Lecture 9. Classification of the Languages

Lecture 9. Classification of the Languages

1. 
   General Classifications
   
2. 
   Typological Classification
   
3. 
   Genealogical Classification
   

There are a number of classifications in linguistics, the principal ones are: areal, genealogical, typological and functional.

The areal (geographical) classification consists in the study of the linguistic map of the world, linguistic characteristic of different countries, as well as the spread of certain languages or group of languages.

The functional classification of the languages is multiple. It concerns of three parts: 1. Connection of the language with the people to whom it belongs; 2. Functions, that the language fulfills in the given society; 3. Prevalence of the language out of the borders of the main ethnic group.

The typological classification evidentiates the types of the languages and gives their typological characteristics.

The genealogical classification investigates the languages from the points of view of their material common character as a result of development from one general source. We shall dwell upon the last two classifications.

The typological classification consists in the revealing of the main types of the grammatical structure of the languages. It appeared in the first half of the XIX century in the works of brothers Franz and Augustin Schleigel and the works of the well-known German scientist Wilhelm von Gumbolidt.

Typologically the languages are characterized according to word-changing, word formation and syntax. Therefore, the typological classification studies the languages from the point of view of their grammatical form.

The languages of the world differ, on one hand, by their diversity of forms, and on the other, by the general features both in the social functions and in the building of sentences, number of the main parts of speech. Among the typological classifications the most spread is the morphological classification of the languages. It is based on the opposition of the roots and affixes in the word formation. There are evidentiated three morphological types; 1) the isolating (root) type; 2) the agglutinative type; and 3) the inflected type. The structure of the language may be synthetic or analytical.

The grammatical significance in such languages is expressed by means of formal words, word order and the components of the language units, stress, that may be musical, and intonation. Isolating languages are, for example, the Chinese, the Vietnamese and other languages of the Chinese-Tibetian family.

The word formation structure of the Chinese compound word is characterized by an analytical structure as the role of the suffix is fulfilled by the morpheme that is used as an independent word, f.e. Iλ (gunren-worker) literary is "work+man", shanyeni=shop-assistant; tsunyen=a military man. The Chinese nouns are divided into two groups – the nouns that determine the person and the nouns that have no person. The first nouns are formed by means of the morpheme – yeni – the concept of "man"; nanyen – a nan (male), nii – a woman, they also may have the morpheme – "meni" with the meaning of the plural number expressing a collective noun: haizi – children, munchpenduóu – friend. The nouns that have no person do not combine with the morpheme of collective plurality, they have other formal morphemes: shu – a tree (sunshu – pine, ianshu poplar), fan – insect (mifan – bee, mofan – wasp).

2.2. The Agglutinative and Inflected Languages

In some languages, as well as in Russian, inflexion plays a great role, because it indicates to the grammatical meaning of the word: book-s (in English), роз-а (in Russian), fat-a (in Romanian), etc., in Russian and Romanian the inflexion indicates the gender, number, case of the word. This is a formation element which is added to the root of the word.

The formation affixes are also connected to the root/stem of the words in the agglutinative languages (agglutination comes from Latin "agglutinat" – caused to adhere).

There is a difference between them.

The inflexion is polysemantic because it is the indicator of some meanings. For example, in the Tatar language the form "bulmadyrlar" (were not) is constituted of the root bul- to be and the affixes: ma – indicates the negation, dyr – indicator of the 3^rd person Singular of the verb in the Past tense and -lar the indicator of the Plural number.

The inflected languages are divided into analytical and synthetical languages.

The analytical languages are supposed to use more widely the formal words, phonetical means and word order for the formation of words, word combinations and sentences. These are: English, French, Romanian, Hindu, Persian, Bulgarian and other Indo-European languages.

The synthetical languages are characterized by the fact that, alongside with the formal words, word order and intonation, a great role belongs to the forms of the words built by means of affixes – inflexions in the way of suffixes and prefixes. The synthetical languages are: Russian, Polish, Lithuanian. The majority of Indo-European languages, for example, the Romanian has four words for a household device: maşină de tocat carne, which in the Russian language will be related by a compound word, built by composition from two words (мясо и рубка – мясорубка). From this example, we can see that Russian is an inflected language of the synthetical status.

Cognate languages are called those ones that originate from one and the same source and have the ancient common roots and affixes and the regular phonetic correspondences. The kinship of languages does not represent a complete identity, but a natural development from one and the same ancestor language.

Family – the totality/aggregate of the languages of the given kinship. There are such families of languages as: Indo-European, Semitic, Turkic and others.

The grouping within the family of languages is called the branch or group of the cognate languages. The branches of the language families unite the languages displaying among themselves great material propinquity. This may be observed, for example, among the Baltic and Slav groups of languages. Furthermore, the group is divided into subgroups, f.e., the Slav group is divided into three subgroups.

The Indo-European family of languages is the most spread one. Among the Indo-European languages there are living languages and dead ones.

The dead languages having no written forms are: the Polabian, Scythian, Gallic, Prussian languages, etc.

The dead languages having written forms are: the Sanskrit, ancient Persian, Paly, Pehlevi, ancient Greek, Latin, Byzantine, the Old Slavic language, Gothic, Toharian, Hetl and other languages.

Modern Indo-European languages also have written and without written languages.

They are divided into 10 groups, each of these groups have a different number of languages:

The Indian branch has a long history of writing. One of the most ancient languages of the world is Sanskrit, the Middle-Indian one is Pali. The Modern Indian languages – the northern groups: Sindha, Lahida, Pendjabi; the east group: eastern Hindi, Bihari, Horia, Benghali; the central group: western Hindi; the western group: Hudjarati, Radjastani; the southern group: Marathi.

The Celtic group is divided into two subgroups: Irish, Scottish, etc.; British, Bretan and Welsh.

The Roman languages are the Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Reto-Romanian, Provance, Catalan, Sardinish.

The German languages are divided into two subgroups: northern – Swiss, Dutch, Norwegian, Islandish, Farerish; and western: English, German, Holland, Flammandian, Frizian and Idish. The most spread language is English.

The Baltic group is represented by two languages – Lithuanian and Latvian. There is a close cognate link between The Baltic and Slavic languages, that some scientists presuppose that there was probably a Baltic-Slavic union in the past.

The Greek, Albanian and Armenian languages are represented in their groups only by themselves alone.

The Slavic Group of Languages. Modern linguistics evidentiates three groups of Slavic languages, very close, but which differentiate from each other by their structure, vocabulary, morphological features:

• 
  Southern Slavic – Bulgarian, Serbo-Horvatian, Macedonian, Slovenian;
  
• 
  Western Slavic – Polish, Czech, Slovak, Kashubian, Up- and Down-Lujitsk;
  
• 
  Eastern Slavic – Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian.
  

The first remembrance of the Slavic people we meet at the Romance historians Plinius, Tacit, Phtolomeu – in the first centuries A.D. They speak about Venedians, living on the Southern coast of the Baltic Sea in the VI century A.D. Procopie Kesariisky mentioned two Slavic tribes – Slovens and Anths.

In the IV-III centuries B.C. Preslavic language occupies the territory from the river Visla to the west of the Dnieper to the east, from the river Pripeati to the north of the river Bug – in the South.

To the I-II centuries they stretch their territories from the left shore of the river Oder to the river Desna and the Baltic Sea to the foothills of the Carpathian mountain.

After the II century the eastern Slavic people move to the western Bug, the western Slavic people settle on the river Elba and the South Pribaltik and the modern Chechoslavakia; in the VI century the Southern Slavic people occupy the Balcan straight and the eastern Alps; the eastern Slavic people move to the rivers Dnieper and Volga till the Black Sea.

All these processes contribute to the separation of the Slavic people one from the other.

In the IX-X centuries the formation of the towns-centers – Kiev and Novgorod, being the creation of the unique ancient Russian State and the formation of the ancient Russian population. The old tribal names disappear and new names of the certain people of the regions – novgorodians (Slovenians), Kieans (Polenians), Reazans (Veatichi) and so on appear.

In the XIV-XV centuries three separate eastern Slavic people are formed: the Russians, the Ukrainians and the Bielorussians. The language differentiation is developed, there appear language features characteristic of those coming in contact groups.

Writing appears with the appearance, development and consolidating of the Kiev state, being necessary for the state correspondence, for the development of commerce and culture.

In this period the formation of the national language begins being connected with the concentration of the territories, standing to the development of new dialectal peculiarities although the dialects will be preserved for a long time developing their local characteristics.
Other Main Families of the Languages

These are:

The Altay family which includes three branches of the languages: Turcic, which is the biggest one and is divided into the western branch: the Gagaus, Turkish, Turkmenian, Azerbaijan, Tatar, Bashkirian, Kazah, Karakalpak, Nogai, Uzbek, Uigur; eastern branch – Tuvin, Iakut, Hacassian, Shor, Kirghis; Mongolian (is also divided into two groups; northern having its writing – Mongolian, Buryat, Kalmyk, and southern-eastern which has no writing – Dagur, Dunsean, Mongor, Baoni); Tungus-Manchjurian languages (Evenk, Even, Manchjurian, Nandi, Udadey, etc.)

The Ural family of languages that unites the Ugro-Finnish and Samodian languages is divided into four groups: Pribaltik-Finnish (Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, Vepskian, Jigorian, Vodian languages); Permian (Udmurt, Komi-Zyrean, Komi-Permeats), Volga language (Mari, Mordvinian); Ugro languages (Hungarian, Khantyian, Mansiyan). The Samodian languages include Nenets, Enetz, Nganasan, Selikyp languages.

Pal(a)eoasian family includes the languages of the so-called small population of Syberia, these are Chukot-Kamcheatian group (Chukot, Koryak, Iteliman languages), Eskimo-Aleuthan (Eskimo and Aleuthian), Nivxian, Uchaghir, Keth languages.

The Caucasus family of languages is spread exclusively in the Caucasus). It is divided into four groups: Kartvelian (Georgian, Zanian, Swan); Adigey-Abkhasian (Abkhasian, Adigey, Kabardinian, Ubykh); Nakhian (Chechen, Ingush, Batzbyian); Fagestan (it is divided into three subgroups: Avar-Avar, Andyar, Tsezian and others (all in all 14 languages); Lax-Darghin (Lax and Darghin languages); Lezghin – Lezghin, Tabasaran, Ruthulian, Aghul and others (all in all 10 languages),

Chinese-Tibetan family (it is the most numerous group (after the Indo-European family). The people of this family of languages live in China and Indo-China. The languages of this family are divided into two groups: Tai-Chinese and Tibetan-Birman languages.

The Dravidian family – these are the languages of India before the arrival of the Europeans: Telughu (one of the national languages of the southern India, an ancient very developed language, the II century A.D.), Tamili, Malaialam, Kannarian languages.
The Languages of America

Indian (American) family of languages represents a very big conglomerate of separate languages and language groups – approximate 109 language groups. They are divided into: north American (subgroups: Atapass – Apachi, Navaho, Pueblo; Algonkhin – Algonkhin, Odjibre, Otava; Sius (Dakota), Offo; Irocjeze, Chiroki, Tuskarora; Muskog – Krick, Seminol); central American (maia subgroup – Maia, Kiche, Mame, Chial, Huachstechi; Otomi subgroup – Otomi, Sapoteck; Aztech subgroup – Azteck, Iuta, Hoppi) and South American languages (Khechua, Iupi, Guarani, Apuche, Araukhan, Diaghit, Muisck, Kunsck, Talamans). Khechua people inhabit three states of South America – Peru, Bolivia and Equador. In the XV century Kchechua having united with the Inks created one of the strongest and most developed states of the South America with the capital city of Kusko.

Africa is a multilingual continent, there are many languages and dialects there which are divided into four families.

Semitic-Hamitian family which is divided into three groups: Semitic – Arab, Amharian, Ivrit; Berberian – Kabilian, Tamasighian, Shlehian and others; Kushitian – Galla, Somalian, Apharian, Kaffian and others.

Bantu family of languages is divided into 7 groups: Duala, Fang, Luganda, Ruanda, Kongo, Mongo, Luba, Bemba, Tonga, Swuahili, Zulu and many others.

Guinea languages: Akai, Ibo, Ioirubi, Ave, Cru and others.

Nilot languages (the tribes and people on the river of Nile): Nubian, Dinka, Nuarian, Barian, Sucjian and others.

There are great and multiple amalgamations of languages in Australia and Oceania. Their population is constituted of three groups: Europeans, Asians and aborigines. The aborigines’ language may be divided into two families.

The Austronesian family unites four groups: Indonesian (three languages); Polinesian (11 languages); Melanesian and Micronesian.

The Papua family of languages. These are the languages of New Guinea, West Irian (part of Indonesia) and some other islands of Melanesia. These languages have no writing, the number of people speaking them is very limited, the most spread ones are Hagen, Chimbu, Huli, Kamano, Abelam and others.

The history testifies that the number of languages is decreasing, the tribal languages turn into the languages of nationalities, then of the nations. However, the process of the language development and of the unification of dialects is going on slowly, the modern mankind continues to remain a multilingual one.
The Germanic Family of Languages