Describing the languages ​​of the world, linguists use various principles classification. Languages ​​are combined into groups according to the geographical (territorial) principle, according to the proximity of the grammatical structure, on the basis of linguistic relevance, and use in everyday speech.

Using the latter criterion, researchers divide all the languages ​​of the world into two large groups - living and dead languages ​​of the world. main feature the first is their use in everyday language practice by a relatively large community of people (the people). Living language is constantly used in everyday communication, changes, becomes more complex or simplified over time.

The most noticeable changes occur in the vocabulary (vocabulary) of the language: a part acquires an archaic color, and, on the contrary, more and more new words (neologisms) appear to denote new concepts. Other systems of the language (morphological, phonetic, syntactic) are more inert, changing very slowly and inconspicuously.

Unlike living, it is not used in everyday language practice. All its systems are immutable, they are conserved, unchanging elements. Dead language, captured in various written monuments.

All dead languages ​​can be divided into two large groups: firstly, those that were once, in the distant past, used for live communication and subsequently, by virtue of different reasons, ceased to be used in living human communication (Latin, Ancient Greek, Coptic, Old Icelandic, Gothic). To the second group dead languages include those that no one has ever spoken; they were created specifically to perform some functions (for example, the Old Church Slavonic language appeared - the language of Christian liturgical texts). A dead language is most often transformed into some kind of living, actively used one (for example, ancient Greek gave way to modern languages ​​and dialects of Greece).

Takes up completely special place among the rest. Without a doubt, Latin is a dead language: it has not been used in living colloquial practice since about the sixth century AD.

But, on the other hand, Latin found the most wide application in pharmaceuticals, medicine, scientific terminology, Catholic worship (Latin is the official "state" language of the Holy See and the State of the Vatican). As you can see, "dead" Latin is actively used in various spheres of life, science, and knowledge. All serious philological higher educational establishments necessarily include Latin in the course of study, thus preserving the traditions of classical liberal education. In addition, this dead language is the source of short and capacious aphorisms that have passed through the centuries: if you want peace, prepare for war; memento Mori; doctor, heal yourself - all these idioms"originally" from Latin. Latin is a very logical and harmonious language, cast, without frills and verbal husks; it is not only used for utilitarian purposes (writing recipes, forming a scientific thesaurus), but is also, to some extent, a model, a language standard.

"Dead language"

About the concept of "dead language"

A dead language is a language that does not exist in living use and, as a rule, is known only from written monuments, or is in artificial regulated use. This usually happens when one language is completely replaced by another language, as, for example, the Coptic language was replaced by Arabic, and many native American languages were superseded by English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

A dead language can continue to evolve in other languages ​​based on it. Examples of such development are:

· Latin language-- a dead language that is the ancestor of modern Romance languages;

Old Slavonic language - developed in modern languages Slavic countries;

ancient Greek language- developed into modern modern Greek languages ​​and dialects.

In some cases, the extinct language continues to be used for scientific and religious purposes. Among the many dead languages ​​used in this way are Sanskrit, Latin, Church Slavonic, Coptic, Avestan, and others.

There is an example when a dead language became alive again, as happened with Hebrew.

Most often literary language breaks away from the conversational and freezes in some of its classical form, then almost unchanged; when the spoken language develops a new literary form, the old one can be considered to have turned into a dead language (an example of such a situation can be the Turkish language, which replaced the Ottoman language as the language of education and office work in Turkey in the 1920s) V.N. Yartsev. Linguistics. Big encyclopedic Dictionary. - M: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 1998, S.341..

Latin - living or dead language?

Consider one of the language examples - Latin.

The Latin language (lingua latina), or Latin, is the language of the Latin-Faliscan subgroup of the Italic languages ​​of the Indo-European language family. To date, it is the only actively used Italian language (it is a dead language).

Latin is one of the most ancient written Indo-European languages. However, today this language is the official language of the Holy See and the Vatican City State, as well as, to some extent, the Roman Catholic Church. A large number of words in European (and not only) languages ​​are of Latin origin. The Latin alphabet is the basis of writing for many modern languages.

Latin, together with Oscan and Umbrian, constituted the Italic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. In the course of the historical development of ancient Italy, the Latin language supplanted the other Italic languages ​​and eventually took over the dominant position in the western Mediterranean. AT historical development Latin language is marked by several stages.

Archaic Latin. The appearance of Latin as a language is attributed to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. At the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. Latin was spoken by the population of a small region of Latium (lat. Latium), located in the west of the middle part of the Apennine Peninsula, along the lower reaches of the Tiber. The tribe that inhabited Latium was called the Latins (lat. Latini), its language was Latin. The center of this region was the city of Rome (lat. Roma), after which the Italic tribes united around it began to call themselves the Romans (lat. Romani).

The largest representative of the archaic period in the field of literary language is the ancient Roman comedian Plautus (c. 245-184 BC), from whom 20 comedies in their entirety and one in fragments have come down to our time.

Classical Latin. Classical Latin refers to the literary language that reached its greatest expressiveness and syntactic harmony in the prose writings of Cicero (106-43 BC) and Caesar (100-44 BC) and in the poetic works of Virgil (70-19 BC). e.), Horace (65-8 BC) and Ovid (43 BC - 18 AD).

“Flumina jam lactis, jam flumina nectaris ibant…” - “Rivers flowed with milk, flowed with nectar”, - Ovid about the “golden age” of mankind (Metamorphoses, I)

The period of formation and flourishing of the classical Latin language was associated with the transformation of Rome into the largest slave-owning state in the Mediterranean, subjugating vast territories in western and southeastern Europe, northern Africa and Asia Minor.

Medieval Latin. Medieval or Christianized Latin is primarily liturgical (liturgical) texts - hymns, hymns, prayers. At the end of the 4th century, Saint Jerome translated the entire Bible into Latin. Since then, Latin, along with Hebrew and Ancient Greek, has been considered one of the sacred languages ​​of the Bible. The Renaissance left us a huge amount of scientific works in Latin. These are the medical treatises of the physicians of the Italian school of the 16th century: Andreas Vesalius’s On the Structure of the Human Body (1543), Gabriel Fallopius’s Anatomical Observations (1561), Bartholomew Eustachio’s Anatomical Works (1552), Girolamo’s On Contagious Diseases and Their Treatment Fracastoro (1546) and others. In Latin, he created his book “The World in Pictures” “ORBIS SENSUALIUM PICTUS. Omnium rerum pictura et nomenclatura" teacher Jan Amos Comenius (1658), in which the whole world is described with illustrations, from inanimate nature to the structure of society. Many generations of children from different countries of the world have learned from this book. Her last Russian edition published in Moscow in 1957.

Influence on other languages

The Latin language in its folk (colloquial) variety was the basis language for new national languages, united under the general name of Romance. These include Italian, French and Provençal, which developed in the former Gaul, Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese in the Iberian Peninsula, Romanian in the territory of the Roman province of Dacia (present-day Romania), Moldavian and some others, of which it should be specially noted. Sardinian, as the closest to classical Latin of all modern Romance languages.

The attempts of the Romans to subjugate the Germanic tribes were not successful, but economic ties Romans with the Germans existed for a long time. This is reminiscent of the names of German cities: Cologne (German Köln, from Latin colonia - settlement), Regensburg (German Regensburg, from Latin regina castra), Vienna (from Latin vindobona), etc.

In Britain, the most ancient traces of the Latin language are the names of cities with integral part-chester, -caster or -castle from lat. castra - military camp and castellum - fortification, foss - from lat. fossa -- ditch, col(n) from lat. colonia -- settlement: Manchester, Lancaster, Newcastle, Fossbrook.

in Russia until the 18th century. Church Slavonic and (to a lesser extent) Greek were used as a source of terminology; however, starting from the time of Peter I, an increased penetration of Latin vocabulary into the Russian language began, to a lesser extent directly, to a greater extent through the new European languages. It should be noted, however, that in Old Russian there are several very early borrowings from Latin: "Ululam Alhenas ferre" - "Take an owl to Athens", comparable to the Russian proverb: "Go to Tula with your samovar."

Until the 18th century, Latin remained the international language of science. In Latin translation, Amerigo Vespucci's report on the discovery of the New World became widely known in Europe in 1503; the first document in the history of Russian-Chinese relations was compiled in Latin - the Nerchinsk Treaty of 1689. The Dutch philosopher Spinoza (1632-1677), the English scientist Newton (1643-1727), the Russian scientist Lomonosov (1711- -1765) and many others. However, after french revolution university teaching was translated from Latin into new languages, and this decisively undermined the status of Latin as the main language of science. As a result, in the 19th century Latin is almost out of use; it lasted longest in philology (especially classical) and medicine.

In the 20th century, Latin remained essentially the only language of the Catholic Church, but even as such it was strongly pressed in the second half of the century, with the permission of services in national languages. AT last years in countries Western Europe and South America there was a movement to revive the use of the Latin language as a international language science. Several congresses of an international organization created for this purpose have taken place, and a special journal is being published.

Latin was, and to a large extent still is, a living language, spoken in one way or another by thousands or even millions of people - although no one speaks it as a language. mother tongue. The "dead" state of classical Latin means that some words are unknown to us (because literature has not preserved them for us); that we have a poor idea of ​​dialects; we do not know the peculiarities of Latin pronunciation and can say quite a bit about live colloquial speech.

The process of "withering away" does not occur instantly. First, the independent stops in the language. Instead of new native words, borrowed ones appear, which crowd out analogues.

For the language to become a thing of the past, you need to wait until the native people have no people left who speak the old language. Often this process takes place in conquered or isolated territories.

But one should not think that the "dying" language disappears without a trace. When two languages ​​enter into a struggle for the right to exist, they interact closely. As a result, these two languages ​​unwittingly inherit certain principles from each other, resulting in a new, improved language.

Known "dead" languages

Latin was used for live communication from the 6th century BC to the 6th century AD. Now he is declared "dead", although he has big weight in modern science. Latin is used not only in Catholic churches, but also in medical research, where almost all names sound . Medical students are even made to memorize some of the Latin expressions of the ancient philosophers. Also, the Latin alphabet served as the basis for the formation of many modern languages.

Old Church Slavonic converted to this moment in Church Slavonic, is also considered dead. However, it is actively used in Orthodox churches. All prayers are in this language. This language is the closest to the modern Russian language.

There are times when a "dead" language is resurrected. In particular, this happened with Hebrew.

In fact, "" almost, so it makes no sense to continue it. Nevertheless, it is worth noting the most famous of them. The languages ​​that are declared "dead" include: Egyptian, Taigian, Burgundian, Vandal, Prussian, Ottoman, Gothic, Phoenician, Coptic and others.

Russian language is dead

On the Internet, you can find a common story that the Russian language will soon be declared dead as a result of research by the Institute of Linguistics of Tartu. In fact, this is another running "duck", and a similar article in some sources dates back to 2006.

The Russian language cannot be declared dead as long as it is considered the state language, the whole country speaks it, and it is the main one in the ranking of school subjects.

Moreover, the art of writing continues to develop actively in modern Russia. And once, then the language will continue to live.

Not so long ago, in the last century, the Russian language has a huge number of neologisms, thanks to the works of Mayakovsky, Severyanin (introduced the word "mediocrity") and other famous writers.

DEAD LANGUAGES - languages ​​\u200b\u200bthat came out of the use-re-le-tion and known on the basis of the written-me-pa-myat-ni-kov, for-pi -this, to-went-shih from that time, when they were alive.

Languages ​​that came out of the use of the reb-le-tion and from the well-known on the basis of the written pa-myat-ni-kov, for-pi-this, to-shed-shih from that time-me-ni, when they would be alive-you-mi, describe-sa-niy, composed-of-len-nyh before their you-mi-ra-niya , or on-ho-dy-shchi-sya in artificial reg-la-men-ti-ro-van-nom upot-reb-le-nii. For example, in a row of dead beginning of XXI centuries, many Av-st-ra-liy-sky languages ​​\u200b\u200bcame in, In-Dei-sky languages ​​\u200b\u200b, languages ​​\u200b\u200bof Northern Eurasia, but-si-te-whether someone-rykh, hourly from-tes-none-nye to iso-li-ro-van-nye districts (for example, in-day re-zero-va-tions in the USA), for inclusion in the general -the whole life of your country should be re-re-ho-dit into its main language (for example, into English among the Indians of North America and abo- ri-ge-nov Av-st-ra-lii). In the earlier epoch, many languages ​​\u200b\u200bof you-died in connection with the mass destruction of the same-no-eat for-howl-van-nyh-nations - their no-si-te-lei when creating large empires, such as the ancient-Persian-Sid-sky, el-li-ni-sti-che-sky, Arabic and others, or in-sa-zh-de-ni-em of the main language of im-pe-rii (for example, latin in the Roman Empire). About the processes of you-mi-ra-niya of languages ​​​​and the reason for this y-y-le-niya under-rob-it, see the article Is-che-za-ing languages.

Dead languages ​​can be stored in the use of reb-le-nii in the ka-che-st-ve languages ​​​​of the cult on the ty after their exclusion from other spheres of society (Coptic language as the language of divine service among the Egyptian Christians, Latin in some -personal church-vi, the classical Ti-betan language in the la-mai-st-sky church-vi among the Mongolian peoples). In the last case, the dead language may be the language of the is-con-no-go on-se-le-niya, preserved in the cult used reb-le-nii after re-re-ho-yes of everything on-se-le-niya into the language of za-vo-va-te-lei [Coptic language among the Arabs; Hattian language, vi-di-mo, genus-st-ven-ny ab-ha-zo-Adyg-skim languages-kam (north-west-but-Caucasian-Kaz-skim), in ka-che -st-ve of the sacred language of the inhabitants of the Hitt-th king-st-va, re-shed-shih to in-do-ev-ro-pei-sky Hittite; the Su-mer language of ak-ka-doya-zych-no-go na-se-le-nia Me-so-po-ta-mii and others].

A more rare case is the one-time use of a dead language in the capacity of co-words-no-go (cus-to- in the th zhre-che-so-go, which is connected with his cult-ro-le) and whether-te-ra-tour-no-go, how to use-pol-zo-val- Xia san-sk-rit in ancient and medieval India, where in colloquial use (not inside the priestly Brah-man caste) you-stu-pa -whether prak-ri-you (reflecting a more late stage in the development of the In-do-Aryan languages ​​in comparison with the ancient -in-di-language, literary co-di-fi-ci-ro-van-noy form-my-so-ro-go was a classic san-sk-rit, i-lying- sya one-but-time-men-but a dead language and art-kus-st-ven-but in a well-ordered language with ka-but-ni-zi-ro-van-ny-mi-nor- ma-mi). Somewhat similar was the use of the Latin language (already a dead language) in medieval Europe in the quality of the language of the church and literature , and later in the quality of the main language of the highest education and science (up to the 18th century). Various of the churches-but-sla-vyan-sky-language, os-but-van-nye in the dead old-ro-slav-vyan-sky language, use-pol -zo-wa-lis as literary languages ​​of church (from-part-ti and secular) literature in the Slavic countries, remaining in the sphere of air-dey-st -Viya right-in-glorious church-vi. In exceptional so-ci-al-ny conditions-lo-vi-yah, it is possible to transform the dead language of the cult into a raz-th-vor-ny, as it is pro- Ish-lo with the ancient Hebrew language in Iz-rai-le (see Iv-rit). A particularly ben-but long-term form of preserving a dead language is its use as a language of a dog-no-pe- ny (first-in-the-first-sacred, then secular, for example, Latin in the first-cal-co-chi-not-ni-yah I.F. Stra-vin -sko-go), which is connected with the special psi-ho-fi-zio-logic role of the language in the sys-te-me in-cal-no-go is-pol- non-niya.

The most important pro-ble-ma of the study of dead languages ​​\u200b\u200bis its re-con-st-hand-tion (see Re-con-struction of ling-vi-sti-ches-kai), which then-paradise is usually os-but-you-va-et-sya on from-no-si-tel-but not-big-choo-bor-ke of texts, never giving , in contrast to the living language, a half-on-bo-ra of all word-forms and their possible combinations. The study of dead languages, on the one hand, cannot rely on the possibility of attracting grammatical (and se-man -tic) in-tui-tion go-in-rya-shche-go, with another - os-but-va-but on the castle-well-that (og-ra-ni-chen-nom) a lot -st-ve to-went-shih to research-follow-to-va-te-lei texts, giving the possibility of pro-weight-ti strict research-follow-to-va-tion all the given forms in them. This explains the fact that the first significant achievements of the ancient lin-gvis-ti-ki are connected with the study of the dead languages ​​(shu-mer-sko-go in Ancient Me-so-po-ta-miya, hatt-sko-go in ancient Asia Minor, san-sk-ri-ta in Ancient In- diy and the like). The most difficult problem (in particular, ben-no-sti in relation to dead languages ​​that are not preserved in the cul-to-vom or literary use-reb-le-nii) - re-creation of pro-from-no-she-nii. In relation to the ancient languages ​​\u200b\u200bthis is os-sche-st-in-la-et-sya in the middle of the co-post-tav-le-niya re-re-yes -chi words of a given language (including personal names) in different writing systems; so, production of [s] for the Hittite phone-not-we, in the kli-no-pi-si re-given-sche in the middle word- of the first signs, containing ̌s, - ša, ši, šu and so on, - pre-la-ga-yut on the basis of the Egyptian pen-re-yes -chi co-from-vet-st-vou-ing words in the middle of a sign, reading-tayu-shche-go-sya like [s]. If a dead language (for example, Lu-vi-sky) is from-wes-ten in two vari-an-tahs, re-give-ing-with-from-vet-st-ven-but two -my sis-te-ma-mi letters-ma (kli-no-pis-noy for the lu-viy-th language of the time of the Hitt-th king-st-va and ie-rog-li -fi-che-sky of the same and more late-not-th time; see Lu-viy-sky language, Lu-viy-sky ie-horn-li-fi-che-sky language ), then for the re-con-st-hand-tion of the pho-netic system-the-we of this dead language, you can use co-post-ta-le-lich -nyh (or owl-pa-giving) ways to-pi-sa-niya in each of the two graphic systems. For dead languages, some have saved the genus-st-vein-living languages ​​​​to them, re-sta-new-le-nie fo-not-ti-ki mo- zhet osu-shche-st-v-lyat-sya on the basis-but-va-nii compare-not-nia with them; for example, the phonetic system of the dead Prussian language is clarified on the basis of comparing it with life -mi Baltic languages ​​​​-ka-mi - li-tov-skim and la-tysh-skim.

A special case of restoring a hundred-new-le-dead languages ​​represents you-de-le-ing its constituent parts inside another language - dead in-go or live-in-go (Cursian elements-men-you inside la-tysh-sko-go, "dog-re-che-skie" in-do-eu-ro-pei-sky inside -ri greek). Such elements-men-you are-y-y-y-yut-sya on the basis of-but-va-nii of a comparatively-is-to-ri-participation of parts, I don’t give- shchih is-thol-ko-va-niyu with-voice-but us-ta-nov-len-noy sys-te-me co-from-vet-st-viy. Many dead languages ​​you-de-la-yut-xia only with the help of this after-not-so-so-ba.

After reading about the Slovak linguist Mark Hucko, who came up with new language"Slovio", which simplifies the communication of 400 million Slavs around the world.

I thought how many fictional languages ​​and languages ​​​​of great powers and even . Many people know that languages ​​are divided into living and dead. A child acquires a living language, adopting it from his parents, and in turn passing it on to his children. The dead language is so called because it is not transmitted from one generation to another. However, just because a language is dead does not mean that it is not used or lost altogether, although this can happen. Considering the top, let's pay attention to those, the use of which ended due to various reasons. Often, due to the loss of the meaning of use, there are no speakers of these dead languages, or even documents for them.
1

This dead language has a tragic history. Used for more than 1000 years by the population of Southern Indonesia, it was forgotten in an instant, when the Tabora volcano in 1815 destroyed almost all speakers of this language as a result.

2

This language was also invented with the Mormons, who thus responded to the expulsion from different parts USA. Having moved to a new place, they decided that they would have their own language. It was even invented and new books were printed, but given that it took a lot to provide everyone with new textbooks. big money, it was abandoned as economically disadvantageous.

3

At the beginning of the 20th century, tycoon Andrew Carnegie, having received approval from US President Roosevelt, decided to introduce a simplified, regular version of of English language. Having simplified in words everything that he considered difficult, he proposed this for teaching in schools. But, after a lot of complaints about this new spelling, the Supreme Court banned it and 14 years after its inception, it was abandoned.

4

Another representative of dead languages ​​invented artificially. For some reason, including political reasons, a famous person came up with a new alphabet, or rather introduced some innovations in English. After several schools decided to introduce it into teaching, and even some results were already visible, a revolution broke out and everyone forgot about the language. And they learned about him only a hundred years later, with a careful study of Franklin's biography. For this, his portrait was placed on the "weave", a joke.

This language was invented by the Frenchman Jean Francois Sudre at the beginning of the 19th century in France to teach the deaf as an alternative to sign language, the language was based on the names of seven notes, but was much wider as a system of gestures, singing, writing, speech, and even painting and flags. But it existed until the end of the same century and was withdrawn as ineffective.

6

The famous writer from Great Britain created not only masterpieces of literature, but also his own language. He worked hard to ensure that the new alphabet was not only created, but also in a new language. Several schools even tried to study it. But, according to the majority, this language only confused the students and he died without becoming more or less known.

7

The language originated on the island of Martha's Vineyard in the United States after a couple of hundred years people were born there with deafness. Most likely, this was because, due to the isolation of the community, many married close relatives. The inhabitants invented their own language for communication and successfully used it until the beginning of the twentieth century. After that, new people began to come to the island, incest stopped, and deafness began to appear less and less. With the disappearance of the problem, the language also gradually disappeared, and by the 80s of the last century only a small group of people knew it.

8

As a direct competitor, Frisian came into conflict with Germanic, and was supplanted by a more successful one. The church played a decisive role in his fate, when, due to the redistribution of its borders, the Germans began to create mixed families with Frisians. It existed from the 12th century to the present day, now it is used only in one small town of Saterland, and only at the household level.

9

It existed until the seventeenth century on the territory of present-day Azerbaijan. It was even more likely not a language, but an dialect that united several dialects of the inhabitants who inhabited the indicated territory. The decline of the language falls at the moment when Persia took possession of the city in which it was used, when everyone had already begun to switch to Turkish-Azerbaijani.

10

This language was formed due to the religious lack of freedom of the Jews in France in the 10th-11th centuries, when they had to live in their own separate communities and use this language in communication with each other. However, with the advent of freedom of religion, the carriers dispersed to different places, and the language was doomed to die when narrow communication among themselves ceased to be a privilege.