Russian is the only language state language Russia and one of the two Belarus (along with Belarusian).

official status
Russian is the official language in:
Kazakhstan (In state organizations and bodies local government Russian is officially used along with Kazakh - the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan),
Kyrgyzstan (In the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian language is used as the official language - the Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic),
Abkhazia and South Ossetia,
parts of Moldova (Transnistria and Gagauzia).
parts of Romania (Tulcea and Constanta counties)
part of the USA (state of New York).

World status
Until 1991, it was the language of interethnic communication in the USSR, de facto performing the functions of the state language. It continues to be used in countries that were previously part of the USSR, as a native language for part of the population and as a language of interethnic communication. In places of compact residence of emigrants from countries former USSR(Israel, Germany, Canada, USA, etc.) - Russian-language periodicals are published, radio stations and television channels operate. In the countries of Eastern Europe, until the end of the 1980s, Russian was the main foreign language in schools.

Distribution in the world
According to data published in the journal Language Monthly (No. 3, 1997), approximately 300 million people around the world speak Russian (which puts it in 5th place in terms of prevalence), of which 160 million consider it their native language (7- its place in the world). Russian is the working language of the CIS, one of six official languages UN, one of the working languages ​​of the OSCE.

Russian language in the modern world.
According to the total number of speakers, the Russian language ranks among the top ten world languages, but it is rather difficult to determine this place precisely.

The number of people who consider Russian as their mother tongue exceeds 200 million people, 130 million of whom live in Russia. The number of people who are fluent in Russian and use it as a first or second language in everyday communication is estimated at 300-350 million.

In total, more than half a billion people in the world speak Russian to one degree or another, and according to this indicator, Russian ranks third in the world after Chinese and English.

Language as a sign system.

The words of the human language are signs of objects and concepts. Words are the most numerous and main characters in the language. Other units of the language are also signs.

A sign is a substitute for an object for the purposes of communication; a sign allows the speaker to evoke in the mind of the interlocutor the image of an object or concept.

The sign has the following properties:

The sign must be material, accessible to perception;

the sign is directed to the meaning;

the content of the sign does not coincide with its material characteristics, while the content of the thing is exhausted by its material properties;

the content and form of the sign are determined by distinctive features;

A sign is always a member of the system, and its content largely depends on the place of the given sign in the system.

The above properties of the sign determine a number of requirements of the culture of speech.

· Firstly, the speaker (writer) must make sure that the signs of his speech (sounding words or signs of writing) are convenient for perception: they are quite clearly audible, visible.

Secondly, it is necessary that speech signs express some content, convey meaning, and in such a way that the form of speech makes it easier to understand the content of speech.

Thirdly, it must be borne in mind that the interlocutor may be less aware of the subject of the conversation, which means that it is necessary to provide him with the missing information, which only in the opinion of the speaker is already contained in the spoken words.

· Fourthly, it is important to ensure that the sounds of oral speech and the letters of the letter are quite clearly distinguished from each other.

· Fifthly, it is important to remember the systemic connections of a word with other words, take into account polysemy, use synonymy, keep in mind the associative links of words.

Thus, knowledge from the field of semiotics (the science of signs) contributes to the improvement of speech culture.

· A language character can be a code character and a text character.

o Code signs exist in the form of a system of units opposed in the language, connected by a significance relation that determines the content of signs specific to each language.

o Text characters exist as a formally and semantically linked sequence of units. The culture of speech implies the attentive attitude of the speaker to the coherence of the spoken or written text.

Meaning is the content of a linguistic sign, which is formed as a result of the reflection of extralinguistic reality in the minds of people. The value of a language unit in the language system is virtual, i.e. determined by what the unit can stand for. In a specific utterance, the meaning of a linguistic unit becomes relevant, since the unit is related to a specific object, to what it actually means in the utterance. From the point of view of speech culture, it is important for the speaker to clearly direct the interlocutor's attention to the actualization of the meaning of the statement, to help him correlate the statement with the situation, and for the listener it is important to show maximum attention to the speaker's communicative intentions.

Distinguish between subject and conceptual meaning.

o Objective meaning consists in correlating a word with an object, in designating an object.

o The conceptual meaning is used to express a concept that reflects an object, to specify a class of objects denoted by a sign.

Structure and functions of the language

The language is made up of:

Phoneme - letters and sounds. The phoneme does not have an independent lexical or grammatical meaning, but serves to distinguish and identify significant units of the language

morpheme is part of a word. Root, suffix, ending...

word

phrase

phraseological unit - a stable combination of words

offer

text.

Language features

communicative (or communication function) - the main function of the language, the use of language as a means of communication.

cognitive (or mental) - language as a means of cognition. the formation of the thinking of the individual and society

accumulative - information transfer and storage

volitional (or invocative-incentive function) - the function of influencing the audience

emotive - a means of conveying emotions.

Social forms of the existing language:

Literary language is the highest form national language. Language processed by masters.

Dialect is divided into territorial and social.

Territorial-used

IN SHORT ALL THIS IN LECTURES UP TO 8 QUESTIONS INCLUDING.

9. Culture of verbal communication

If a person first of all knows how to listen to his interlocutor in the process of communication, while correctly expressing his thoughts at a good level of language, without slang, obscenities and slang, we can say about such a person that he fully owns the culture of communication.

There are several classifications of speech errors. We will focus on classification in the aspect of secondary communicative activity (the perception of errors by the addressee) and consider errors associated with difficulties in interpreting the text.

1. Wrong choice of lexical equivalent often leads to inappropriate comedy, to the absurdity of the statement. For example: “Our Russian birches are standing in a wedding shroud” (instead of “in a wedding dress); "In February, the length of the day will increase by two hours" (instead of "... daylight hours will increase by two hours").

Such errors occur when a person chooses words from a certain thematic group without bothering to analyze their exact meaning. This negligence turns into vagueness of the statement, and sometimes complete absurdity.

2. Alogism. Consistency is a quality that characterizes the semantic structure of a text (statement). It refers to the correct correlation of the semantic structure of the text with the laws of development of the thought process.

Logic conditions - the correctness of the construction of syntactic structures, the order of words in a sentence; structural and logical connectivity of paragraphs and the entire text; thoughtfulness of the semantic content of the structures of sentences and phrases.

3. Violation of lexical compatibility. Lexical compatibility is the ability of words to connect with each other, because in speech words are used not in isolation, but in phrases. At the same time, some words are freely combined with others if they fit them in meaning, while others have limited lexical compatibility.

It happens that in terms of meaning, the words seem to be suitable for expressing one or another meaning, but “do not want” to be combined into phrases. We say bow your head and kneel, not bow your head, bow your knees.

The rules for combining words in speech are also determined by grammatical compatibility, on which the possibility of connecting one part of speech with another depends. Grammatical compatibility allows the combination of nouns with adjectives (deep silence), but “forbids” the combination of adjectives with numerals (you can’t say a big hundred), possessive pronouns with verbs (my yours doesn’t understand).

Lexical compatibility often conflicts with grammatical. So, all transitive verbs are combined with nouns in the accusative case without a preposition (I am reading a book), however, the form of this case often depends on whether the nouns belong to animate or inanimate ones: for the former, the accusative case coincides in form with the genitive (I met a friend), for the latter - with nominative (met the train). Moreover, in special cases, grammatical compatibility helps to correctly determine the meaning of the word: to see a satellite (about a spaceship) and to see a satellite (about a person).

4. Speech redundancy or verbosity. An economical, precise expression of thought is the main requirement of style.

There are two types of speech redundancy: tautology and pleonasm. Tautology - the unjustified use of words with the same root, for example: "I believe that those speakers who will speak will speak about the case." Numerous examples of tautology can often be found in Everyday life: “May I ask a question?”, “This phenomenon is ...”, “It is natural that a pattern follows from this”, “For example, let's give such an example ...”, etc.

Pleonasm is a form of verbosity in which extra clarifying words are used in sentences and phrases (“Their leader died, and they chose a new one from among the living”).
etc.................

Russian is one of the most widely spoken languages ​​in the world. On the globe it is spoken by about 250 million people. According to the number of speakers, the Russian language occupies 5th place in the world, yielding Chinese(over 1 billion people), and English(420 million people), Hindi And urdu(320 million people) and Spanish(300 million people).

Nowadays, the Russian language performs important public functions: national the language of the Russian people and state the language of Russia; language international communication peoples of Russia; one of the most important world languages. All these functions testify to the high status of the Russian language, which is due to both linguistic and social factors.

Russian language as the state language of the Russian Federation
used in the highest bodies of power and administration, in the official
office work and official correspondence, in federal radio and television programs, it is studied in secondary and higher educational institutions Russia.

Languages ​​widely used as a means of international communication
called world languages. Russian language has a status
official or working language in most international
intergovernmental organizations of which Russia is a member: the UN,
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), IAEA
(International Agency for atomic energy), OSCE (Organization for
security and cooperation in Europe), etc.

At the UN, Russian is one of the six official languages.
(together with English, Spanish, French, Arabic And Chinese), i.e., simultaneous interpretation of all speeches in the bodies of the Organization and translation of all resolutions, decisions and other main documents are provided.

Nowadays, the Russian language is state language of the Russian Federation, on which all state acts, all official documents regulating the life of society are created. Taking into account the fact that Russia is a multinational state, it is he who is currently means of international communication peoples of Russia . Russian language in present stage is one of the richest languages ​​in the world. In addition, it is also the language of international diplomacy. It is studied by more than a third of the population of the entire planet.

The development of the language is continuous and leads to the enrichment of its vocabulary and streamlining grammatical forms. The Russian language, like other languages, is constantly evolving: the vocabulary, pronunciation norms, and the grammatical structure of the language are changing. The development of the language is influenced by changes taking place in society, as well as by language features. In the last decades of the past century, Russian vocabulary was replenished foreign words denoting phenomena new to our reality public life: fishburger, player, chips, management, monitoring, leasing, parking, selfies, etc.

Questions for self-control

1. Which language family, group and subgroup does Russian belong to
language?

2. What is the classification of Slavic languages?

3. What is the Proto-Slavic language? When did it exist?

4. What are the main periods in the development of the Russian language? Briefly
describe each period.

5. When was formed Old Russian people and what is the language of this
nationalities?

6. When is the Great Russian people formed and what kind of state
formed at this time? What dialects formed the basis of the language of the Great Russian people?

7. Tell us about the main periods in the development of the Russian language. Give the most typical examples.

8. Describe recent period development of the modern Russian language. Give examples that testify to its dynamic development.

9. What is the position of the Russian language among other languages? Why is Russian one of the world languages?

10. What are the features of the Russian language as a means of interethnic communication?

Training exercises

Ex. 10.The Russian language is included in the Slavic group (East Slavic subgroup) of the Indo-European family of languages. From the list of languages ​​below, select Slavic languages ​​related to Russian. Find languages ​​that, along with Russian, have the status of a world language.

Serbian, English, Greek, Polish, Moldovan, Latin, Ukrainian, Spanish, Italian, Estonian, Belarusian, Chinese, Czech, Bulgarian, Arabic, French, Georgian, Hindi, Iranian, Albanian, Croatian, Slovak.

Exercise 11.What is the process of transition of words into the category of obsolete? The left column lists obsolete words, while the right column lists their modern equivalents. From the words of the right and left columns, make semantic pairs. Separately write down the lexemes that do not have modern correspondences. Explain why there are no equivalents for these words in modern language. Give an interpretation of their meanings.

Ex. 12.Write down neologisms modern era development of the Russian language, related to thematic groups"Economics", "Politics", "Technique", "Mass culture" (5-6 examples each). Use these words in context.

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Chapter 1. The emergence of language For a long time, linguists believed that the question of the origin of the language is solved only after abstracting it from the processes of speech activity. Therefore, from the middle of the XIX century. they regularly matched schemas different languages and built schemas to reduce them to a form that could be considered their common ancestor. The totality of such forms was called the proto-language. Languages ​​that have the same ancestor began to be called genetically related. This is how the concepts of the Indo-European, Semitic-Hamitic, Niger-Kordofanian and many other families arose. Using the same method, the Indo-European, Semitic-Hamitic, Kartvelian, Uralic, Dravidian and Altaic families were raised to the next level of the parent language. They began to be called Nostratic (from the Latin word nostrum - ours) - one of the macrofamilies. Then hypotheses appeared about the further expansion of the Nostratic community of languages. Based on the experience gained in Indo-European and Oriental studies, the processes that characterize the speech activity of a person from the point of view of the structure of his speech organs and the communicative tasks he solves are revealed. Observation of the dynamics of their development (weakening, disappearance, conservation, emergence, strengthening) makes it possible to make dependent on them all kinds of changes that occur in languages ​​and lead to transformations of both individual words or grammatical categories, and language system generally. Along with it, the verbal consciousness is transformed, the philosophical (physical) picture of the world becomes different, because the concepts underlying it are based on the language, its inherent categories and the way of reflecting objective reality acquired from childhood. Describing the stages of the development of speech activity "from zero" to today, from elementary processes to more and more complex ones, we get a tool for penetrating the secrets of the process of forming the categories of our thinking, which allows us, as it were, to be transported to the time when they were created, and to follow them throughout their development. When replacing a retrospective movement with a prospective one, we have a means to penetrate into the future and make a scientific forecast about what our language will be like tomorrow, how the categories of thinking will evolve, in what direction the philosophical or physical picture of the world will be rebuilt, what methodologies will determine the development of science. in the new millennium.

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Lecture number 1.

Literary language as the highest form of the national language

Subject, purpose and objectives of the course "Russian language and culture of speech".Slide #1

Plan

1. Russian language, its place among other languages ​​of the world.

2. Modern Russian literary language and its properties.

3. Language and speech. Functions of language and speech.

4. The concept of speech culture. Three aspects of speech culture: normative, communicative, ethical.

5. The value of the literary language in the professional training of a specialist.

Introductory word about discipline:

1. Goals and objectives of the course "Russian language and culture of speech" The course "Russian language and culture of speech" sets itself the following goals:

To form the skills of correct, rich and expressive speech in accordance with the norms of the modern Russian literary language (orthoepic, grammatical, lexical, stylistic);

Learn to distinguish styles and genres of speech and use them correctly in the practice of communication.

To achieve these goals, you must: 1) learn to speak Right, i.e. use language units in accordance with the requirements of orthoepy - the science of the correctness of speech; 2) learn to speak expressively, i.e. compose text as required rhetoric- the science of expressive speech; 3) learn:

a) choice language tools, characteristic of scientific and official business styles of speech;

b) the basic rules for creating the texts most needed by the student and future specialist (abstracts, reports, statements, explanatory notes, summaries, etc.). The main forms of studying this discipline are lectures, practical and independent work of students, testing, essays.

1. Russian language, its place among other languages ​​of the world.

The culture of speech as a field of linguistics since the 18th century. has come a long way in its development.

The first basis for its consideration is found in a short guide to eloquence"

M. V. Lomonosov back in 1748, in which the scientist stated: "... whoever wants to speak eloquently, he must first speak cleanly and have the contentment of decent and chosen speeches to depict his thoughts, and this, in turn, " ...depends on a thorough knowledge of the language, on frequent reading of good books, and on dealing with people who speak fluently. In the first, diligent study of grammatical rules contributes, in the second - choosing good sayings, proverbs and proverbs from books, in the third - diligence about a clean pronunciation in front of people who know and observe the beauty of the language.

It was in the works of M. V. Lomonosov ("Rhetoric", "Russian Grammar") that the foundations of normative grammar were laid for the first time in the history of Russian linguistics.

The great merit of Lomonosov in the improvement of the Russian literary, prose and poetic language is noted.

Remarkable words of Lomonosov about the Russian language. (Slide #2)

“Lord of many languages, language. Russian not only by the vastness of the places where it dominates, but also by its own. their space and contentment. great in front of everyone in Europe.

Charles the Fifth, the Roman emperor, used to say that in Spanish with God, French with friends, German with an enemy, Italian with a female, it is decent to speak. But if he were skilled in the Russian language, then, of course, he would add to that that it was proper for them to speak with all of them, for he would find in it the splendor of Spanish, the liveliness of French, the strength of German, the tenderness of Italian, and, moreover, richness and strength in images. brevity of the Greek and Latin languages.

The language, which is commanded by a single power, has a natural abundance, beauty and strength, and is not inferior in any way. Not a single European language Lomonosov emphasizes the splendor, strength, richness of the Russian language .

The Russian language is one of the most widely spoken languages ​​in the world. On the globe it is spoken about 250 million people.

In terms of prevalence, the Russian language ranks fifth in the world, second only to Chinese ( it is spoken by over 1 billion people),

English (420 million), hindi and urdu ( 320 million.) and Spanish (300 million).

Language is not only essential tool communication between people, but also a means of cognition that allows people to accumulate knowledge, passing it on from person to person and from each generation of people to the next generations.

Relying on historical facts in the development of the Russian language, usually allocatethree periods:

8-14 centuries - Old Russian language

14th-17th centuries the language of the Great Russian people

The 17th century is the language of the Russian nation.

2. Modern Russian literary language and its properties.

Literary language- this is the historically established highest, exemplary form of the national language, processed and normalized.

(slide number 3)

The literary language is used in science, in education, in print, on radio, television, in public institutions, serves such areas human life and activities, such as everyday and international communication, politics, science, culture, legislation and office work.

The main properties of the literary language: (slide number 4)

Processing

Stability

Compulsory

Normalization

Availability of functional styles

Its main features: (Slide number 5)

is the language of culture

the language of the educated part of the people

consciously codified

Codification– is it a fix orconsolidation various kinds of dictionaries and reference books, grammarrules and regulations which must be observed in oral and written speech.

(for example, the correct accent: m A rk e ting, dogs O r, rolled O g, kras And vee, provide e h e ringing And T).

Literary language has two forms - oral written.

Features of oral and writing speeches:

Oral speech (u.r .) is a sounding speech that functions in the sphere of direct communication between people.

Written speech (p.r.) is an independent communication system. It serves as a means of communication between people when direct communication is impossible (when they are separated by space and time). ). (slide number 6)

Characteristics of written and oral speech. (slide number 7)

Oral speech carried out mainly in a conversational style.

oral form is primary and the only form of existence of a language that does not have a written language.

Written form is secondary, later in time of occurrence.

For the Russian language, the first fixation dates back to the 11th century. The Tale of Bygone Years tells about many scribes who worked under Yaroslav the Wise. Mostly liturgical texts were copied (Psalters, service books, breviaries, Gospels). Manuscripts were the originals. South Slavic dating back to the Cyril and Methodius tradition. During the census, Russian scribes developed their own spelling and morphological norms.

The surviving ancient monuments of this kind include:

Ostromirov Gospel (1056-1057);

Archangel Gospel (1092);

Mstislav Gospel (StartXIIcentury). Monuments of this type were mass production.

The main differences between oral and written speech (slide number 8)

3. .Language and speech. Functions of language and speech.

Language is a system of signs, means and rules of speaking,

common to all members of a given society.

Speech is the manifestation and functioning of language, the process of communication itself; it is unique for every native speaker. This phenomenon is variable depending on the speaker.

(Slide number 9)

Signs of language and speech (Slide number 10)

Language features: (slide number 11)

informational - the transfer of information, the message about the thoughts, intentions of people;

communicative - function of communication;

expressive - direct expression of feelings, emotions;

aesthetic – impact function;

phatic - establishing contact between the participants of the communication.

metalinguistic - the use of language to describe the subject.

Speech functions: (slide number 12)

Communicative function(the word is a means of communication);

indicative(a word is a means of pointing to an object),

intellectual(a word is a carrier of a generalization, a concept). All these functions of speech are internally related to each other.

The place of the Russian language among other languages ​​of the world

Abstract plan

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2. Indo-European Languages

Chapter 3. The place of the Russian language in the world

Conclusion

Applications

List of used literature

Introduction

Language is not only the most important means of communication between people, but also a means of cognition that allows people to accumulate knowledge, passing it on from person to person and from generation to generation. Collection of achievements human society in industrial, social and spiritual activities is called culture. Therefore, we can say that the language is a means of its development and assimilation by each of the members of society.

The Russian language is one of the most widely spoken in the world. On the globe, it is spoken by about 250 million people. In terms of prevalence, the Russian language ranks fifth in the world, behind only Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi and Urdu.

Therefore, the purpose of my essay is to figure out what place the Russian language occupies in the world among other languages.

Objectives: to investigate the history of the emergence of languages, trace the formation of families, and also, based on statistical data, determine whether the Russian language has the potential for further development for at least the next 100 years.

distribution of the Slavic Indo-European language

Chapter 1

More than one has been written on the subject of the emergence of languages. treatise. The emergence of a language is not only a linguistic issue, it also affects anthropology, that is, the totality of other sciences that study a person, his origin, development, existence in natural and cultural environments.

There are a number of assumptions about the origin of the language, but none of them can be confirmed by facts due to the huge remoteness of the event in time. They remain hypotheses, since they can neither be observed nor reproduced in an experiment.

The first hypothesis, the hypothesis of onomatopoeia, comes from the Stoics and received support in the 19th-20th centuries. The essence of this theory is that the “languageless person”, hearing the sounds of nature, tried to imitate these sounds with his own speech apparatus.

The hypothesis of interjections - comes from the Epicureans, opponents of the Stoics, and lies in the fact that primitive people turned instinctive animal cries into interjections that accompany emotions, from where all other words allegedly originated. The reason for the emergence of supporters of this hypothesis is reduced to the expressive function. But there is a lot in the language that is not related to expression.

From the middle of the XVIII century. The social contract hypothesis emerged. It was based on some of the opinions of antiquity and in many respects corresponded to the rationalism of the 18th century. This assumption is that in the later epochs of the development of languages ​​it is possible to "agree" on certain words, especially in the field of terminology.

The trouble with all hypotheses is that the question of the origin of language is taken in isolation, without connection with the origin of man himself and the formation of primary human collectives. Engels, Humboldt and Baudouin de Courtenay believed that the upright gait was in human development both the preconditions for the emergence of speech and the prerequisite for the expansion and development of consciousness. Various assumptions that have existed for a long time about the origin of language from gestures also do not explain anything and are untenable.

For a long time, linguists believed that the question of the origin of the language is solved only after abstracting it from the processes of speech activity. Therefore, from the middle of the XIX century. they regularly compared the schemas of different languages ​​and built schemas to reduce them to a form that could be considered their common ancestor. The totality of such forms was called the proto-language. Languages ​​that have the same ancestor began to be called genetically related. This is how the concepts of the Indo-European, Semitic-Hamitic, Niger-Kordofanian and many other families arose. Using the same method, the Indo-European, Semitic-Hamitic, Kartvelian, Uralic, Dravidian and Altaic families were raised to the next level of the parent language. They began to be called Nostratic (from the Latin words nostrum - our ) is one of the macrofamilies. Then hypotheses appeared about the further expansion of the Nostratic community of languages.

The hierarchy of languages ​​goes deeper. The Nostratic macrofamily, along with the Afroasian, Sino-Caucasian, Austrian, Amerindian, is included in the Borean hyperfamily. There are also many isolate languages ​​- these are isolated languages ​​that do not belong to any known language family.

The totality of processes leading to the generation of words and other units in real language practice is called human speech activity. By studying its model, one can understand how the verbal behavior of an individual is carried out. To find out how language arose, it is necessary to study the speech activity of the collective. With the help of her model, one can describe the processes that stood at the origins of language and consciousness.

Based on the experience gained in Indo-European and Oriental studies, the processes that characterize the speech activity of a person from the point of view of the structure of his speech organs and the communicative tasks he solves are revealed. Observation of the dynamics of their development (weakening, disappearance, conservation, emergence, strengthening) makes it possible to make dependent on them all kinds of changes that occur in languages ​​and lead to transformations of both individual words or grammatical categories, and the language system as a whole. Along with it, the verbal consciousness is transformed, the philosophical (physical) picture of the world becomes different, because the concepts underlying it are based on the language, its inherent categories and the way of reflecting objective reality acquired from childhood. Describing the stages of the development of speech activity "from zero" to today, from elementary processes to more and more complex ones, we get a tool for penetrating the secrets of the process of forming the categories of our thinking, which allows us, as it were, to be transported to the time when they were created, and to follow them throughout their development. When replacing a retrospective movement with a prospective one, we have a means to penetrate into the future and make a scientific forecast about what our language will be like tomorrow, how the categories of thinking will evolve, in what direction the philosophical or physical picture of the world will be rebuilt, what methodologies will determine the development of science. in the new millennium.

The closer to the beginning, the more features in the language processes that are common to different language families, the more generalized the laws that govern them, the less discrete is the continuum of linguistic reality fixed by the brain. The procedure for searching for a "zero point" in the history of the parent language, the concept of transition from the initial stage to subsequent ones, the new knowledge that is introduced into science by the discovery of "linguistic zero", the problems that arise after this discovery - all this can be interesting not only for dedicated to linguistic matters. The studied materials show that speech activity originated in the form of exclamations of a multifocal formation, which were not divided into separate sounds and were not differentiated depending on the position of the speech organs or the nature of breathing. Both the meaning and the form of these exclamations were maximally generalized, not correlated with the concepts that exist today. The initial situation is easiest to imagine by analogy with the picture of a "walking" baby. The speech childhood of mankind, which appears before the reader, differs little from the first year of life of its individual representative (as they say, phylogenesis coincides with ontogenesis). Over time, an amorphous, from a sound and semantic point of view, the primary element entered the process of division: instead of one, two appeared, four of them, etc., until all the words and morphemes that make up modern languages. The concept of chaos acts as the initial unit of the content plan; its binarization leads to the concepts of light and darkness; on their basis, the opposition of the air-water substance and firmaments is formed; from the contradictions that have arisen within the idea of ​​the firmaments, the definition of the firmaments of heaven is formed as opposed to the firmaments of the earth, the binarization of the concept of air-water substance results in the separation of the concept of water from the concept of spirit, etc., etc., - while not all elements of our dictionary are created. Behind this process is easy to guess biblical creation story. The dualization of concepts is based on the need to navigate in time and space (outside a person and inside his brain). In parallel with the semantic ones, sound processes take place in the history of the language: from the syncretic multifocal, which denoted the concept of chaos, the vocal component is singled out as opposed to the consonant one, each of them is divided into two (for example, vowels begin to be opposed in row and rise, consonants - in place and method of formation) etc., - up to the variety of phonemes that currently exists. The organs of speech are responsible for this process (the specifics of their development and functioning). The discussion about the origin of languages ​​is very interesting, exciting, but it can continue indefinitely, so it will not fit into the framework of the abstract. Therefore, let us dwell on a more detailed study of the families of languages, in particular, the Indo-European family.

Chapter 2

The Indo-European family is one of the largest linguistic families in Eurasia. The common features that distinguish the Indo-European languages ​​from the languages ​​of other families come down to the presence of a certain number of regular correspondences between formal elements of different levels associated with the same content units (borrowings are excluded). A specific interpretation of the facts of similarity between the Indo-European languages ​​may consist in postulating a certain common source of the known ones (Indo-European proto-language, the base language, a variety of ancient Indo-European dialects) or in accepting the situation of a linguistic union, which resulted in the development of a number of common features in originally different languages. Such a development could, firstly, lead to the fact that these languages ​​began to be characterized by typologically similar structures, and, secondly, these structures received such a formal expression when more or less regular correspondences (transition rules) can be established between them. In principle, both indicated possibilities of interpretation do not contradict each other, but belong to different chronological perspectives.

Composition of the Indo-European family of languages.

1. Hitto-Luvian (Anatolian) group. It includes the following languages: Hittite cuneiform (Nesit), Luvian, Palai, hieroglyphic Hittite, Lycian, Lydian, Carian and some other languages ​​of Asia Minor of ancient times.

2. Indian (Indo-Aryan) group. It includes languages: Vedic Sanskrit, Middle Indian languages ​​(Pali, Prakrit and Apabhransha), New Indian languages ​​​​(Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Assamese, Oriya, Nepali, Sinhalese, Romani, etc.).

3. Iranian group. Components: Avestan and Old Persian, Middle Iranian languages ​​​​(Middle Persian (Pahlavi), Parthian, Khorezmian, Saka, Bactrian), New Iranian languages ​​\u200b\u200b(Persian, Tajik, Pashto, Ossetian, Kurdish, Baloch, Tat, Talysh, Parachi, Ormuri, Munjan, Yagnob) , Pamir (Shugnan, Rushan, Bartang, Yazgulyam, Ishkashim, Vakhan, etc.).

4. Armenian language.

5. Phrygian.

6. Greek group.

7. Thracian.

8. Albanian

9. Illyrian language

10. Venetian language

11. Italian group. It includes languages: Latin, Oscan, Umbrian, Faliscan, Pelignian, etc.

12. The following Romance languages ​​developed from Latin: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Provencal, Italian, Sardinian, Romansh, Romanian, Moldavian, Aromunian, Dalmatian, etc.

13. Celtic group: Gaulish, Brittonic subgroup - Breton, Welsh, Cornish; Gaelic subgroup - Irish, Scottish-Gaelic, Manx.

14. Germanic group: East Germanic - Gothic and some other extinct dialects; Scandinavian (North German), modern - Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese; West Germanic - Old High German, Old Saxon, Old Low Frankish, Old English and Modern - German, Yiddish, Dutch, Flemish, Afrikaans, Frisian, English

15. Baltic group: Western Baltic - Prussian, Yatvingian; Eastern Baltic - Lithuanian, Latvian, extinct Curonian.

16. Slavic group: East Slavic - Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian; West Slavic - Polish, Kashubian, Upper Lusatian, Lower Lusatian, Czech, Slovak, extinct dialects of the Polabian Slavs; South Slavic - Old Church Slavonic, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian.

17. Tocharian group: Karashahr and Kuchan.

The belonging of some other languages ​​to Indo-European is still controversial. As you can see, many of this family have long since died out (Hitto-Luvian, Illyrian, Thracian, Venetian, Oscan-Umbrian, a number of Celtic languages, Gothic, Prussian, Tocharian, etc.), leaving no traces.

Indo-European languages ​​are distributed almost throughout Europe, in Western Asia, the Caucasus, Iran, Central Asia, India, etc.; later expansion led to their distribution in Siberia, Northern and South America, Australia, in part of Africa. However, it is obvious that in ancient era(probably as early as the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC) these languages ​​or dialects were absent in Asia, the Mediterranean, Northern or Western Europe. Therefore, it is usually assumed that the centers of distribution of Indo-European dialects were in the band from Central Europe and the northern Balkans to the northern Black Sea region. Of the features of the dialect division of the Indo-European language area, one can note the special proximity of the Indian and Iranian, Baltic and Slavic languages, respectively, and partly of Italian and Celtic, which gives the necessary indications of the chronological framework for the evolution of the Indo-European family. Indo-Iranian, Greek, Armenian reveal a significant number of common isoglosses. At the same time, the Balto-Slavic ones have many features in common with the Indo-Iranian ones. The Italic and Celtic languages ​​are in many ways similar to Germanic, Venetian and Illyrian. Hitto-Luvian reveals significant parallels with Tocharian, and so on. Ancient connections Indo-European languages are determined both by lexical borrowings and by the results of a comparative historical comparison with such languages ​​as the Uralic, Altaic, Dravidian, Kartvelian, Semitic-Hamitic languages.

From the foregoing, we can conclude that the Russian language is just one of many other languages ​​\u200b\u200bthat exist or have existed on our planet. Despite this, it cannot be said that the greatness and significance of the Russian language in the world is negligible. On the contrary, it occupies a very important place in modern reality.

Chapter 3. The place of the Russian language in the world

Russian is the national language of the Russian people, the state language of the Russian Federation, one of the 6 official languages ​​of the UN.

More than 250 million people use it, including about 140 million people in Russia, according to the 1989 All-Union Census. The Russian language is among the top ten most widely spoken languages ​​on the planet.

In total, more than half a billion people in the world speak Russian to one degree or another, and according to this indicator, Russian ranks third in the world after Chinese and English.

Together with Ukrainian and Belarusian languages Russian belongs to the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic group of the Indo-European family of languages. You can find the similarity of the words of Russian and other Indo-European languages:

Russian - night,

Belarusian - night,

Ukrainian - nich,

Bulgarian - night

Polish - nos

Czech - nos

Slovak - nos

Lithuanian - naktis

Latvian - nox

Italian - notte

French - nuite

English - night

German - nacht.

In his historical development The Russian language has gone through several stages. The first stage in the formation of the future Russian language is associated with Kievan Rus, the feudal state of the East Slavic tribes, whose dialects formed the basis of the Old Russian language. After the adoption of Christianity (988-989), church books began to spread in Rus', which were sent from Bulgaria and were written in Old Church Slavonic, which arose as a result of translations of liturgical books by Cyril and Methodius from Greek into the South Slavic Thessalonica dialect (863). This language was the first written language Slavs in the IX - XI centuries.

The adoption of Christianity in Rus' contributed to the promotion of the Old Church Slavonic language as the language of the church to the east, where it was influenced by living dialects of the native East Slavic language, which led to the emergence of its local varieties. The continuation of the Old Church Slavonic language is the Church Slavonic language, which was used in the church, scientific literature and influenced the development of the Russian literary language.

The formation of the language of the Great Russian people (and later the national language) is associated with the rise of Moscow, which in the 14th century became the center of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, and from the second half of the 15th century - the capital of a single Russian state. At this time, the norms of oral and written Moscow speech begin to form and consolidate. The Moscow dialect is the basis of the Russian language, the formation of which is closely connected with the development of the Russian people into a nation and dates back to the second half of the 17th century. This language is subjected to processing and normalization, enriched by the creativity of writers and becomes the highest form Russian national language.

Today, the question remains whether the influence of the Russian language in the world has been falling in recent decades or not.

On the one hand, the linguistic situation in the post-Soviet space, where before the collapse of the USSR, the Russian language served as the generally recognized language of interethnic communication, is very contradictory, and a variety of trends can be identified here. On the other hand, the Russian-speaking diaspora in the far abroad has grown many times over the past twenty years.

Of course, back in the seventies, Vysotsky wrote songs about “the spread of our people around the planet,” but in the nineties and two thousandth this spread became much more noticeable (see Appendix 1).

But to begin consideration of the situation with the Russian language as of the end of the 2000s, of course, one should start with the post-Soviet states.

In the post-Soviet space, in addition to Russia, there are at least three countries where the fate of the Russian language does not cause any concern. These are Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

In Belarus, the majority of the population speaks Russian in everyday life and in general in everyday communication, and in the cities, young people and many middle-aged people in Russian speech practically lack even the Belarusian accent that was characteristic in the past.

At the same time, Belarus is the only post-Soviet state where the state status of the Russian language was confirmed in a referendum by an overwhelming majority of votes.

Obviously, the services of translators from Russian into Belarusian will not be in demand for a long time, and possibly never - after all, almost all official and business correspondence in Belarus is conducted in Russian.

The language situation in Kazakhstan is more complex. In the 1990s, the share of Russians in the population of Kazakhstan decreased markedly, and Kazakhs became the national majority for the first time since the 1930s. According to the Constitution, the only state language in Kazakhstan is Kazakh. However, since the mid-nineties there has been a law equating the Russian language in all official areas with the state language. And in practice most public institutions at the city and regional level, as well as in the capital's government institutions, Russian is used more often than Kazakh.

The reason is simple and quite pragmatic. Representatives of different nationalities work in these institutions - Kazakhs, Russians, Germans, Koreans. At the same time, absolutely all educated Kazakhs are fluent in Russian, while representatives of other nationalities know Kazakh much worse.

A similar situation is observed in Kyrgyzstan, where there is also a law giving the Russian language official status, and in everyday communication, Russian speech in cities can be heard more often than Kyrgyz.

Azerbaijan adjoins these three countries, where the status of the Russian language is not officially regulated in any way, but in the cities the majority of residents of the indigenous nationality speak Russian very well, and many prefer to use it in communication. This is again facilitated by the multinational character of the population of Azerbaijan. For national minorities since Soviet Union Russian is the language of international communication.

Ukraine stands apart in this row. Here the language situation is peculiar, and the language policy sometimes takes on extremely strange forms.

The entire population of the east and south of Ukraine speaks Russian. Moreover, attempts at forced Ukrainization in a number of regions (in the Crimea, Odessa, Donbass) lead to the opposite result. The previously neutral attitude towards the Ukrainian language is changing into a negative one.

As a result, even the traditional mixed speech disappears in these territories - Surzhik in the east and Odessa dialect in Odessa and its environs. The new generation learns the language not on the example of parental speech, but on the example of the speech of Russian television announcers, and begins to speak correct Russian literary language(with slang features of the XXI century).

Case in point: in the Russian speech of Ukrainian youth, the guttural Ukrainian “soft” Г (h) is replaced by the “hard” Ґ (g) of the Moscow-Petersburg type.

And in western Ukraine, too, not everything is simple. After all, the population of Carpathian and Transcarpathian Ukraine speaks dialects that are considered a separate Ruthenian language in neighboring countries (Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia).

And it turns out that the Ukrainian literary language and dialects close to the literary one in the Ukrainian state are spoken by a minority of the population. However, in recent years, the Ukrainian authorities have been busy inculcating the Ukrainian language with absolutely ridiculous methods - like the useless, but mandatory translation of all films shown in cinemas into Ukrainian language.

However, the Baltic countries, especially Latvia and Estonia, remain unsurpassed in their desire to require the services of translation agencies to translate from Russian.

True, it should be noted that the language policy of the state and the attitude of the population are still two big differences (as they still say in Odessa). Rumors that a Russian tourist needs a translation from English in order to communicate with the local population are greatly exaggerated.

The demands of life are stronger than the efforts of the state, and in this case this is manifested as clearly as possible. Even young people who were born in Latvia and Estonia already in the period of independence speak Russian well enough to understand each other. And cases when a Latvian or an Estonian refuses to speak Russian on principle are rare. So much so that each of these cases is the subject of heated discussion in the press.

According to the testimony of the majority of Russians who have visited Latvia and Estonia in recent years, they did not have to deal with signs of language discrimination. Latvians and Estonians are very hospitable, and the Russian language continues to be the language of interethnic communication in these countries. In Lithuania, the language policy was initially softer.

In Georgia and Armenia, Russian has the status of a national minority language. In Armenia, the proportion of Russians in the total population is very small, but a significant proportion of Armenians can speak Russian well. In Georgia, the situation is approximately the same, and the Russian language is more common in communication in those places where the proportion of the foreign-speaking population is large. However, among young people, knowledge of the Russian language in Georgia is very weak.

In Moldova, the Russian language has no official status (with the exception of Transnistria and Gagauzia), but de facto it can be used in the official sphere.

In Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, the Russian language is less commonly used than in neighboring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. In Tajikistan, according to the Constitution, the Russian language is the language of interethnic communication, in Uzbekistan it has the status of a national minority language, in Turkmenistan the situation remains unclear.

One way or another, in all three states, the majority of the urban population speaks Russian. On the other hand, the indigenous people speak to each other in mother tongue, and they switch to Russian only in conversation with Russians or with representatives of national minorities. The linguistic and socio-cultural situation in Uzbekistan is very clearly illustrated by modern Uzbek films. According to them, it is very interesting to observe in what situations the Uzbek citizens switch to Russian in a conversation with each other.

For example, in some new Uzbek films, reminiscent of Indian melodramas in plot, the characters switch to Russian to express feelings or clarify relationships that do not fit into patriarchal local customs. And a peculiar the language barrier. In a fairly Europeanized Uzbek society, any topic can be discussed - but not all can be discussed on Uzbek. For some, Russian is better.

One way or another, the Russian language is still the language of interethnic communication throughout the post-Soviet space. Moreover, the main role here is played not by the position of the state, but by the attitude of the population.

But in the far abroad, the situation with the Russian language is the opposite. Russian, alas, is one of the languages ​​that are lost in two generations.

Russian emigrants of the first generation prefer to speak Russian, and many of them learn the language new country not fully and speak with a strong accent. But already their children speak the local language with little or no accent. They speak Russian only with their parents, and in Lately also on the internet. And by the way, the Internet plays an extremely important role in preserving the Russian language in the diaspora.

But on the other hand, in the third or fourth generation, interest in the roots of the descendants of emigrants is revived, and they begin to specifically learn the language of their ancestors. Including Russian.

In the 1970s and 1980s, with the almost complete severance of ties with the USSR, the Russian language gave way to English or Hebrew much faster than now, when any emigrant can keep in touch with family friends and acquaintances on the Internet. In the seventies and eighties in Israel, emigrants from Russia learned Hebrew at an accelerated pace. And in the nineties, Israeli officials began to learn Russian at an accelerated pace, so as not to overload the translation agency with unnecessary work.

Today, in the last year, related to the "zero", the Russian language not only remains the main language of interethnic communication throughout the post-Soviet space. It is well spoken by the older generation and well explained by the younger generation in many countries of the former socialist bloc.

For example, in the former GDR, schoolchildren were taught Russian, to be honest, much better than Soviet schoolchildren were taught German.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it should be noted that now the question has become of great relevance: “Will Russian be among the world languages ​​in the future?”

At present, the Russian language still ranks fifth in the world in terms of prevalence. If existing trends continue, by 2015 the number of people who know Russian to varying degrees will decrease to 212 million people, and by 2025, the number of people who know Russian in various countries of the world will decrease to approximately 152 million people (see Appendix 2).

The Russian language has a great internal potential for further development and a rich cultural heritage. However, Russian is the only one of the 10-12 leading world languages ​​that has been steadily losing ground in all major regions of the world over the past 15 years. And in the next 20 years, this negative trend will continue if appropriate measures are not taken to effectively support the Russian language and culture within the country, in the near and far abroad.

Applications

List of used resources

In my essay, I used information from the following sources.

Literature

LZ Sova “At the origins of language and thinking. The Genesis of African Languages" Direct-Media, 2013. - 382p.

Internet resources

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