Languages evolve like living organisms, and languages that descend from the same ancestor (called a "protolanguage") are part of the same language family. A language family can be divided into subfamilies, groups and subgroups: for example, Polish and Slovak belong to the same subgroup of West Slavic languages, part of the Slavic languages group, which is a branch of the larger Indo-European family.
Comparative linguistics, as its name suggests, compares languages in order to discover their historical connections. This can be done by comparing the phonetics of languages, their grammar and vocabulary, even in cases where there are no written sources of their ancestors.
The more distant languages are from each other, the more difficult it is to detect genetic connections between them. For example, no linguist doubts that Spanish and Italian are related, however, the existence of the Altaic language family (including Turkish and Mongolian) is questioned and not accepted by all linguists. At present, it is simply impossible to know whether all languages originate from a single ancestor. If a single human language existed, then it must have been spoken ten thousand years ago (if not more). This makes comparison extremely difficult or even impossible.
List of language families
Linguists have identified more than one hundred major language families (language families that are not considered related to each other). Some of them consist of only a few languages, while others consist of more than a thousand. Here are the main language families of the world.
| Language family | range | Languages |
|---|---|---|
| Indo-European | From Europe to India, modern times, by continent | More than 400 languages spoken by almost 3 billion people. These include Romance languages (Spanish, Italian, French...), Germanic (English, German, Swedish...), Baltic and Slavic languages (Russian, Polish...), Indo-Aryan languages (Persian, Hindi, Kurdish, Bengali and many other languages spoken from Turkey to Northern India), as well as others such as Greek and Armenian. |
| Sino-Tibetan | Asia | Chinese languages, Tibetan and Burmese languages |
| Niger-Congo (Niger-Kordofanian, Congo-Kordofanian) | Sub-Saharan Africa | Swahili, Yoruba, Shona, Zulu (Zulu language) |
| Afroasiatic (Afro-Asiatic, Semitic-Hamitic) | Middle East, North America | Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew...), Somali language (Somali) |
| Austronesian | South East Asia, Taiwan, Pacific Ocean, Madagascar | More than a thousand languages, including Filipino, Malagasy, Hawaiian, Fijian... |
| Ural | Central, Eastern and Northern Europe, Northern Asia | Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Sami languages, some Russian languages (Udmurt, Mari, Komi...) |
| Altai (disputed) | from Turkey to Siberia | Turkic languages (Turkish, Kazakh...), Mongolian languages (Mongolian...), Tungus-Manchu languages, some researchers include Japanese and Korean here |
| Dravidian | South India | Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu |
| Thai-Kadai | Southeast Asia | Thai, Laotian |
| Austroasiatic | Southeast Asia | Vietnamese, Khmer |
| Na-Dene (Athabascan-Eyak-Tlingit) | North America | Tlingit, Navo |
| tupi (Tupian) | South America | Guarani languages (Guarani languages) |
| Caucasian (disputed) | Caucasus | Three language families. Among the Caucasian languages greatest number speakers - Georgian |
Special cases
Isolated languages (isolate languages)
An isolate language is an “orphan”: a language whose belonging to any known language family has not been proven. The best example is the Basque language, which is spoken in Spain and France. Even though it is surrounded by Indo-European languages, it is very different from them. Linguists have compared Basque to other languages spoken in Europe, to Caucasian languages, and even to American languages, but no connections have been found.
Korean is another well-known isolate, although some linguists suggest a connection to the Altaic languages or Japanese. Japanese itself is sometimes considered an isolate, but it is best described as belonging to the small Japanese family, which includes several related languages such as Okinawan.
Pidgin and Creole languages
A pidgin is a simplified communication system that evolved between two or more groups without common language. It does not come directly from one language, it has absorbed the characteristics of several languages. When do children start learning pidgin? native language, it turns into a full-fledged, stable language called Creole.
Most pidgin or creole languages spoken today are the result of colonization. They are based on English, French or Portuguese. One of the most widely spoken creole languages is Tok Pisin, which is the official language of Papua New Guinea. It is based on English, but its grammar is different, its vocabulary including many loanwords from German, Malay, Portuguese and several local languages.
| Parameter name | Meaning |
| Article topic: | Language families. |
| Rubric (thematic category) | Production |
1. The most studied languages are the Indo-European language family, spoken by the peoples of Russia, the CIS, Foreign Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, most countries of America, Australia and New Zealand.
The eastern branch of the Indo-European language family includes: Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Rajasthani, Gujaram, Utkali, Iranian languages, Pamir languages, Greek and Armenian.
The western branch of the Indo-European family includes: Romance languages, Celtic, Germanic. Romance languages developed from dialects of Latin after the collapse of the Roman Empire. These include: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Sardinian, Romanian, etc.
An intermediate position between the Eastern and Western Indo-European languages is occupied by: Balto-Slavic. Which are divided into Baltic and Slavic. Slavic are divided into: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian), Western Slavic (Czech, Slovak, Polish), South Slavic (Bulgarian, Old Church Slavonic, Macedonian, Slovenian).
2. The Afro-Asian family is distributed in northern and northeastern Africa and southwestern Asia. Consists of five groups: Semitic, Egyptian, Berber-Libyan, Cumite and Chadian.
The Semitic group includes: Hebrew, Arabic languages, mehri, kharsusi.
3. Kartveyskaya - located in western Transcaucasia. Includes: Georgian, Mingrelian, Svan. All these languages are spoken: Georgians, Mingrelians, Laz, Gvans, which are partially preserved as sub-ethnic groups.
4. North Caucasian: Abkhaz-Adyghe group (Abkhaz language, Abaza, Adyghe, Kabardino-Circassian, Chechen, Ingush); Dagestan group (about 30 mountain languages of Dagestan).
5. Dravian family. It dominates in southern India and consists of seven groups: southern (the largest is the Tapil language), southwestern, southeastern, central, Gondwanan, northeastern and northwestern.
6. The Uralic language family is geographically localized in the north of the European part of Russia, the Volga region, the Baltic states, Finland, the north of Scandinavia and central Europe (Hungary). Consists of two groups: Finno-Ugric (Finnish, Karelian, Estonian, Mordovian, Mari, Hungarian, Khanty); Samoyed group (Nenets, etc.).
7. Eskimo-Aleut family. Distributed over the vast Arctic expanses of North America including Greenland and northeast Asia (Eskimo, Aleutian).
8. Altai family. Distributed over vast areas: from Turkey in the west to the northeast and east of Siberia. Groups: Turkic languages (Chuvash, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Tatar, Bashkir, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Uyghur, Yakut, Altai, Khakass, Tuvan); Mongolian group (Mongolian, Buryat, Kalmyk), Tungus-Manchu group (Manchu, Evenki, Even).
9. The Chukotka-Kamchatka family is localized in the extreme northeast of Russia. Includes: Chukchi, Koryak, Ingelmen.
The population of sub-Saharan Africa speaks languages of three families:
10. Niger-Kordofanian: Bantu languages.
11. Nilo-Saharan family.
12. Khoisan family: languages of the Bushmen and Gothentoks.
13. Sino-Tibetan family. Localized in eastern Asia (Chinese and its dialects, Nigbesh, Burmese).
14. Austro-Asiatic: Vietnamese, Kmer, Miao, Yao, Santal.
15. The Paratsey family is widespread in Indochina and southern China. Languages: Laotian, Juan.
16. Austro-Nesian language family. Distributed: Southeast Asia, Oceania, Madagascar.
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Languages: Javanese, Sunda, Malay.
17. Australian family: Australian Aboriginal languages. Poorly studied.
18. Isolated languages that are not part of any family. Languages: Yukaghir, Korean, Japanese, Niph, Ket, Basque.
2.
An important part of people's spiritual life is their religious interests, ᴛ.ᴇ. adherence to any religion (confession). Religious affiliation is closely related to ethnicity, often being one of the main characteristics of an ethnic group. Under the strong influence of religion, the culture of most ethnic groups on Earth was formed.
Confessional (religious) composition of the population- distribution of people by religion. At the same time, non-believers and atheists are singled out (not considered) separately; their share is gradually increasing, but even today they constitute a minority of the Earth’s population (according to various estimates, 20-30%). Non-believers and atheists make up a significant part of the population only in the few surviving socialist countries - China, North Korea, Cuba. In some countries (including modern Russia) share of believers among the population in last years increases.
Collecting data on religious composition is significantly more difficult compared to other characteristics of the population. Even during general censuses in many countries of the world, questions about religious affiliation are not asked, since it is believed that religion is a personal matter for each person. As a rule, there is no official registration of believers (only religious organizations are registered, and some of them prefer not to declare their existence to government agencies). Data on the number of believers collected by religious organizations themselves is not accurate and is often not comparable with each other. Some denominations keep records of all their believers, and some - only those who actively participate in the life of religious organizations. Some denominations do not count children as their believers, etc. Special studies of the religious composition of the population are also relatively rare, especially in developing countries.
When characterizing the religious composition of the population, it is customary to distinguish:
- world religions;
- national religions, widespread primarily in one country or among one people. For example, Judaism - Jews, Shintoism - Japan, Hinduism - India.
- various directions (churches) and sects within individual religions. For example, among Protestants - Calvinists, sects - Baptists, etc.;
- primitive beliefs or tribal cults: animism, fetishism, magic among tribal societies.
The ratio of religious (confessional) and ethnic communities at different stages of historical development was different.
In the primitive communal era or in early classical society, ethnic and religious boundaries coincided. In early classical society, each political unit and its corresponding ethnic group had their own gods, their own system of religious ideas and rituals. Further, with the development of relations, religious communities that are broader than before emerge; several peoples profess the same religion. In the future, cases become more frequent when one part of an ethnic group continues to adhere to the old religion, while the other accepts a new faith. With the emergence of world religions, ethnic boundaries in most cases ceased to coincide with religious ones. There are now few purely national confessions left: the Armenian-Gregorian Church, etc.
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All over the world, ethnic identity prevails over religious one. The situation is somewhat different in Muslim countries, where even today ethnic identity is being replaced by religious-communal consciousness. The population of these countries is grouped (statistically) mainly along religious lines, and the number of national minorities often includes groups that do not profess Islam. In some Arab countries It is customary to include not only all non-Muslims as ethnic minorities, but also those who belong to directions of Islam that are not dominant in a given country.
Affiliation different parts The attitude of one and the same people to several religions contributes to the emergence of cultural and everyday differences within it and to the formation of so-called confessional groups. Such groups are the Old Believers within the Russian people. Among the Kurds, the Yezidis became isolated, and among the Arabs of Syria and Lebanon, the Druze.
Total number of religions existing in modern world, is very difficult to evaluate. Among all the diversity of existing religions, three can be distinguished that are especially widespread among many peoples and in many countries. These are the so-called world religions - Christianity, Islam (Muslim) and Buddhism. All world religions, in the process of their historical development, have lost their original unity, and today they are divided into branches (currents). All other religions are considered national, since they are found either only in one country or among one ethnic group. Among some ethnic groups of the Earth, religions have not yet become widespread, and among their representatives traditional beliefs predominate (from the point of view of Christianity, paganism).
Buddhism - It is believed that it arose in the 7th century. BC. in northern India, as ʼʼJainismʼʼ and opposed the strictest norms of the caste system and the dominance of priests. According to Buddhism, life is ϶ᴛᴏ continuous chain suffering, which can be eliminated only by following the four noble truths, leading to the calming of passions, emotions, desires, etc. Buddhists believe in the transmigration of the soul, in reincarnation, and the ethical position of Buddhism is the requirement not to kill living beings. Principles correct behavior and truthfulness. By the beginning of AD In Buddhism, two basic directions (schools) have emerged that are very different from each other.
- Theravada (Hinayana) – ᴛ.ᴇ. narrow path. Adherents of this school followed the principles of early Buddhism, considered the Buddha to be a real historical figure, and believed that only monks could achieve salvation.
- Mahayana is the broad path. A later form of Mahayana is Lamaism. Adherents of this school believed that one does not have to be a monk to be liberated or saved, but in Lamaism great importance began to be betrayed by magic spells.
Christianity – arose at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. It is believed to have originated in the east of the Roman Empire and southwest Asia. The main provisions and his beliefs are the existence of God in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Son accepted martyrdom, in order to atone for the sins of people, in the future to come to Earth a second time in order to establish the kingdom of heaven on it. The Holy Book is the Bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments. One of the main commandments is a call for patience and forgiveness. At 1054ᴦ. this religion split into two directions: Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Οʜᴎ are distinguished by the characteristics of their cult and organization. All Catholics are organizationally united and subordinate to the Pope. The Orthodox have autocephalous and independent national churches (Constantinople, Georgian, Jerusalem, etc., 15 in total).
A significant difference between Catholics and Orthodox is the issue of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Catholics believe that it comes from God the Father and God the Son. Orthodox, that only from God the Father. Catholics believe that in addition to hell and heaven, there is an intermediate link - purgatory. There are differences in the delivery of services. IN Orthodox churches only choral singing, in Catholic ones there is also organ music. There are differences in baptism: Catholics pour water over children, Orthodox Christians immerse them in water three times.
The direction of Christianity is Protestantism. In the 16th century As a result of the so-called Reformation, Protestantism broke away from Catholicism, rejecting the power of the Pope and becoming the third main direction of Christianity. Protestantism took shape in the form of several independent movements, the main of which are Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism.
Consequently, Christianity has three basic directions: Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestantism.
Islam – originated in the 7th century. Among the population of the Arabian Peninsula and after its founder Muhammad, Islam is often called Mohammedanism. Having emerged later than Christianity and Judaism, it absorbed a number of elements of these religions: belief in the afterlife, posthumous reward, heaven and hell, of the one God Allah, whose messenger is Muhammad. Their holy book is the Koran. Muslims pray five times a day, fast during Ramadan, make pilgrimages, etc. Soon after its appearance, the new religion split into three directions: Sunnism, Shiism, Kharijism.
The latter direction has not gained significant popularity. The main difference between Sunnism and Shiism is that Sunnis, in addition to the Koran, fully recognize the sacred tradition of the Sunnah. Shiites accept this addition only partially, recognizing only the sections associated with the name of Muhammad's son-in-law Ali and his relatives. Kharijism is close to Sunnis, but represents a group of believers who make more severe demands on their followers, condemn luxury, prohibit games, music, etc.
In the 2nd millennium BC. Religions begin to emerge that have survived to this day under the name local religions:
- one of the earliest such beliefs was Judaism, which arose in the 1st millennium BC. among the Jewish population of Palestine. Distributed almost exclusively among Jews living in different countries peace. The largest groups are in the USA and Israel. Total number Judaists 13 million people. They believe in the one God Yahweh, the coming of the end of the world and the Last Judgment, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of an afterlife. But an essential place in Judaism is occupied by the doctrine that the Jews are the people chosen by God;
- Brahmaism - became widespread in India in the 1st millennium BC. and from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. exists in the form of Hinduism, the main religion of the people of India. The total number of Hindus is 520 million people. Hinduism regulates the main aspects of the demographic behavior of believers, calling for early marriages and the birth of a large number of children in the family. At the same time, in the past, Hinduism allowed the killing of newborn girls and encouraged the self-immolation of widows. In the 20th century Negligence towards the health of women and girls also persists, which leads to their increased mortality. Marriage is considered an indissoluble union; cases of divorce are rare;
- Confucianism - ϶ᴛᴏ religious and ethical doctrine in China arose in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. and was preserved as a social and ethical teaching set forth by the philosopher Confucius. For many centuries, Confucianism was the dominant philosophy and sought to streamline personal and social relations through their regulation: strict adherence to the cult of ancestors, veneration of the old, installation on big family. The total number of adherents is about 180 million people;
- Taoism - ϶ᴛᴏ the second local religion of China, based on the deification of natural phenomena. The religion has been preserved only in some regions of China; the number of followers is about 30 million people;
- Shintoism is the religion of Japan. It is believed that it is a combination of elements of Confucianism, ᴛ.ᴇ. observance of the cult of ancestors, patriarchal foundations; and Taoism - the deification of the forces of nature. After education centralized state The cult of Emperor Mikado occupied a prominent place in Shintoism. Shintoism encourages marriage, allowing celibacy as an exception. The total number of adherents of Shintoism is 90 million people.
Language families. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Language families." 2017, 2018.
Russia is a multinational country, and therefore multilingual. Linguistic scientists count 150 languages - a language such as Russian, which is spoken by 97.72% of the population in Russia, and the language of the Negidal-Ievs, a small people (only 622 people!), living on the Amur River, are equally taken into account here.
Some languages are very similar: people can each speak their own language and at the same time understand each other perfectly, for example, Russian - Belarusian, Tatar - Bashkir, Kalmyk - Buryat. In other languages, although they also have a lot in common - sounds, some words, grammar - it will still not be possible to come to an agreement: a Mari with a Mordovian, a Lezgin with an accident. And finally, there are languages - scientists call them isolated - that are unlike any other. These are the languages of the Kets, Nivkhs and Yukaghirs.
Most of the languages of Russia belong to one of four language families: Indo-European, Altai, Uralic and North Caucasian. Each family has a common ancestor language - a proto-language. Ancient tribes who spoke such a proto-language moved, mixed with other peoples, and the once single language split into several. This is how many languages arose on Earth.
Let's say Russian belongs to the Indo-European family. In the same family - English and German, Hindi and Farsi, Ossetian and Spanish (and many, many others). Part of the family is the group of Slavic languages. Here, Czech and Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian, etc. coexist with Russian. And together with closely related Ukrainian and Belarusian, it is included in the subgroup of East Slavic languages. Indo-European languages are spoken in Russia by more than 87% of the population, but only 2% of them are not Slavic. These are Germanic languages: German and Yiddish (see the story “Jews in Russia”); Armenian (one makes up a group); Iranian languages: Ossetian, Tat, Kurdish and Tajik; Romance: Moldavian; and even modern Indian languages spoken by gypsies in Russia.
The Altai family in Russia is represented by three groups: Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu. There are only two peoples who speak Mongolian languages - Kalmyks and Buryats, but just the enumeration of Turkic languages may surprise you. These are Chuvash, Tatar, Bashkir, Karachay-Balkar, Nogai, Kumyk, Altai, Khakass, Shor, Tuvan, Tofalar, Yakut, Dolgan, Azerbaijani, etc. Most of these peoples live in Russia. Turkic peoples such as Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Turkmens, and Uzbeks also live in our country. The Tungus-Manchu languages include Evenki, Even, Negidal, Nanai, Oroch, Orok, Udege and Ulch.
Sometimes the question arises: where is a separate language, and where are only dialects of the same language? For example, many linguists in Kazan believe that Bashkir is a dialect of Tatar, and the same number of specialists in Ufa are convinced that these are two completely independent languages. Similar disputes occur not only regarding Tatar and Bashkir.
The Uralic language family includes the Finno-Ugric and Samolian groups. The concept of "Finnish" is conditional - in in this case it doesn't mean official language Finland. It’s just that the languages included in this group have related grammars and similar sounds, especially if you don’t parse the words and listen only to the melody. Finnish languages are spoken by Karelians, Vepsians, Izhorians, Vods, Komi, Maris, Mordovians, Udmurts, and Sami. There are two Ugric languages in Russia: Khanty and Mansi (and the third Ugric is spoken by Hungarians). The Samoyed languages are spoken by the Nenets, Nganasans, Enets, and Selkups. The Yukaghir language is genetically close to Uralic. These peoples are very small in number, and their languages cannot be heard outside the north of Russia.
The North Caucasian family is a rather arbitrary concept. Unless specialist linguists understand the ancient kinship of the languages of the Caucasus. These languages have very complex grammar and extremely difficult phonetics. They contain sounds that are completely inaccessible to people who speak other dialects.
Experts divide the North Caucasian languages into Nakh-Lagestan and Abkhaz-Adyghe groups. The Vainakhs speak Nakh languages, which are mutually understandable - this is the common name for the Chechens and Ingush. (The group received its name from the self-name of the Chechens - Nakhchi.)
Representatives of approximately 30 nations live in Dagestan. “Approximately” - because not all the languages of these peoples have been studied, and very often people determine their nationality precisely by language.
The Dagestan languages include Avar, Andi, Iez, Ginukh, Gunzib, Bezhta, Khvarshin, Lak, Dargin, Lezgin, Tabasaran, Agul, Ru-Tul... We named the largest Dagestan languages, but did not list even half. It’s not for nothing that this republic was called the “mountain of languages.” And a “paradise for linguists”: the field of activity for them here is vast.
Abkhaz-Adyghe languages are spoken by related peoples. In Adyghe - Kabardians, Adygeis, Circassians, Shapsugs; in Abkhazian - Abkhaz and Abaza. But not everything is so simple in this classification. Kabardians, Adygeis, Circassians and Shapsugs consider themselves a single people - Adygs - with one language, Adyghe, and official sources are called the four Adyghe peoples.
In Russia there are languages that are not included in any of the four families. These are primarily the languages of the peoples of Siberia and Far East. All of them are few in number. The Chukchi, Koryak and Itelmen languages speak the Chukchi-Kamchatka languages; in Eskimo-Aleutian - Eskimos and Aleuts. The languages of the Kets on the Yenisei and the Nivkhs on Sakhalin and Amur are not included in any language family.
There are many languages, and in order for people to agree, they need a common one. In Russia, it became Russian, because Russians are the most numerous people in the country and they live in all its corners. It is the language of great literature, science and international communication.
Languages, of course, are equal, but even the richest country cannot publish, for example, books on all issues in the language of several hundred people. Or even several tens of thousands. In a language that is spoken by millions, this is feasible.
Many peoples of Russia have lost or are losing their languages, especially representatives of small nations. Thus, they have practically forgotten the native language of the Chu-lymys - a small Turkic-speaking people in Siberia. The list, unfortunately, is long. In Russian cities, Russian is becoming the common language for the multinational population. And most often the only one. However, in Lately National cultural and educational societies took care of their own languages in large centers. They usually organize Sunday schools for children.
Most of the languages of Russia before the 20s. XX century had no writing. Georgians, Armenians, and Jews had their own alphabet. Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Finns wrote in the Latin alphabet (Latin alphabet). Some languages are still unwritten.
The first attempts to create a written language for the peoples of Russia were made even before the revolution, but they began to take this seriously in the 20s: they reformed the Arabic script, adapting it to the phonetics of the Turkic languages. It did not fit into the languages of the peoples of the Caucasus. They developed a Latin alphabet, but there were not enough letters to accurately designate sounds in the languages of small nations. From 1936 to 1941, the languages of the peoples of Russia (and the USSR) were translated into Slavic alphabet(except for those that had their own, which were also ancient), they added superscript marks, tall straight sticks to indicate guttural sounds, and combinations of letters that were strange to the Russian eye like “ь” and “ь” after vowels. It was believed that a single alphabet helped to better master the Russian language. Recently, some languages have begun to use the Latin alphabet again. (For a detailed classification, see the volume “Linguistics. Russian Language” of the “Encyclopedia for Children”.)
Languages of the peoples of Russia
1. Indo-European languages
o Slavic (namely East Slavic) - Russian (about 120 million speakers according to the 1989 census)
o Germanic languages - Yiddish (Jewish)
o Iranian languages - Ossetian, Talysh, Tat (the language of the Tats and Mountain Jews)
o Indo-Aryan languages - Romani
2. Uralic languages
o Finno-Ugric languages
§ Mari
§ Sami
§ Mordovian languages - Moksha, Erzya
§ Ob-Ugric languages - Mansi, Khanty
§ Permian languages - Komi-Zyryan, Komi-Permyak, Udmurt
§ Baltic-Finnish - Vepsian, Votic, Izhorian, Karelian
o Samoyed languages - Nganasan, Nenets, Selkup, Enets
3. Turkic languages- Altai, Bashkir, Dolgan, Karachay-Balkar, Kumyk, Nogai, Tatar, Tofalar, Tuvan, Khakass, Chuvash, Shor, Yakut
4. Tungus-Manchu languages- Nanai, Negidal, Orok, Oroch, Udege, Ulch, Evenki, Even
5. Mongolian languages- Buryat, Kalmyk
6. Yenisei languages- Ket
7. Chukotka-Kamchatka languages- Alyutor, Itelmen, Kerek, Koryak, Chukchi
8. Eskimo-Aleut languages- Aleutian, Eskimo
9. Yukaghir language
10. Nivkh language
11. North Caucasian languages
o Abkhaz-Adyghe languages - Abaza, Adyghe, Kabardino-Circassian
o Nakh-Dagetan languages
§ Nakh languages - Batsbi, Ingush, Chechen
§ Dagestan languages
§ Avar
§ Andean languages - Andean, Akhvakh, Bagvalin (Kwanadin), Botlikh, Godoberin, Karata, Tindin, Chamalin
There are a large number of language families and a wide variety of languages in the world. There are more than 6,000 of the latter on the planet. Most of them belong to the world's largest language families, which are distinguished by lexical and grammatical composition, kinship of origin and community geographical location their carriers. However, it should be noted that community of residence is not always an integral factor.
In turn, the world's language families are divided into groups. They are distinguished according to a similar principle. There are also languages that do not belong to any of the identified families, as well as so-called isolated languages. It is also common for scientists to distinguish macrofamilies, i.e. groups of language families.
Indo-European family
The most fully studied is the Indo-European language family. It began to be distinguished in ancient times. However, relatively recently, work began to study the Proto-Indo-European language.
The Indo-European language family consists of groups of languages whose speakers live across vast areas of Europe and Asia. So, the German group belongs to them. Its main languages are English and German. Also a large group is Romance, which includes French, Spanish, Italian and other languages. In addition, Eastern European peoples who speak languages of the Slavic group also belong to the Indo-European family. These are Belarusian, Ukrainian, Russian, etc.
This language family is not the largest in terms of the number of languages it includes. However, these languages are spoken by almost half of the world's population.
Afro-Asian family
Languages representing the Afro-Asiatic language family are spoken by more than a quarter of a million people. It includes Arabic, Egyptian, Hebrew, and many others, including extinct languages.
This family is usually divided into five (six) branches. These include the Semitic branch, the Egyptian, Chadian, Cushitic, Berber-Libyan and Omotian. In general, the Afro-Asiatic family includes more than 300 languages of the African continent and parts of Asia.
However, this family is not the only one on the continent. IN large quantities, especially to the south, there are other unrelated languages in Africa. There are at least 500 of them. Almost all of them were not presented in writing until the 20th century. and were used only orally. Some of them are purely oral to this day.
Nilo-Saharan family
The language families of Africa also include the Nilo-Saharan family. The Nilo-Saharan languages are represented by six language families. One of them is Songhai Zarma. The languages and dialects of the other family, the Saharan family, are common in Central Sudan. There is also a family of mamba, whose carriers inhabit Chad. Another family, the Fur, is also common in Sudan.
The most complex is the Shari-Nile language family. It, in turn, is divided into four branches, which consist of language groups. The last family - coma - is widespread in Ethiopia and Sudan.
The language families represented by the Nilo-Saharan macrofamily have significant differences among themselves. Accordingly, they represent great difficulty for linguistic researchers. The languages of this macrofamily were greatly influenced by the Afro-Asian macrofamily.
Sino-Tibetan family
The Sino-Tibetan language family has more than a million speakers of its languages. First of all, this became possible due to the large Chinese population speaking Chinese, which is part of one of the branches of this language family. In addition to it, this branch includes the Dungan language. It is they who form a separate branch (Chinese) in the Sino-Tibetan family.
The other branch includes more than three hundred languages, which are classified as the Tibeto-Burman branch. There are approximately 60 million native speakers of its languages.
Unlike Chinese, Burmese and Tibetan, most languages of the Sino-Tibetan family do not have a written tradition and are passed down from generation to generation exclusively orally. Despite the fact that this family has been studied deeply and for a long time, it still remains insufficiently studied and hides many as yet unrevealed secrets.
North and South American languages
Currently, as we know, the vast majority of North and South American languages belong to the Indo-European or Romance families. When settling the New World, European colonists brought their own languages with them. However, the dialects of the indigenous population of the American continent did not disappear completely. Many monks and missionaries who arrived from Europe to America recorded and systematized the languages and dialects of the local population.
Thus, the languages of the North American continent north of present-day Mexico were represented in the form of 25 language families. Later, some experts revised this division. Unfortunately, South America has not been studied as well linguistically.
Language families of Russia
All the peoples of Russia speak languages belonging to 14 language families. In total, there are 150 different languages and dialects in Russia. The basis of the country's linguistic wealth is made up of four main language families: Indo-European, North Caucasian, Altai, Uralic. Moreover, most of the country's population speaks languages belonging to the Indo-European family. This part makes up 87 percent of the total population of Russia. Moreover, the Slavic group occupies 85 percent. It includes Belarusian, Ukrainian and Russian, which make up the East Slavic group. These languages are very close to each other. Their speakers can understand each other almost without difficulty. This is especially true for the Belarusian and Russian languages.
Altaic language family
The Altai language family consists of the Turkic, Tungus-Manchu and Mongolian language groups. The difference in the number of representatives of their speakers in the country is great. For example, Mongolian is represented in Russia exclusively by Buryats and Kalmyks. But several dozen languages are included in the Turkic group. These include Khakass, Chuvash, Nogai, Bashkir, Azerbaijani, Yakut and many others.
The group of Tungus-Manchu languages includes Nanai, Udege, Even and others. This group is in danger of extinction due to the preference of their native peoples to use Russian on the one hand and Chinese on the other. Despite the extensive and long-term study of the Altai language family, it is extremely difficult for specialists to decide on the reproduction of the Altai proto-language. This is explained by the large number of borrowings by its speakers from other languages due to close contact with their representatives.
Ural family
The Uralic languages are represented by two large families - Finno-Ugric and Samoyed. The first of them includes Karelians, Mari, Komi, Udmurts, Mordovians and others. The languages of the second family are spoken by the Enets, Nenets, Selkups, and Nganasans. The bearers of the Ural macrofamily are to a large extent Hungarians (more than 50 percent) and Finns (20 percent).
The name of this family comes from the name of the Ural ridge, where the formation of the Uralic proto-language is believed to have taken place. The languages of the Uralic family had some influence on their neighboring Slavic and Baltic languages. In total, there are more than twenty languages of the Uralic family both on the territory of Russia and abroad.
North Caucasian family
Languages of peoples North Caucasus represent a huge difficulty for linguists in terms of their structuring and study. The concept of a North Caucasian family itself is rather arbitrary. The fact is that the languages of the local population are too little studied. However, thanks to the painstaking and in-depth work of many linguists studying this issue, it became clear how disjointed and complex many of the North Caucasian dialects are.
The difficulties relate not only to the actual grammar, structure and rules of the language, for example, as in the Tabasaran language - one of the most complex languages on the planet, but also pronunciation, which is sometimes simply inaccessible to people who do not speak these languages.
A significant obstacle for specialists studying them is the inaccessibility of many mountainous regions of the Caucasus. However, this language family, despite all the contradictions, is usually divided into two groups - Nakh-Dagestan and Abkhaz-Adyghe.
Representatives of the first group inhabit mainly the regions of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia. These include Avars, Lezgins, Laks, Dargins, Chechens, Ingush, etc. The second group consists of representatives of related peoples - Kabardians, Circassians, Adygeis, Abkhazians, etc.
Other language families
The language families of the peoples of Russia are not always extensive, uniting many languages into one family. Many of them are very small, and some are even isolated. Such nationalities primarily live in Siberia and the Far East. Thus, the Chukchi-Kamchatka family unites the Chukchi, Itelmen, and Koryaks. Aleuts and Eskimos speak Aleut-Eskimo.
A large number of nationalities scattered across the vast territory of Russia, being extremely few in number (several thousand people or even less), have their own languages that are not included in any known language family. Like, for example, the Nivkhs, who inhabit the banks of the Amur and Sakhalin, and the Kets, located near the Yenisei.
However, the problem of linguistic extinction in the country continues to threaten Russia's cultural and linguistic diversity. Not only are they endangered individual languages, but also entire language families.
Languages and peoples. Today, the peoples of the world speak more than 3,000 languages. There are about 4000 forgotten languages, some of them are still alive in the memory of mankind (Sanskrit, Latin). By the nature of the language, many researchers judge the degree of kinship between peoples. Language is most often used as an ethnic differentiating feature. The linguistic classification of peoples is the most recognized in world science. At the same time, language is not an indispensable feature that distinguishes one people from another. The same Spanish language is spoken by several different Latin American peoples. The same can be said about the Norwegians and Danes, who have a common literary language. At the same time, residents of Northern and Southern China speak different languages, but consider themselves to be the same ethnic group.
Each of the major literary languages of Europe (French, Italian, English, German) dominates a territory that is linguistically much less homogeneous than the territory of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples (L. Gumilyov, 1990). The Saxons and Tyroleans hardly understand each other, and the Milanese and Sicilians do not understand each other at all. The English of Northumberland speak a language close to Norwegian, as they are descendants of the Vikings who settled in England. The Swiss speak German, French, Italian and Romansh.
The French speak four languages: French, Celtic (Bretons), Basque (Gascons) and Provençal. Linguistic differences between them can be traced from the beginning of the Romanization of Gaul.
Taking into account their intra-ethnic differences, the French, Germans, Italians, and British should be compared not with Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, but with all Eastern Europeans. At the same time, such systems of ethnic groups as the Chinese or Indians correspond not to the French, Germans or Ukrainians, but to Europeans as a whole (L. Gumilyov, 1990).
All languages of the peoples of the world belong to certain language families, each of which unites languages similar in linguistic structure and origin. The process of formation of language families is associated with the isolation of different peoples from each other in the process of human settlement across the globe. At the same time, peoples that were initially genetically distant from each other can enter into one language family. Thus, the Mongols, having conquered many nations, adopted foreign languages, and the blacks resettled by slave traders in America speak English.
Human races and language families. By biological characteristics people are divided into races. The French scientist Cuvier identified three human races at the beginning of the 19th century - black, yellow and white.
The idea that human races emerged from different centers was established in the Old Testament: “Can an Ethiopian change his skin and a leopard his spots.” On this basis, the theory of the “Nordic, or Indo-European chosen man” was created among English-speaking Protestants. Such a person was placed on a pedestal by the French Comte de Gobineau in a book with the provocative title "Treatise on Inequality" human races" The word “Indo-European” over time was transformed into “Indo-Germanic”, and the ancestral home of the primitive “Indo-Germans” began to be sought in the region of the North European Plain, which at that time was part of the kingdom of Prussia. In the 20th century ideas about racial and national elitism turned into the bloodiest wars in human history.
By the middle of the 20th century. Many classifications of human races have developed - from two (Negroid and Mongoloid) to thirty-five. Most scientists write about four human races with the following centers of origin: the Greater Sunda Islands - the homeland of the Australoids, East Asia - the Mongoloids, Southern and Central Europe - the Caucasoids, and Africa - the Negroids.
All these races, their languages and centers of origin are correlated by some researchers with different original hominids. The ancestors of the Australoids are Javan Pithecanthropus, the Mongoloids are Sinanthropus, the Negroids are African Neanderthals, and the Caucasoids are European Neanderthals. Genetic connection of certain ancient forms with the corresponding modern races can be traced using morphological comparisons of the skulls. Mongoloids, for example, are similar to Sinanthropus with a flattened face, Caucasians are similar to European Neanderthals with strongly protruding nasal bones, and the broad nose makes Negroids similar to African Neanderthals (V. Alekseev, 1985). In the Paleolithic, people were the same black, white, yellow as they are today, with the same differentiation of skulls and skeletons. This means that intercivilizational differences go back to ancient times, to the beginning of the human race. These should also include interlingual differences.
The oldest finds of representatives of the Negroid race were discovered not in Africa, but in Southern France, in the Grimaldi Cave near Nice, and in Abkhazia, in the Kholodny Grotto. An admixture of Negroid blood is found not only among Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, residents of the south of France and the Caucasus, but also among residents of the north-west - in Ireland (L. Gumilyov, 1997).
Classical Negroids belong to the Niger-Kordofanian language family, which began to populate Central Africa from North Africa and Western Asia quite late - somewhere at the beginning of our era.
Before the arrival of the Negroids (Fulani, Bantu, Zulus) in Africa, the territory south of the Sahara was inhabited by the Kapoids, representatives of a recently identified race, which included the Hottentots and Bushmen, belonging to the Khoisan language family. Unlike blacks, capoids are not black, but brown: they have Mongoloid facial features, they speak not while exhaling, but while inhaling, and are sharply different from both blacks and Europeans and Mongoloids. They are considered a remnant of some ancient race of the southern hemisphere, which was displaced from the main areas of its settlement by Negroids (L. Gumilyov, 1997). Then many Negroids were transported to America by slave traders
Another ancient race of the southern hemisphere is the Australoid (Australian family). Australoids live in Australia and Melanesia. With black skin, they have huge beards, wavy hair, and broad shoulders, and exceptional reaction speed. Their closest relatives lived in southern India and belong to the Dravidian language family (Tamil, Telugu).
Representatives of the Caucasoid (white race), belonging mainly to the Indo-European language family, inhabited not only, as now, Europe, Western Asia and the North of India, but also almost the entire Caucasus, a significant part of Central and Central Asia and Northern Tibet.
The largest ethnolinguistic groups of the Indo-European language family in Europe are Romance (French, Italians, Spaniards, Romanians), Germanic (Germans, English), Slavic (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Slovaks, Bulgarians, Serbs). They populate Northern Asia (Russians), North America(Americans), South Africa (immigrants from England and Holland), Australia and New Zealand (immigrants from England), a significant part South America(Hispanic and Portuguese-speaking Latinos).
The largest representative of the Indo-European family is the Indo-Aryan group of peoples of India and Pakistan (Hindustani, Bengalis, Marathas, Punjabis, Biharis, Gujjars). This also includes the peoples of the Iranian group (Persians, Tajiks, Kurds, Baluchis, Ossetians), the Baltic group (Latvians and Lithuanians), Armenians, Greeks, Albanians..
The most numerous race is the Mongoloids. They are divided into subraces belonging to different language families.
Siberian, Central Asian, Central Asian, Volga and Transcaucasian Mongoloids form the Altai language family. It unites the Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu ethnolinguistic groups, each of which in turn is divided into ethnolinguistic subgroups. Thus, the Turkic Mongoloids are divided into the Bulgar subgroup (Chuvash), southwestern (Azerbaijanis, Turkmens), northwestern (Tatars, Bashkirs, Kazakhs), southeastern (Uzbeks, Uighurs), northeastern (Yakuts) subgroups.
The most widely spoken language in the world, Chinese (over 1 billion people), belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is used in writing by North Chinese and South Chinese Mongoloids (Chinese or Han), who differ significantly from each other anthropologically and colloquial speech. The Tibetan Mongoloids also belong to the same language family. The Mongoloids of Southeast Asia are classified into the Parataic and Austroasiatic language families. The peoples of the Chukchi-Kamchatka and Eskimo-Aleut language families are also close to the Mongoloids.
There are also subraces, with which groups of certain languages are usually correlated, that is, the system of human races is arranged hierarchically.
Representatives of the listed races include 3/4 of the world's population. The remaining peoples belong to small races or microraces with their own language families.
At the contact of the main human races, mixed or transitional racial forms are encountered, often forming their own language families. 
Thus, the mixing of Negroids with Caucasians gave rise to mixed-transitional forms of peoples of the Afroasiatic, or Semitic-Hamitic family (Arabs, Jews, Sudanese, Ethiopians). Peoples speaking languages of the Ural language family (Nenets, Khanty, Komi, Mordovians, Estonians, Hungarians) form transitional forms between Mongoloids and Caucasians. Very complex racial mixtures formed into the North Caucasian (Abkhazians, Adygeans, Kabardians, Circassians, Chechens, Ingush peoples of Dagestan) and Kartvelian (Georgians, Mingrelians, Svans) language families.
Similar racial mixing occurred in America, only it was much more intense than in the Old World, and, in general, did not affect language differences.