), the endings n, r, k are preserved - remnants of the ancient Chinese of a wider set of endings. The abbreviation of the finals inherent in the Sino-Tibetan family as a whole, in a number of cases, resulted in their complete disappearance and the transformation of all syllables into open ones.
Since only consonants and their combinations are used in the initials, the total number of theoretically possible syllables (and, consequently, root words) in each language is rather limited. However, this number increases several times due to the presence of tones that have a meaningful character. So, the above-mentioned word ma "sacrifice", like all words associated with it, is pronounced with a falling tone (the fourth in Chinese). The same sound combination ma, pronounced under the first (even) tone, means Щ
"mother ', under the second (ascending) -" hemp', under the third (descending-ascending) - "horse." a change in the composition of vowels.
The number of tones varies in different languages and dialects from two to nine or even more, but the general historical trend rather leads to a simplification of the tonal composition.
The grammar of the Sino-Tibetan languages is analytical at its core. As a rule, person, time, subject-object relations are expressed descriptively and through context. Almost all languages of this family are characterized by an abundance of particle classifiers, which are used to combine numerals and pronouns with nouns and indicate the generic character of the latter. For example, in Chinese "two tables" - liang zhang zhuo, where liang two ", zhuo" table ", zhang is the classifier of all flat objects. Many Sino-Tibetan languages tend to decrease the number of such categories, to use a limited number of universal classifiers.
The Chinese language, earlier than other Sino-Tibetan languages, became known to European linguists. The monosyllabic character of root words, the absence of inflection, and the apparent grammatical amorphousness of the Chinese language gave linguists, adherents of the stage theory, a reason to see it as an example of the lowest stage in the development of language, a state characteristic of language almost immediately after its emergence and preserved to this day. Historical study of the Sino-Tibetan languages refutes this opinion.
The monosyllabic state of the classical Chinese language Wenyan ye is primary, and is the result of a simplification of the ancient Chinese language, in which there were elements of agglutination and inflection.
Between classical and modern Chinese, there are still centuries of development in the direction of repeated complication and the emergence of new elements of agglutination.
The unity of the proto-Chinese tribal languages, one of which was the language of the Shang-Yin tribes known to us from the inscriptions on the oracular bones (XVI-XI centuries BC), is confirmed by the ease of spreading the Yin script after the XI century. Due to the hieroglyphic nature of the latter, the phonetic composition of these languages or dialects is difficult to reconstruct. Only the general sound system of the ancient Chinese language can be reconstructed with sufficient accuracy.
The development of the Chinese language went on throughout the centuries-old history of the Chinese people. The two sides of this process are the development and gradual change of the language in connection with ethnic history and the gradual formation and then absorption of local dialects.
There are significant differences in the phonetics and semantics of the vocabulary of the Chinese language from different historical periods. So, for example, the word go, which currently means the state, has gone through an interesting way of changing its meaning depending on the socio-economic conditions of its existence. It meant successively a fence, a fenced-in place, a city, a possession, a kingdom, a state. The word jia "family" sounds like this in modern literary language; the same word in the south sounds like ka, roughly how it sounded in ancient Chinese.
Ancient Chinese developed up to the III century. BC NS., literary language this time there was a guwen, coinciding with the colloquial or close to it; and from the III century. n. NS. Old Chinese gradually becomes a dead language and the formation of Middle Chinese begins on the basis of Guwen. At this time, Old Chinese turns into a different from the spoken archaic written Wenyan. Then follows new period- from the IX century. according to the movement "May 4, 1919", when there is wenyan, but it is already close to spoken language"Yuan drama" based on northern dialects. As a result of the struggle for a common Baihua language throughout the country, the Mandarin, based on the Peking dialect, is gradually gaining ground.
The Chinese language includes a number of dialects. Currently, it is customary to distinguish eight main dialects: 1) Peking, which is spoken by more than half of all Chinese, 2) Jiangnan (i.e., a dialect common in Jiangsu province south of the Yangtze and in Zhejiang province), 3) Guangdong, 4) Hunan , 5) Kejia (or Hakka) dialect, 6) Minnan (ie, South Fujian), 7) Jiangxi 8) Minbei (ie, North Fujian).
The names of dialects reflect only the main areas of their distribution. Thus, the provinces of Hubei, Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan are also included in the area of distribution of the Peking dialect.
Differences in dialects of modern Chinese are mainly along the line of phonetic; there are lexical differences; in grammatical structure, the differences are small. In general, the dialects are uniform, although the most widely diverged major dialects of the Chinese language are mutually incomprehensible.
The geographical distribution of dialects and the periodization of the development of the language are in good agreement with the ethnic history of the Chinese. Its first stage was undoubtedly associated with the development of the languages of clans and tribes; within the ethnic territory of the Chinese, these languages were linked by a chain of linguistic continuity.
The main modern dialects are obviously relics of local tribal languages that existed in different regions of China in antiquity. In addition, foreign-language, non-Chinese substrates, for example, Chuang Tung in the south, could play some role in the formation of modern dialects. For a long time, the peoples of the southeastern coastal zone, who defended their independence, partly perceived the language of the winners, first as the second, then as the only one. And yet the features local languages the south have survived to this day in local dialects (or, as they are called, koine g /, min and yue).
A significant influx of immigrants from the Central Chinese regions has consolidated the process of language adaptation. Already a millennium later, the population of the coastal strip considered themselves part of the Chinese people.
The process was different in the north and southwestern regions of the country. The assimilation of the local languages of non-Chinese peoples either did not meet with resistance, or did not occur. The differences between the dialects of the Chinese language in these regions are so small that it would be more accurate to speak of dialects (tuhua).
Modern colloquial literary Chinese (the normative language of the Chinese nation) - Mandarin, which literally means "common language", is the largest in terms of number speaking the language the world.
The Chinese language is polytonal. There are four tones in the Beijing pronunciation, which is accepted as the norm for Putuihua.
Mandarin is characterized by the use of a large number of classifiers, modifiers, modal particles, showing changes in number, type, shape, etc. In a large part, these final auxiliary particles became suffixes (for example, the exponent plural animate nouns myn, as in the word
tungjimyn "comrades") Modal particles can express a question emotion, a shade in expression.
There is no word change in Chinese. The plural suffix for names denoting persons, myn is used only when the plurality is not clear from the context. Inflection is somewhat developed only for the verb, but even here there is no time or face, but there are forms of appearance and modality. The syntax is subject-predicate-object. The definition precedes the defined. Prepositional constructions and postpositions have been preserved from the ancient Chinese language. So, in modern language the construction is very characteristic, which literally sounds:
or I, taking a pencil, write ’(in a literary translation, I’m better writing with a pencil”).
Tibeto-Burmese languages have a different syntax from other languages of the Sino-Tibetan family, where there is a rigid subject-object-predicate scheme.
Only in those cases when there is an indicator of the subject and an indicator of the complement, as for example in the Naxi language, the order of their mutual arrangement can be changed.
Typically, the definition precedes the defined (in Tibetan, it can also be behind the defined). Additions are introduced by postpositions. The verb has developed tense, participial and adverbial forms. It is curious to note that all these features are also present in the Altai family, the likely formation zone of which is geographically adjacent to the formation zone of the Tibeto-Burmese languages - for the former it is mainly the Altai-Sayan plateau and the steppes of Mongolia, for the latter, the provinces of the PRC - Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai. It is possible that the Altaic languages influenced the branches of the Sino-Tibetan languages that spread to the west, the initial center of the formation of which was most likely the Great Plain of China and the Loess Plateau to the west of it.
In some respects, the languages of the Tibeto-Burmese branch appear to be more archaic than other Sino-Tibetan languages. So, for example, in them, especially in Jiazhong and a number of dialects of Tibetan, traces of the former polysyllabicity, clusters of consonants in initials and finals, a smaller number of tones and a smaller specific gravity their meaningful role, in some languages - Tibetan and Jingpo - classifiers are of little use. In a number of languages of the Yizu group, on the contrary, they are close to merging with the numeral. Position of classifiers in syntactic construction also differs from that of the Chinese language. Instead of the Chinese scheme, the numeral (or demonstrative pronoun) -classifier-noun in the Tibetan-Burmese languages, the construction of noun-numeral-classifier is used.
Many Tibeto-Burmese languages are characterized by the presence of suffixes.
The Tibeto-Burmese branch of languages within East Asia falls into three groups: Tibetan, Yizu, and Jingpo. 2
In the Tibetan group, one can distinguish the languages Tibetan, Jiazhong, Qiang, Sifan, Dulong, well; however, the last two languages occupy a special position, and they can be distinguished into a separate subgroup, calling it Eastern, and the rest of the Tibetan languages - Western subgroup. The languages of the eastern subgroup are close to another group of the Tibeto-Burmese branch, namely the Yizu group, which includes the languages Yizu, Fox, Nasi, Lahu, Hani, Achan, Bai. The Jingpo language alone forms a special group, which, however, sometimes approaches and even unites with Burmese, and on the other hand, was influenced by the languages of the Yizu group.
Many of these languages fall into dialects, sometimes very numerous and so much different from one another that the scale of these differences is close to the differences between individual languages. This especially applies to the languages of Tibetan, Yizu, Hani, Jingpo.
The Chuang Tung languages make up the third branch in the Sino-Tibetan language family, which in Western European linguistics is usually called Thai. It is divided into three groups - Chuang Thai, Dong Shui and Li group. The first includes the Zhuang languages, which are extremely close to it, especially to its northern dialects, the Bui language and the Tai language. Dong Shui includes the languages Dong, Mulao, Maonan, Shui. The Li language with its own dialects is the only representative of the third group. It should be noted that, with the exception of the peculiar Li language, dialectal differences in the languages of the Chuang Tung branch are not very large and, as a rule, even between speakers of different languages within the same group, mutual understanding is possible.
Usually speakers of neighboring dialects and languages understand each other better. There is a greater difference between the languages of peoples separated by great distances. The nature of the relationship between the Chuang Tung languages, apparently, makes it possible to talk about their origin from a single language.
In modern Chinese linguistics, the name of the Chuang Tung branch after the names of the most important languages included in this branch, spread in China, has become established behind * this branch. The vocabulary of Thai, or Chuang Tung, languages is partially similar to Chinese. This is especially true for numerals, which are generally similar in Chinese, and in the Tibeto-Burmese, and in the Chuang Tung languages. The sentence is built according to the "subject-predicate-object" scheme. The definition method differs sharply from that adopted in the Tibeto-Burmese and Chinese languages, namely, the definition always follows the defined one. So, in the language of the buoys, the young man 'sounds r'i sa: i literally a young man; "old man" and 1ai literally "old man". Classifier words are close to becoming prefix articles and are included in the dictionary form of nouns. In the same language buoys tu - animal classifier; tu- ma horse', tu- pa "a fish'; zwak - bird classifier: zwak- la: in "Sparrow', zwak- kau miau “horned owl.” In numeral constructions, the usual scheme is “noun-numeral-classifier”, but with demonstrative pronouns and with the numeral “one”, the construction “noun-classifier-pronoun” is used.
The fourth branch - the Miao-Yao languages differ in their vocabulary both from the Chinese language and from the Chuang-Tung languages more than these branches of languages differ from each other, although there are undoubtedly some common features between the vocabulary fund of the Miao-Yao languages and Chinese or Chuang Tung. However, in the field of grammar, the Miao-Yao languages are rather intermediate between Chinese and Zhuangdong languages. In the Miao-Yao languages, there are several tones - from five to eight. The structure of the phrase "subject-predicate-complement" - coincides with the Zhuang-tung model. With regard to the relationship between the definition and the defined, the most common scheme is defined-definition. So, in the Miao language, "short clothes" sounds like<аэ1е "одежда короткая’. Однако некоторые наиболее употребительные прилагательные ставятся перед определяемым словом, например, mien d^ u ^ big gate ', uh sa' good song ', as well as pronominal definitions, which brings the syntax of Miao-Yao closer to Chinese.
Nouns in dictionary form usually appear together with their classifiers, although the latter can be omitted in the phrase; so in the Miao-Yao language, the classifier of kinship terms is a: a-ra ’father’,<a- mi mother ', a-r'eu grandfather'.
The composition of the numerals in the Miao-Yao languages is very different from the Chinese, Chuang Tung and Tibeto-Burmese numerals, but the developed system of counting words brings them closer to Chinese. As for the demonstrative-pronoun construction, in the Miao language the order "classifier-noun-pronoun" is adopted, and in the Yao language "pronoun-classifier-noun".
In the Miao-Yao branch, one can distinguish the Miao group (the Miao language with its dialects) ^ the Yao group (the Yao and She languages); in the third group, the Galao language, which stands somewhat apart, can be distinguished. Dialects of Yao and especially Miao languages are so different from each other that mutual understanding between speakers of different dialects is often impossible.
It seems that these dialects go back to tribal languages and are now only in the process of consolidation into national languages. At the same time, individual groups calling themselves miao, for example, on about. Hainan, speak dialects very close to Yao, and even in a number of clearly Miao dialects, for example, in Mabu-Miao, there are some traits gravitating towards Yao. It can be assumed that the differentiation of the Miao-Yao dialects into two groups can be approximately dated to the turn of our era.
However, one can hardly speak of a single proto-language Miao-Yao. Rather, there was a single area of existence of dialects that were in a state of primitive linguistic continuity. Perhaps some ancient stage of it is recorded in Chinese sources as san-miao. One must think that the Galao language stood out from it earlier than others. At the same time, one should remember about the possibility of the presence of the ancestors of the Chuangdong peoples in the San-Miao composition, later called Yue (Lo-Yue, Nan-Yue, etc.). It is natural to assume that the languages of the ancient Miao and Yue strongly influenced each other, which manifested itself in the specific, somewhat intermediate character of the Galao and Li languages.
If the closeness of the Chinese and Tibeto-Burmese languages in general was not seriously disputed, the classification of the Thai (Chuang Tung) languages and the Miao-Yao languages caused controversy. Thus, in Benedict's work, the Thai languages are separated from the Sino-Tibetan family and are considered as belonging to one large community together with the Malay-Polynesian languages. At the same time, a relic of their common proto-language was the Kadai group constructed by Benedict, which included the Li language and the Galao language, indeed of all the Miao-Yao languages, it was closer to the Chuangdong languages than others.
In Davis's work, which has greatly influenced the views of European linguists on this issue, the Miao-Yao languages are included in the Mon-Khmer family of languages. There are other points of view, but in general, the struggle of opinions was conducted mainly on the issue of the relationship of the Chuang Tung and Miao Yao languages with the Sino-Tibetan languages, as well as with the Mon-Khmer and Malay-Polynesian languages. Indeed, in the syntax of the Chuang Tung and partly Miao-Yao languages, and in their vocabulary, one can notice shifts towards rapprochement with the languages of the Mon-Khmer and Malay-Polynesian families, which are the closest neighbors.
The Vietnamese language is not considered separately here, as it is spoken mainly outside the study area and is spoken by only a small number of Vietnamese living in the border regions of China. However, the formation of the Vietnamese language is obviously closely related, as well as the formation of the Chuang Tung languages, with the Lo-Yue dialects that existed in South China, in Guangxi and adjacent regions. The vocabulary brings Vietnamese closer to the Mon Khmer family, but its structural characteristics bring it closer to most of the languages of the Sino-Tibetan family in equal measure.
The Sino-Tibetan languages (Sino-Tibetan languages) are one of the largest language families in the world. Includes over 100, according to other sources, several hundred languages, from tribal to national. The total number of speakers is over 1,100 million.
In modern linguistics, the Sino-Tibetan languages are usually divided into 2 branches, different in the degree of their internal dismemberment and in their place on the linguistic map of the world - Chinese and Tibeto-Burmese... The first is the Chinese language with its many dialects and dialect groups. It is spoken by over 1,050 million people, including about 700 million in northern dialects. The main area of its distribution is the PRC south of the Gobi and east of Tibet.
The rest of the Sino-Tibetan languages, numbering about 60 million speakers, are part of the Tibeto-Burmese branch. The peoples speaking these languages inhabit most of Myanmar (former Burma), Nepal, Bhutan, vast areas of southwestern China and northeastern India. The most important Tibeto-Burmese languages or groups of closely related languages: Burmese (up to 30 million speakers) in Myanmar and (over 5.5 million) in Sichuan and Yunnan (PRC); Tibetan (over 5 million) in Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan (PRC), Kashmir (northern India), Nepal, Bhutan; Karen languages (over 3 million) in Myanmar near the border with Thailand: Hani (1.25 million) in Yunnan; manipuri, or meithei (over 1 million); bodo, or kachari (750 thousand), and garo (up to 700 thousand) in India; jingpo, or kachin (about 600 thousand), in Myanmar and Yunnan; fox (up to 600 thousand) in Yunnan; Tamang (about 550 thousand), Newar (over 450 thousand) and Gurung (about 450 thousand) in Nepal. The endangered language of the Tujia people (up to 3 million people) in Hunan (PRC) belongs to the Tibeto-Burmese branch, but by now most of the Tujia have switched to Chinese.
Sino-Tibetan languages are syllabic, isolating with a greater or lesser tendency to agglutination. The main phonetic unit is a syllable, and the boundaries of syllables, as a rule, are at the same time the boundaries of morphemes or words. Sounds in a syllable are arranged in a strictly defined order (usually - a noisy consonant, sonant, intermediate vowel, main vowel, consonant; all elements, except for the main vowel, may be absent). Combinations of consonants are not found in all languages and are possible only at the beginning of a syllable. The number of consonants found at the end of a syllable is significantly less than the number of possible initial consonants (usually no more than 6-8); in some languages only open syllables are allowed or there is only one final nasal consonant. Many languages have a tone. In languages whose history is well known, one can observe a gradual simplification of consonantism and an increase in the complexity of the system of vowels and tones.
The morpheme usually corresponds to the syllable; the root is usually immutable. However, in many languages these principles are violated. Thus, in Burmese, the alternation of consonants is possible at the root; in classical Tibetan there were non-syllable prefixes and suffixes, expressing, in particular, the grammatical categories of the verb. The predominant way of word formation is the addition of roots. Highlighting a word is often a difficult problem: it is difficult to distinguish a complex word from a phrase, an affix from a service word. Adjectives in Sino-Tibetan languages are grammatically closer to verbs than to names; sometimes they are included in the verb category as “quality verbs”. Conversion is widespread.
Consider the origin of languages: when that number of languages was small. These were the so-called "proto-languages". Over time, proto-languages began to spread across the Earth, each of them became the ancestor of their own language family. The linguistic family is the largest unit of the classification of a language (peoples and ethnic groups) based on their linguistic affinity.
Further, the founders of language families split into language groups of languages. Languages that descended from one language family (that is, descended from one “proto-language”) are called “language group”. Languages of one language group retain many common roots, have similar grammatical structure, phonetic and lexical coincidences. There are now over 7,000 languages from over 100 language language families.
Linguists have identified over a hundred major language families of languages. It is assumed that language families are not related to each other, although there is a hypothesis about the common origin of all languages from a single language. The main language families are listed below.
| Language family | Number languages |
Total carriers language |
% from the population Of the earth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indo-European | > 400 languages | 2 500 000 000 | 45,72 |
| Sino-Tibetan | ~ 300 languages | 1 200 000 000 | 21,95 |
| Altai | 60 | 380 000 000 | 6,95 |
| Austronesian | > 1000 languages | 300 000 000 | 5,48 |
| Austroasian | 150 | 261 000 000 | 4,77 |
| Afrasian | 253 000 000 | 4,63 | |
| Dravidian | 85 | 200 000 000 | 3,66 |
| Japanese (Japanese-Ryukyus) | 4 | 141 000 000 | 2,58 |
| Korean | 78 000 000 | 1,42 | |
| Thai-Kadai | 63 000 000 | 1,15 | |
| Ural | 24 000 000 | 0,44 | |
| Other | 28 100 000 | 0,5 |
As can be seen from the list, ~ 45% of the world's population speaks the languages of the Indo-European family of languages.
Language groups of languages.
Further, the founders of language families split into language groups of languages. Languages that descended from one language family (that is, descended from one “proto-language”) are called “language group”. Languages of the same language group have many coincidences in the roots of words, in grammatical structure and phonetics. There is also a finer division of groups into subgroups.
The Indo-European language family is the most widespread language family in the world. The number of speakers of the languages of the Indo-European family exceeds 2.5 billion people who live on all inhabited continents of the Earth. The languages of the Indo-European family occurred as a result of the successive disintegration of the Indo-European proto-language, which began about 6 thousand years ago. Thus, all languages of the Indo-European family descend from a single Proto-Indo-European language.
The Indo-European family includes 16 groups, including 3 dead groups. Each language group can be divided into subgroups and languages. The table below does not indicate the finer division into subgroups, as well as there are no dead languages and groups.
| Indo-European language family | |
|---|---|
| Language groups | Incoming languages |
| Armenian | Armenian language (Eastern Armenian, Western Armenian) |
| Baltic | Latvian, Lithuanian |
| Germanic | Frisian languages (West Frisian, East Frisian, North Frisian languages), English , Scottish (Anglo-Scottish) language, Dutch language, Low German language, German , Hebrew (Yiddish), Icelandic, Faroese, Danish, Norwegian (Landsmol, Bokmol, Nynorsk), Swedish (Swedish in Finland, Skon), Gutni |
| Greek | Modern Greek language, Tsakonian language, Italian-Ruman language |
| Dard | Glangali, Kalasha, Kashmiri, Kho, Kohistani, Pashai, Phalura, Torvali, Shina, Shumashti |
| Illyrian | Albanian |
| Indo-Aryan | Sinhalese, Maldivian, Hindi, Urdu, Assamese, Bengali, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Oriya language, Bihar languages, Punjabi, Lakhnda, Gujuri, Dogri |
| Iranian | Ossetian language, Yagnob language, Saki languages, Pashto language Pamir languages, Baluch language, Talish language, Bakhtiar language, Kurdish language, Caspian dialects, Dialects of Central Iran, Zazaki (Zaza, Dimli), Gorani (Gurani), Persian (Farsi) ), Hazara language, Tajik language, Tati language |
| Celtic | Irish (Irish Gaelic), Gaelic (Scottish Gaelic), Manx, Welsh, Breton, Cornish |
| Nuristan | Kati (kamkata-viri), Ashkun (ashkunu), Vaigali (kalasha-ala), Tregami (gambiri), Prasun (wasi-vari) |
| Romanesque | Aromun, Istro-Romanian, Meglen-Romanian, Romanian, Moldavian, French, Norman, Catalan, Provencal, Piedmont, Ligurian (modern), Lombard, Emilian-Romagnole, Venetian, Istro-Romanesque, Italian, Corsican, Neapolitan, Sicilian, Sardinian, Aragonese, Spanish, Asturleonian, Galician, Portuguese, Miranda, Ladino, Romansh, Friulian, Ladinsky |
| Slavic | Bulgarian language, Macedonian language, Church Slavonic language, Slovenian language, Serbian-Croatian language (Shtokavian), Serbian language(Ekava and Yekava), Montenegrin (Yekava), Bosnian, Croatian (Yekava), Kaikavian dialect, Molise-Croatian, Gradish-Croatian, Kashubian, Polish, Silesian, Luzhitsky subgroup (Upper Sorbian, Czech, Slovak Russian language, Ukrainian language, Polissya micro-language, Rusyn language, Yugoslav-Rusyn language, Belarusian language |
The language classification explains the reason for the difficulty of learning foreign languages. To the carrier Slavic language, which belong to the Slavic group of the Indo-European family of languages, it is easier to learn the language of the Slavic group than the language of another group of the Indo-European family, such as the languages of the Romance group (French) or the Germanic group of languages (English). It is even more difficult to learn the language of another language family, for example, Chinese, which is not part of the Indo-European family, but belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family.
By choosing foreign language for study, they are guided by the practical, and more often the economic side of the matter. To get a well-paid job, first of all, they choose such popular languages as English or German.
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Additional materials on language families.
Below are the main language families and languages included in them. The Indo-European language family is discussed above.
Sino-Tibetan (Sino-Tibetan) language family.
Sino-Tibetan is one of the largest language families in the world. Includes over 350 languages, spoken by over 1200 million people. The Sino-Tibetan languages are divided into 2 groups, Chinese and Tibeto-Burmese.
● The Chinese group is formed by Chinese and its many dialects, the number of native speakers is more than 1050 million. Distributed in China and beyond. and min languages with more than 70 million native speakers.
● The Tibeto-Burmese group includes about 350 languages, with about 60 million speakers. Distributed in Myanmar (formerly Burma), Nepal, Bhutan, southwestern China and northeastern India. The main languages are Burmese (up to 30 million speakers), Tibetan (over 5 million), Karen languages (over 3 million), Manipuri (over 1 million) and others.
The Altai (hypothetical) language family includes the Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchurian language groups. sometimes include the Korean and Japanese-Ryukyu language groups.
● Turkic language group- widespread in Asia and Eastern Europe... The number of speakers is more than 167.4 million people. They are divided into the following subgroups:
・ Bulgar subgroup: Chuvash (dead - Bulgar, Khazar).
・ Oguz subgroup: Turkmen, Gagauz, Turkish, Azerbaijani (dead - Oguz, Pechenezh).
・ Kypchak subgroup: Tatar, Bashkir, Karaite, Kumyk, Nogai, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Altai, Karakalpak, Karachai-Balkar, Crimean Tatar. (dead - Polovtsian, Pechenezh, Golden Horde).
・ Karluk subgroup: Uzbek, Uyghur.
・ East Hunnic subgroup: Yakut, Tuvan, Khakass, Shor, Karagas. (dead - Orkhon, Old Uigur.)
● The Mongolian language group includes several closely related languages of Mongolia, China, Russia and Afghanistan. Includes modern Mongolian (5.7 million people), Khalkha-Mongolian (Khalkha), Buryat, Khamnigan, Kalmyk, Oirat, Shira-Yugur, Mongorian, Bao'an-Dunsyan cluster, Mughal language - Afghanistan, Dagur (Dakhur) languages.
● The Tungus-Manchu language group is related languages in Siberia (including the Far East), Mongolia and northern China. The number of speakers is 40 - 120 thousand people. Includes two subgroups:
・ Tunguska subgroup: Evenk, Evenk (Lamut), Negidal, Nanai, Udei, Ulch, Oroch, Udege.
・ Manchu subgroup: Manchu.
The languages of the Austronesian language family are spoken in Taiwan, Indonesia, Java - Sumatra, Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia, East Timor, Oceania, Kalimantan and Madagascar. This is one of the largest families (the number of languages is over 1000, the number of speakers is over 300 million people). They are divided into the following groups:
● Western Austronesian languages
● languages of eastern Indonesia
● oceanic languages
Afrasian (or Semitic-Hamitic) language family.
● Semitic group
・ Northern subgroup: Aysor.
・ Southern group: Arabic; Amharic, etc.
・ Dead: Aramaic, Akkadian, Phoenician, Canaanite, Hebrew (Hebrew).
・ Hebrew (revived official language Israel).
● Kushite group: Galla, Somali, Beja.
● Berber group: Tuareg, Kabil, etc.
● Chadian group: Hausa, Gwandara, etc.
● Egyptian group (dead): Ancient Egyptian, Coptic.
The languages of the pre-Indo-European population of the Indian subcontinent are included:
● Dravidian group: Tamil, Malalayam, Kannara.
● Andhra group: Telugu.
● Central Indian group: Gondi.
● Brahui language (Pakistan).
The Japanese-Ryukyu (Japanese) family of languages is common in the Japanese archipelago and on the Ryukyu Islands. Japanese is an isolated language that is sometimes referred to as a hypothetical Altai family. The family includes:
・ Japanese and dialects.
The Korean language family is represented by one single language - Korean. Korean is an isolated language that is sometimes referred to as the hypothetical Altai family. The family includes:
・ Japanese and dialects.
・ Ryukyu languages (Amami-Okinawan, Sakishim and Yonagun).
The Thai-Kadai (Thai-Kadai, Dun-Thai, Paratai) family of languages is widespread on the Indochina peninsula and in the adjacent regions of southern China.
● li languages (hlai (li) and jiamao) Thai languages
・ Northern subgroup: northern dialects of the Zhuang language, buoys, sek.
・ Central subgroup: tai (tho), nung, southern dialects of the Zhuang language.
・ Southwestern subgroup: Thai (Siamese), Lao, Shan, Khamti, Ahom, languages of black and white Thai, yuan, ly, khyn.
● Dong Shui languages: Dong, Shui, Mac, Then.
● Be
● Kadai languages: Lakua, Lati, Galao languages (northern and southern).
● li languages (hlai (li) and jiamao)
The Uralic language family includes two groups - Finno-Ugric and Samoyed.
● Finno-Ugric group:
・ Baltic-Finnish subgroup: Finnish, Izhorian, Karelian, Vepsian languages, Estonian, Votian, Livian languages.
・ Volga subgroup: Mordovian language, Mari language.
・ Permian subgroup: Udmurt, Komi-Zyryan, Komi-Permian and Komi-Yazvin languages.
・ Ugric subgroup: Khanty and Mansi, as well as Hungarian.
・ Sami subgroup: languages spoken by the Sami.
● Samoyedic languages are traditionally divided into 2 subgroups:
・ Northern subgroup: Nenets, Nganasan, Enets languages.
・ Southern subgroup: Selkup language.