One of the most difficult mysteries in human life is language. How did it appear, why do people prefer to communicate with it, why are there so many varieties of speech on the planet? The answers to these questions are the subject of scientific research.
Biological theories of the origin of language
If we look at 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 claims that the development of the language sphere in a person is associated with the development of his brain and speech apparatus. This is the theory of onomatopoeia, which says that words in human speech appeared as an imitation of the phenomena of the surrounding world. For example, people heard the sound of the wind, the cry of a bird, the roar of an animal and created words.
This theory, explaining the origin and development of 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 are no longer heard in our cities, 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 research by philologists. Already in ancient times, scientists were engaged in this,and the theory of interjections once played its role. It originated in the 18th century.
Its essence lies in the fact that initially words expressed various emotional states, and emotional cries were the first to appear in speech.
Social Contract
Many have investigated the origin of language, linguistics as a science has developed thanks to these scientists. Gradually, the biological theories of the origin of the language were rejected, they were replaced by social ones.
Such theories of the emergence of language appeared in antiquity. Diodorus Siculus claimed that people agreed with each other to name objects in a certain way. These ideas were developed by the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the eighteenth century.
Engels' views
The origin and development of language has always attracted scientists who have sought to solve this mystery. In 1876, the work of Friedrich Engels appeared "The role of labor in the process of turning a monkey into a man." The main idea put forward by Engels is that speaking contributed to the transformation of the monkey into a man and everything developed in the team during joint labor activities. Together with Karl Marx, Engels created many works on the development of speech. Many subsequent hypotheses of the origin of language originate from Marx and Engels.
According to Engels, language and consciousness are closely related to each other, and the basis of consciousness is the practical activity of man. Gradually, with the development of society,different dialects of human speech appear, and the literary language, which is opposed to the folk dialect, becomes an expression of the consciousness of the elite strata of society. So, according to Engels, the development of the German and English languages took place.
Divine origin of language
Language, including literary, is a gift given to man from above by God. So thought many thinkers of the past. Gregory of Nyssa, a prominent Christian thinker, wrote that "God gave man the gift of speech." Wilhelm Humboldt held similar views. In his opinion, speech was given to man by divine forces, and this happened at one moment, without prior development. Along with the creation of the human body, God put a soul and the ability to speak into it. The hypothesis of the monogenesis of languages and the biblical story about how the Lord mixed human dialects so that they could no longer understand each other completely coincide with this theory.
This version was developed by such scientists as Alfredo Trombetti, Nikolai Marr, Alexander Melnichuk. The American linguist Morris Swadesh proved the existence of large macrofamilies of languages and the existence of family ties between them. The largest group is Nostratic, it includes Kartvelian, Dravidian, Altai, Eskimo-Aleut dialects. They all share common features.
Now consider the origin of some of them.
Origin of the Russian language: Old Russian period
Russian language is one of the most widespread in the world. It is spoken by approximately 260million people. Ranks fifth in popularity on the planet.
The history of the Russian language has several periods. The initial period of its development is Old Russian, which lasted from the sixth to the fourteenth century AD. The Old Russian period is divided into pre-literate, that is, until the 11th century, and written, from the 11th century. But since the 11th century, the Old Russian language has been disintegrating into separate dialects. This is due to the invasion of the Mongol-Tatars, with the division of united Russia into various states. The origin of the modern Russian language dates back to a later era, but there are also archaic layers of vocabulary in modern times.
Old Russian period
The second period of development is the Old Russian, which lasted from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. At this time, two different layers coexist in one culture - this is the Church Slavonic version of the Russian dialect and the Russian literary language itself, based on the folk dialect. As a result, the Moscow koine begins to dominate.
The history of the Russian language allows you to trace how it was formed, what 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 laterperiod, namely the 19th century. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin had a great influence on his formation.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the scope of the use of Church Slavonic vocabulary gradually narrows, as society becomes more secular and the worldly is honored. In the eighteenth century, the norms of Russian grammar and spelling were laid down, and Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov played a big role in this. His "Russian Grammar" becomes the basis for subsequent linguists and anyone interested in Russian grammar, lexicology, morphology.
Pushkin's work finally formed the Russian literary language and allowed him to take his rightful place in the world. Russian national speech is characterized by the fact that the role of borrowings in it is quite large. If in the seventeenth century they came from Polish, in the eighteenth - from Dutch and German, then in the nineteenth century French comes to the fore, and in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries - English. And now the number of words coming from English is simply huge.
What else do scientists know about the origins of language? Theories are numerous, especially with regard to the Russian language, but this issue has not been fully clarified at the moment.
How the Ukrainian language appeared
The Ukrainian language appeared on the basis of the same dialects as Russian. The origin of the Ukrainian language dates back to the fourteenth century. In the period from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the Old Ukrainian language developed, and fromthe end of the eighteenth - already modern Ukrainian.
The foundations of the literary Ukrainian language were developed by Ivan Petrovich Kotlyarevsky, who created the immortal works "Aeneid" and "Natalka Poltavka". In them, he witty combines the motifs of ancient literature with contemporary realities. But the origin of the Ukrainian dialect, most scientists attribute to the work of Taras Grigoryevich Shevchenko. It was the latter that brought Ukrainian to the level characteristic of world languages. Shevchenko's work gave Ukrainians the opportunity to express themselves. Such works as "Kobzar", "Katerina", "Dream" were translated into other languages of the world, and the author himself was included in the host of the most famous writers and philosophers who gave new values to humanity.
The origin of the Ukrainian language is studied by many researchers, including well-known Canadian scientists.
Why is English so famous
English is the most widely spoken language in the world after Chinese and Spanish. The number of people who speak it is approaching 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 due to the fact that the British Empire conquered half the world in the nineteenth century. Currently, the United States has a huge influence on the planet, the official language of which is also English.
The history of Shakespeare's language is divided into different periods. Old English existed from the fifth to the eleventh century AD, Middle English fromeleventh to fifteenth centuries, and from the fifteenth to our time there is a New English. It must be said that the origin of the Latin language has much in common with the origin of English.
The languages of different tribes that lived on the territory of the country for a long time, as well as the languages of the Vikings who invaded the island, played an important role in shaping the speech of the British. Later, the 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 Foggy Albion. His works have become a cultural heritage of the British. The origin of the language, about which there are so many theories, is due to the influence of famous writers.
Now English is the world's leading language. It is a means of communication in the Internet, science and business. Most of the negotiation processes in different countries, diplomatic correspondence takes place in English.
The number of his dialects is very large. But the English and American versions oppose each other.
