the largest language families in the world are Indo-European(2.5 billion people), Sino-Tibetan(over 1 billion people), Al-Tai, afroasian, Ural, Dravidian, Niger-Kardofanian and austronesian(Figure 52).

Indo-European family, widespread in Europe, North, Southwest and South Asia, South Africa, in North and Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, includes Germanic (Germans, Austrians, British, US Americans, Anglo-Canadians, Anglo-New Zealanders, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, Boers, etc. ), Romance (French, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Romanians, Moldovans, French-Canadians, Brazilians, Mexicans, Colombians, Argentines and other Latin American peoples), Slavic (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Bulgarians , Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Bosnians), Indo-Aryan (Hindustani, Bengalis, Punjabis), Iranian (Persians, Kurds, Pashtuns, Ossetians) and others language groups.

To Sino-Tibetan family include the Chinese, Zhuang, Myanmar (Bana) and Tibetans, who live mainly in East, Southeast and Central Asia.

The largest language groups Altaic language family are Turkic (Turks, Azerbaijanis, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Kirghiz, Yakuts, Uighurs) and Mongolian (Mongols, Buryats, Kalmyks). Representatives of the Altai family live in North, Southwest and Central Asia.

Afroasian family includes the Semitic (Arabs, Jews of Israel, Amhara, Tigray), Berber (Berbers, Tuareg), Cushitic (Oromo, Somali) and Chadian groups (Hausa), whose representatives are widely distributed throughout Southwest Asia and North Africa.

largest language group Ural family is a Finno-Ugric group, which includes the Finns, Estonians, Hungarians, Mordovians, Mari, Udmurts, Karelians, Saami, Komi, Khanty and Mansi. The peoples of the Uralic language group are found in the north and east of Europe, as well as in Russia.

To Dravidian language family include Tamils, Malayalis, Telugu and other peoples of South India.

Niger-Kordofanian language family includes most nations Tropical Africa: Yoruba, Fulbe, Kongo, Xhosa, Zulu and other Bantu peoples.

Austronesian family, common in Southeast Asia and Oceania, includes Malays, Indonesians (Javanese, Sunds, Madurians), Filipinos (Visayans, Tagals, Ilocans), Malagasy, Polynesians, Melanesians, Micronesians, etc. material from the site

On this page, material on the topics:

Languages ​​develop like living organisms, and languages ​​that come from the same ancestor (called a "proto-language") 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, which is part of the Slavic language group, which is a branch of the larger Indo-European family.

Comparative (contrastive) linguistics, as its name implies, 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 further away languages ​​are from each other, the more difficult it is to find genetic links between them. For example, none of the linguists doubts that the Spanish and Italian languages ​​are related, meanwhile, the existence of the Altaic language family (including the Turkish and Mongolian languages) is questioned and not recognized by all linguists. At the moment, it is simply impossible to know whether all languages ​​come from the same ancestor. If single human language existed, 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 over a hundred major language families (language families that are not considered bound friend with a friend). 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.

Special cases

Isolated languages ​​(isolate languages)

An isolate language is an "orphan": a language that has not been proven to belong to any of the known language families. best example the Basque language, which is spoken in Spain and France, can serve. Despite being surrounded by Indo-European languages, it is very different from them. Linguists have compared Basque with other languages ​​spoken in Europe, with Caucasians and even with Americans, but no links have been found.

Korean is another well-known isolate, although some linguists suggest a connection with the Altaic languages ​​or Japanese. Japanese is sometimes considered an isolate on its own, but is best described as belonging to a small Japanese family that includes several related languages ​​such as Okinawan.

Pidgin and Creole languages

A pidgin is a simplified communication system that has developed 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 children begin to learn a pidgin as their first language, it develops into a full-fledged, stable language called Creole.

Most of the 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 official language 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.

Consider the origin of languages: once the number of languages ​​was small. These were the so-called "proto-languages". Over time, proto-languages ​​began to spread across the Earth, each of them became the ancestor of their own language family. The language family is the largest unit of classification of a language (peoples and ethnic groups) on the basis of their linguistic kinship.

Further, the ancestors of language families broke up into language groups of languages. Languages ​​that are descended from the same language family (that is, descended from the same "proto-language") are called a "language group". Languages ​​of the same language group retain many common roots, have similar grammatical structure, phonetic and lexical coincidences. There are now more than 7,000 languages ​​from more than 100 language families of languages.

Linguists have identified over one hundred major language families of languages. It is assumed that language families are not related to each other, although there is a hypothesis about the common origin of all languages ​​from a single language. The main language families are listed below.

As can be seen from the list, ~45% of the world's population speaks the languages ​​of the Indo-European family of languages.

Language groups of languages.

Further, the ancestors of language families broke up into language groups of languages. Languages ​​that are descended from the same language family (that is, descended from the same "proto-language") are called a "language group". The languages ​​of the same language group have many coincidences in the roots of words, in grammatical structure and phonetics. There is also a finer division of groups into subgroups.

The Indo-European family of languages ​​is the most widespread language family in the world. The number of speakers of languages ​​of the Indo-European family exceeds 2.5 billion people who live on all inhabited continents of the Earth. The languages ​​of the Indo-European family occurred as a result of the successive collapse of the Indo-European proto-language, which began about 6 thousand years ago. Thus, all the languages ​​of the Indo-European family come from a single Proto-Indo-European language.

The Indo-European family includes 16 groups, including 3 dead groups. Each group of languages ​​can be divided into subgroups and languages. The table below does not indicate a finer division into subgroups, and there are also no dead languages and groups.

The classification of languages ​​explains the reason for the difficulty of learning foreign languages. carrier Slavic language, which belong to the Slavic group of the Indo-European family of languages, it is easier to learn the language Slavic group than the language of another group of the Indo-European family, such as languages Romanesque group(French) or the Germanic group of languages ​​(English). It is even more difficult to learn the language of another language family, such as Chinese, which is not included in Indo-European family, but belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family of languages.

Choosing foreign language for study, are guided by the practical, and more often the economic side of the matter. To get a well-paid job, they choose in the first place such popular languages ​​as English or German.

VoxBook audio course to help you learn English

Additional materials on language families.

Below are the main language families and the languages ​​included in them. The Indo-European language family has been discussed above.

Sino-Tibetan (Sino-Tibetan) language family.

Sino-Tibetan is one of the largest language families in the world. Includes more than 350 languages ​​spoken by more than 1200 million people. Sino-Tibetan languages ​​are divided into 2 groups, Chinese and Tibeto-Burmese.
● The Chinese group is formed by Chinese and its numerous dialects, the number of native speakers is more than 1050 million people. Distributed in China and beyond. and Min languages with more than 70 million native speakers.
● The Tibeto-Burmese group includes about 350 languages, with about 60 million native speakers. Distributed in Myanmar (formerly Burma), Nepal, Bhutan, southwestern China and northeastern India. Main languages: Burmese (up to 30 million speakers), Tibetan (more than 5 million), Karen languages ​​(more than 3 million), Manipuri (more than 1 million) and others.

The Altaic (hypothetical) language family includes the Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu language groups. sometimes include the Korean and Japanese-Ryukyuan language groups.
● Turkic language group - widespread in Asia and Eastern Europe. The number of speakers is more than 167.4 million people. They are divided into the following subgroups:
・ Bulgar subgroup: Chuvash (dead - Bulgar, Khazar).
・ Oguz subgroup: Turkmen, Gagauz, Turkish, Azerbaijani (dead - Oguz, Pecheneg).
・ Kypchak subgroup: Tatar, Bashkir, Karaim, Kumyk, Nogai, Kazakh, Kirghiz, Altai, Karakalpak, Karachay-Balkarian, Crimean Tatar. (dead - Polovtsian, Pecheneg, Golden Horde).
・ Karluk subgroup: Uzbek, Uighur.
・ Eastern Xiongnu subgroup: Yakut, Tuva, Khakass, Shor, Karagas. (the dead - Orkhon, Old Uyghur.)
● The Mongolian language group includes several closely related languages ​​of Mongolia, China, Russia and Afghanistan. Includes modern Mongolian (5.7 million people), Khalkha-Mongolian (Khalkha), Buryat, Khamnigan, Kalmyk, Oirat, Shira-Yugur, Mongolian, Baoan-Dongxiang cluster, Mughal language - Afghanistan, Dagur (Dakhur) languages.
● Tungus-Manchu language group related languages ​​in Siberia (including Far East), Mongolia and northern China. The number of carriers is 40 - 120 thousand people. Includes two subgroups:
・ Tungus subgroup: Evenki, Evenk (Lamut), Negidal, Nanai, Udei, Ulchi, Oroch, Udege.
・ Manchu subgroup: Manchu.

Austronesian language family.

● Semitic group
・ Northern subgroup: Aisor.
・ Southern group: Arabic; Amharic, etc.
・ dead: Aramaic, Akkadian, Phoenician, Canaanite, Hebrew (Hebrew).
・ Hebrew (revived official language Israel).
● Cushitic group: Galla, Somali, Beja.
● Berber group: Tuareg, Kabil, etc.
● Chadian group: Hausa, Gvandarai etc.
● Egyptian group (dead): Ancient Egyptian, Coptic.

The languages ​​of the pre-Indo-European population of the Hindustan peninsula are included:
● Dravidian group: Tamil, Malalayam, Kannara.
● Andhra group: Telugu.
● Central Indian group: Gondi.
● Brahui language (Pakistan).

The Japanese-Ryukyuan (Japanese) family of languages ​​is common in the Japanese archipelago and the Ryukyu Islands. Japanese is an isolated language that is sometimes assigned to the hypothetical Altaic family. The family includes:
・Japanese language and dialects.

The Korean language family is represented by one single language - Korean. Korean is an isolated language sometimes referred to as a hypothetical Altaic family. The family includes:
・Japanese language and dialects.
・Ryukyuan languages ​​(Amami Okinawan, Sakishima, and Yonagun language).

Tai-Kadai (Thai-Kadai, Dong-Thai, Paratai) is a family of languages ​​spoken on the Indochina Peninsula and in the adjacent regions of South China.
● Li languages ​​(Hlai (Li) and Jiamao) Thai languages
・Northern subgroup: Northern Zhuang, Bui, Sek.
・central subgroup: tai (tho), nung, southern Zhuang dialects.
・Southwestern subgroup: Thai (Siamese), Lao, Shan, Khamti, Ahom, Black and White Tai, Yuan, Ly, Khyn.
●Dong-Shui languages: dong, shui, poppy, tkhen.
●be
●Kadai languages: Lakua, Lati, Gelao languages ​​(northern and southern).
●li languages ​​(hlai (li) and jiamao)

The Uralic language family includes two groups - Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic.
●Finno-Ugric group:
・Baltic-Finnish subgroup: Finnish, Izhorian, Karelian, Vepsian, Estonian, Votic, Liv.
・Volga subgroup: Mordovian language, Mari language.
・Permian subgroup: Udmurt, Komi-Zyryan, Komi-Permyak and Komi-Yazva languages.
・Ugric subgroup: Khanty and Mansi, as well as Hungarian.
・Sami subgroup: languages ​​spoken by the Sami.
●Samoyedic languages ​​are traditionally divided into 2 subgroups:
・Northern subgroup: Nenets, Nganasan, Enets languages.
・southern subgroup: Selkup language.

The development of languages ​​can be compared with the process of reproduction of living organisms. In past centuries, their number was much smaller than today, there were so-called "proto-languages", which were the ancestors of our modern speech. They broke up into many dialects, which were distributed throughout the planet, changing and improving. Thus, various language groups were formed, each of which descended from one "parent". On this basis, such groups are defined in families, which we will now list and briefly consider.

The biggest family in the world

As you may have guessed, the Indo-European language group (more precisely, it is a family) consists of many subgroups that are spoken in most of the world. Its distribution area is the Middle East, Russia, all of Europe, as well as the countries of America, which were colonized by the Spaniards and the British. Indo-European languages are divided into three categories:

Native speeches

Slavic language groups are very similar both in sound and phonetics. They all appeared at about the same time - in the 10th century, when it ceased to exist Old Slavonic language, invented by the Greeks - Cyril and Methodius - to write the Bible. In the 10th century, this language broke up, so to speak, into three branches, among which were eastern, western and southern. The first of these included the Russian language (Western Russian, Nizhny Novgorod, Old Russian and many other dialects), Ukrainian, Belarusian and Rusyn. The second branch included Polish, Slovak, Czech, Slovene, Kashubian and other dialects. The third branch is represented by Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Slovenian. These languages ​​are spoken only in those countries where they are official, and Russian is the international one among them.

Sino-Tibetan family

This is the second largest language family, which covers the range of all of South and Southeast Asia. The main "proto-language", you guessed it, is Tibetan. All those descended from him follow him. This is Chinese, Thai, Malay. Also language groups belonging to the Burmese regions, the Bai language, Dungan and many others. Officially, there are about 300 of them. However, if you take into account adverbs, then the figure will be much larger.

Niger-Congo family

A special phonetic system, and, of course, a special sound that is unusual for us, have the language groups of the peoples of Africa. characteristic feature grammar here is the presence of nominal classes, which is not found in any Indo-European branch. Indigenous African languages ​​are still spoken by people from the Sahara to the Kalahari. Some of them "assimilated" with English or French, some remained original. Among the main languages ​​that can be found in Africa, we will highlight the following: Rwanda, Makua, Shona, Rundi, Malawi, Zulu, Luba, Xhosa, Ibibio, Tsonga, Kikuyu and many others.

Afroasian or Semitic-Hamitic family

There are language groups that are spoken in North Africa and the Middle East. Also, many dead languages ​​of these peoples are still included here, for example, Coptic. Of the currently existing dialects that have Semitic or Hamitic roots, the following can be mentioned: Arabic (the most common in the territory), Amharic, Hebrew, Tigrinya, Assyrian, Maltese. It also often includes the Chadic and Berber languages, which, in fact, are used in Central Africa.

Japanese-Ryukyuan family

It is clear that the areola of distribution of these languages ​​is Japan itself and the island of Ryukyu adjacent to it. Until now, it has not been finally clarified from which proto-language all those dialects that are now used by the inhabitants of the country of the Rising Sun originated. There is a version that this language originated in Altai, from where it spread, along with the inhabitants, to the Japanese islands, and then to America (the Indians had very similar dialects). There is also an assumption that China is the birthplace of the Japanese language.

Language families is a term used in the classification of peoples according to linguistic characteristics. AT language family include languages ​​that are related to each other.

It manifests itself in the similarity of the sound of words denoting the same subject, as well as in the similarity of such elements as morphemes, grammatical forms.

According to the theory of monogenesis, the language families of the world were formed from the proto-language spoken by the ancient peoples. The division occurred due to the predominance of the nomadic way of life of the tribes and their remoteness from each other.

Language families are subdivided as follows.

This table shows that the languages ​​of the same family can be distributed in various countries and parts of the world. And the very concept of "language families" was introduced to facilitate the classification of languages ​​​​and the compilation of their genealogical tree. The most widespread and numerous is the Indo-European family of languages. Peoples who speak the languages ​​of the Indo-European family can be found in any hemisphere of the Earth, in any on any continent and in any country. There are also languages ​​that are not included in any language family. This is also artificial.

If we talk about the territory of Russia, then there are a variety of language families. The country is inhabited by people of more than 150 different nationalities, who can consider their mother tongue from almost every language family. The territorial language families of Russia are distributed depending on which country a particular region borders on, which language is most common in the country bordering the region.

Some nationalities have occupied a certain territory since ancient times. And at first glance it may seem strange why these particular language families and languages ​​predominate in this region. But there is nothing strange in this. In ancient times, people's migrations were determined by the search for new hunting grounds, new lands for agriculture, and some tribes simply led a nomadic lifestyle.

The forced resettlement of entire peoples during the Soviet era also played a significant role. The languages ​​from the Indo-European, Uralic, Caucasian and Altaic families are most fully represented in Russia. The Indo-European family occupies Western and Central Russia. Representatives live mainly in the north-west of the country. The northeast and southern regions are predominantly occupied by the Altaic language groups. Caucasian languages ​​are represented mainly in the territory lying between the Black and Caspian Seas.