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Origin of language: theories and hypotheses

One of the most difficult riddles in human life is language. How did it come about, why do people prefer to communicate with it, from where on the planet are there so many varieties of speech? The answers to these questions are the subject of scientific research.

Biological theories of the origin of language

If we consider the origin of language, theories tell us a lot. All of them are divided into two groups: biological and social.

The first group of theories asserts that the development of the linguistic sphere in man is associated with the development of his brain and speech apparatus. This is the theory of onomatopoeia, which says that words in a person's speech appeared as imitation of the phenomena of the surrounding world. For example, people heard the sound of the wind, the cry of a bird, the animal roar and created words.

This theory, explaining the origin and development of the language by imitation of natural sounds, was soon rejected. Indeed, there are words that imitate the sounds of the surrounding world. But mostly the sounds of nature in our cities are no longer audible, and new words are created in other ways.

The origin of language, the theory of the development of words and word forms - all this is the subject of the study of philologists. Already in ancient times, scientists were engaged in this, and once the theory of interjections played its role. It originated in the 18th century.

Its essence is that initially the words expressed different emotional states, and the first to appear in the speech were emotional cries.

Social contract

Many studied the origin of the language, linguistics as a science developed due to these scientists. Gradually, biological theories of the origin of language were rejected, social ones replaced them.

Such theories of the emergence of language appeared in antiquity. Diodorus of Sicily argued that people agreed with each other about calling objects in a certain way. These ideas were developed by the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the eighteenth century.

The views of Engels

The origin and development of language has always attracted scientists who sought to solve this riddle. In 1876 appeared the work of Friedrich Engels "The role of labor in the process of turning a monkey into a human being." The main idea put forward by Engels is that speaking helped to transform the monkey into a human being and developed everything in the collective during joint labor activities. Together with Karl Marx, Engels created many works devoted to the development of speech. Many subsequent hypotheses of the origin of language originate in Marx and Engels.

According to Engels, language and consciousness are closely connected with each other, and the basis of consciousness is the practical active activity of man. Gradually, with the development of society, different dialects of human speech appear, and the literary language, which is opposed to folk dialect, becomes the expression of the consciousness of elite sections of society. Thus, according to Engels, the development of German and English languages took place.

The Divine Origin of Language

Language, including literary, is a gift given to man by God. So many thinkers of the past thought. Gregory of Nyssa, a prominent Christian thinker, wrote that "the gift of speech was given to man by God." Wilhelm Humboldt also shared similar views . In his opinion, speech was given to man by divine forces, and this happened at one time, without preliminary development. Together with the creation of the human body, God put his soul and ability to speak into him. This theory completely coincides with the hypothesis of the monogenesis of languages and the biblical story of how the Lord mixed human dialects, so that they could no longer understand each other.

This version was developed by such scientists as Alfredo Trombetti, Nikolai Marr, Alexander Melnichuk. American linguist Morris Swadesh proved the existence of large macro-families of languages and the existence of family ties between them. The largest group is the Nostratic, it includes Kartvelian, Dravidian, Altaic, Eskimo-Aleut dialects. They all share similarities.

Now consider the origin of some of them.

The Origin of the Russian Language: Old Russian Period

The Russian language is one of the most common in the world. About 260 million people speak it. It takes the fifth place in popularity on the planet.

The history of the Russian language has several periods. The initial period of its development - Old Russian, which lasted from the sixth to the fourteenth century of our era. The Old Russian period is divided into pre-written, that is, before the 11th century, and written, from the 11th century. But since the 11th century, the Old Russian language has decayed into separate dialects. This is due to the invasion of the Mongol-Tatars, the division of a single Russia into different states. The origin of the Russian modern language originates in a later era, but in modern times there are archaic layers of vocabulary.

The Old Russian period

The second period of development - Old Russian, which lasted from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. At that time, two different strata coexist in the same culture: the Church Slavonic version of the Russian dialect and the Russian literary language proper, based on the folk dialect. As a result, the Moscow Koine begins to dominate.

The history of the Russian language allows us to trace how it was formed, what its features were lost in the process of formation. Already in the Old Russian period, such features as the dual number disappeared without a trace, the vocative case was lost (which, however, remained in the Ukrainian language), the types of declension were unified.

Russian national language

The beginning of the formation of the Russian national language can be considered the middle of the seventeenth century. The origin of its modern version is attributed to a later period, namely to the 19th century. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin greatly influenced his formation.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the sphere of Church Slavonic lexicon is gradually narrowing, as society becomes more secular and the secular becomes honorable. In the eighteenth century, the norms of Russian grammar and spelling are laid, and Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov plays an important role in this. His "Russian grammar" becomes the basis for subsequent linguistic scientists and everyone interested in Russian grammar, lexicology, morphology.

Pushkin's creativity finally formed the Russian literary language and allowed him to take a worthy place in the world. Russian national speech is characterized by the fact that the role of borrowing in it is quite large. If in the seventeenth century they came from the Polish language, in the eighteenth - from Dutch and German, then in the nineteenth century the French came to the forefront, and in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries - English. And now the number of words coming from English is huge.

What else is known to scientists in such a field of research as the origin of language? Theories are plentiful, especially with regard to the Russian language, but until the end of this issue is not clear and at the moment.

How the Ukrainian language appeared

The Ukrainian language appeared on the basis of the same dialects as the Russian. The origin of the Ukrainian language is attributed to the fourteenth century. In the period from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the Old Ukrainian one developed, and from the end of the eighteenth century - the modern Ukrainian one.

The foundations of the literary Ukrainian language were developed by Ivan Petrovich Kotlyarevsky, who created the immortal works of "Aeneid" and "Natalka Poltavka". In them, he cleverly combines the motifs of ancient literature with contemporary realities. But most scholars attribute the origin of the Ukrainian dialect to the work of Taras Shevchenko. It was the latter that brought Ukrainian to the level peculiar to world languages. Creativity Shevchenko gave the Ukrainian an opportunity to express themselves. Such works as "Kobzar", "Katerina", "Dream", were translated into other languages of the world, and the author himself contributed to the assembly of the most famous writers and philosophers who gave new values to mankind.

The origin of the Ukrainian language is studied by many researchers, including well-known Canadian scientists.

Why is English so famous?

English is considered the most common in the world after Chinese and Spanish. The number of people talking on it tends to a billion people.

The origin of the languages of the world is of interest to everyone, especially those who study English. Now it is widely used in business, trade, international cooperation, and this is because the British Empire conquered half the world in the nineteenth century. At present, the United States has an enormous influence on the planet, the official language of which is also English.

The history of Shakespeare's language is divided into different periods. The Old English existed from the fifth to the eleventh centuries of our era, the Middle English from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries, and from the fifteenth to the present time there is New England. I must say that the origin of the Latin language has much in common with the origin of English.

In the formation of the speech of the British, the languages of the various tribes that lived in the country from ancient times played an important role, as well as the languages of the Vikings who invaded the island. Later, Normans appeared in Britain. Thanks to them, a large layer of French words appeared in the English dialect. William Shakespeare is a writer who made a huge contribution to the development of the language of the inhabitants of Albion. His works have become a cultural asset of the British. The origin of the language, the theory of which is so numerous, is explained by the influence of famous writers.

Now English occupies a leading position in the world. It is a means of communication on the Internet, science and business. Most negotiation processes in different countries, diplomatic correspondence take place in English.

The number of his dialects is very large. But the English and American variants are opposed to each other.

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