“Why do people speak different languages?” - Everyone asked this question in childhood, but not many solve this riddle for themselves, and as adults. From time immemorial people have tried to answer this question: there is a biblical legend, and folk traditions, and a scientific hypothesis. All these versions are based on one simple fact, which is not difficult to notice without a special linguistic education: even very different languages ​​very often have much in common.
Legends
To the question of why people speak different languages, the legend of Australia has its own, very original answer: once the peoples were divided into “pure” and “unclean”. Both of them were cannibals, but ate different parts of the body - “clean” ate meat, “unclean” - internal organs. From everyday differences, according to the natives, the language differences went.
The tribes from Indochina have their own vision of the problem: each of the races that make up humanity had its own dialect. There are six such races, and all of them, like branches, curl from a giant pumpkin, the “progenitor”.
Less exotic, but just as interesting is the Amazon version: languages ​​were shared by God - he needed this so that, having ceased to understand each other, people began to listen to him more.
The Iroquois tribe has a belief that people who once understood each other quarreled and, therefore, lost their “common language,” spoke different languages. This disconnection, according to myth, did not even occur among strangers, but within the same family!
There is a beautiful legend of languages ​​belonging to the Navajo. According to their mythology, they are created by a certain deity, which they call "a changing woman." It was she who created them first and allowed them to speak her language. However, later it also created bordering nations, each of which has endowed it with its own language.
In addition, many peoples have beliefs about a single true, correct language. Thus, the language of the Egyptians was given to them by the god Pta, and the ancestors of the Chinese taught their sacred language to the legendary emperors of ancient times.
Bible
However, there are also more familiar explanations for us why people speak different languages, according to the Bible (Genesis chapter 11), most are familiar with one of the most interesting Christian parables about the so-called Babylonian pandemonium.
This legend tells of the sin of the Babylonian kingdom. Its inhabitants were so mired in vanity and moved away from obedience to the Lord that they decided to build such a high tower in their city so that it reached heaven - so people wanted to "level up" with God. However, God did not allow sinners to carry out their plan: he mixed languages ​​so that they could no longer communicate - so the Babylonians were forced to stop construction.
Many people know the catchphrase "Babylonian pandemonium." It means confusion, confusion, turmoil and general misunderstanding - that is what happened when people lost their “common language”. Thus, the Bible gives a more reasonable answer to why people speak different languages ​​than archaic folk traditions.
Scientific theory
However, science also provides an equally interesting clue. After all, languages ​​are not only different from each other, but also classified according to families, branches and groups - depending on the degrees of kinship. So, the languages ​​of Europe come from the pre-Indo-European language. Today it is not known to us (it can only be reconstructed), and written records in such a language have not reached us. But its existence is indicated by many factors.
However, if once there was a common language, why are there so many of them today? The question of why people speak different languages ​​is scientifically explained quite simply: a language by its nature tends to share almost endlessly. This is due to the separation of geographical. Since humanity began to divide into ethnic groups and states, such groups have ceased to communicate with each other - therefore, the language within each group has developed in its own way.
Language families
There are more recent language divisions. So, for example, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Serbian and many others are related: their similarity is noticeable - more or less - and with the naked eye. It happened because they came from the same language family - Slavic. It would seem that the peoples are so close and border on each other - but nevertheless, so many different have emerged from the Old Slavonic language! It turns out that even large territories and cultural differences (which is one division into Catholics and Orthodox!) Play such a significant role.
What happens to languages ​​now
But has language ceased division? No matter how. It turns out, and now within one language, separated by borders, there is a delimitation. For example, the descendants of the Russians who remained in Alaska after moving to the United States today speak a very strange version of Russian, which “ordinary” speakers, if they understand, are obviously with great difficulty.
"Different languages" of one nation
But not even in such distant areas there are differences. For example, it’s not a secret for anyone that the “entrance” and “front door”, “shawarma” and “shawarma” are one and the same thing, but for some reason there is one and the other. Why does language change even within one country? All for the same simple reason: St. Petersburg and Moscow, Arkhangelsk and Krasnodar are so far apart that even in the absence of isolation and the existence of federal media, their own characteristics inevitably arise everywhere.
The situation is different, for example, in Germany. If in Russia a resident of the capital is still able to intuitively guess what, for example, “green” in some village dialect is, then a German from one region of Germany may not understand a German speaking another dialect at all.