One of the most difficult puzzles in human life is language. How did he appear, why do people prefer to communicate with his help, where do so many varieties of speech come from 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 the language, theories will 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 linguistic sphere in a person is associated with the development of his brain and speech apparatus. This is a theory of onomatopoeia, which states that words in a person’s 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 bestial 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 world. But basically, the sounds of nature in our cities are no longer audible, and new words are created in other ways.
The origin of the language, the theory of the development of words and word forms - all this is the subject of study of 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 is that initially the words expressed various emotional states, and emotional cries were the first to appear in speech.
Social contract
Many have studied the origin of language, linguistics as a science has developed thanks to these scientists. Gradually, biological theories of the origin of language were rejected, replaced by social ones.
Such theories of the emergence of language appeared in antiquity. Diodorus of Sicily argued 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.
Views of Engels
The origin and development of the language has always attracted scholars who sought to solve this riddle. In 1876, the work of Friedrich Engels “The Role of Labor in the Process of Transformation of a Monkey into a Man” appeared. The main idea that Engels puts forward is that speaking contributed to the transformation of a monkey into a person 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 about 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 a person. Gradually, with the development of society, various dialects of human speech appear, and the expression of the consciousness of the elite layers of society becomes a literary language, which is opposed to popular dialect. So, according to Engels, there was a development of German and English.
The divine origin of the tongue
Language, including literary, is a gift given to man from above by God. So many thinkers of the past considered. Gregory of Nyssa, a prominent Christian thinker, wrote that "the gift of speech was given to man by God." Similar views were held by William Humboldt. In his opinion, the speech was given to man by divine powers, and this happened at one moment, without preliminary 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 of how the Lord mixed human dialects, so that they could no longer understand each other, completely coincided with this theory.
This version was developed by such scientists as Alfredo Trombetti, Nikolai Marr, Alexander Melnichuk. American linguist Morris Swades proved the existence of large macro-families of languages and the existence of kinship between them. The largest group is Nostratic, it includes the Kartvelian, Dravidian, Altai, Eskimo-Aleut dialects. All of them have common features.
Now consider the origin of some of them.
The origin of the Russian language: the old Russian period
Russian is one of the most spoken languages in the world. It is spoken by approximately 260 million people. Takes fifth place 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 fourteenth centuries of our era. The Old Russian period is divided into preliterate, that is, until the 11th century, and written, from the 11th century. But since the 11th century, the disintegration of the Old Russian language into separate dialects has occurred. This is due to the invasion of the Mongol-Tatars, with the division of a united Russia into various states. The origin of Russian modern language originates in a later era, but archaic layers of vocabulary are also present in modern times.
Old Russian period
The second period of development is Old Russian, which lasted from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. At this time, two different layers coexisted in the same culture - this is the Church Slavonic version of the Russian dialect and the actual Russian literary language based on the dialect. As a result, the Moscow koyne begins to dominate.
The history of the Russian language allows us 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), 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 had a great influence on its formation.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the sphere of use of Church Slavonic vocabulary is gradually narrowing, as society becomes more secular and secular in honor. In the eighteenth century, the norms of Russian grammar and spelling were laid, and Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov plays a large role in this. His “Russian Grammar” becomes the basis for subsequent linguistic scholars and anyone interested in Russian grammar, lexicology, morphology.
Pushkin’s work finally shaped 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 borrowing in it is quite large. If in the seventeenth century they came from the Polish language, in the eighteenth - from the 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 is known to scientists in such a field of research as the origin of language? The theories are numerous, especially in relation to the Russian language, but this issue has not been clarified to this day at the moment.
How did the Ukrainian language appear?
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 eighteenth centuries, Old Ukrainian developed, and from the 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 of Aeneid and Natalka Poltavka. In them, he wittily combines the motives of ancient literature with contemporary realities. But most scholars ascribe the origin of the Ukrainian dialect to the works of Taras Shevchenko. It was the latter that brought Ukrainian to the level characteristic of world languages. Creativity Shevchenko gave Ukrainian an opportunity to declare itself. Such works as “Kobzar”, “Katerina”, “Dream” were translated into other languages of the world, and the author himself introduced into the host of the most famous writers and philosophers who gave humanity new values.
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 spoken language in the world after Chinese and Spanish. The number of people speaking it tends to a billion people.
The origin of the languages of the world interests 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, in which English is also the official language.
The history of the language of Shakespeare is divided into different periods. Old English existed from the fifth to eleventh centuries of our era, Middle English - from the eleventh to fifteenth centuries, and from the fifteenth to the present there is New English. I must say that the origin of the Latin language has much in common with the origin of English.
The languages of different tribes living in the country since ancient times, as well as the languages of the Vikings who invaded the island, played an important role in shaping the speech of the British. Normans later appeared in Britain. Thanks to them, a large layer of French words appeared in the English dialect. William Shakespeare is a writer who has made a huge contribution to the development of the language of the inhabitants of Misty Albion. His works became the cultural heritage of the British. The origin of the language, theories of which are so numerous, is due to the influence of famous writers.
Now the English language has a leading position in the world. It is a communication tool on the Internet, science and business. Most of the negotiation processes in different countries, diplomatic correspondence occur in English.
The number of its dialects is very large. But the English and American variants are opposed to each other.