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, such as Coptic was replaced by Arabic, and many native American languages ​​were replaced 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 into modern languages ​​of the 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, the literary language breaks away from the spoken language and freezes in some of its classical form, then almost unchanged; when colloquial 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 20s of the XX century) 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.

Latin language (lingua latina), or Latin, is the language of the Latin-Faliscan subgroup of the Italic languages ​​​​of 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 ​​have latin origin. The Latin alphabet is the basis of writing for many modern languages.

Latin, together with Oscan and Umbrian, constituted the Italic branch. Indo-European family languages. In the course of the historical development of ancient Italy, the Latin language supplanted the other Italic languages ​​and eventually assumed a 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 region 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 scientific papers in Latin. These are medical treatises of physicians of the Italian school of the 16th century: “On the structure human body"Andreas Vesalius (1543), "Anatomical Observations" by Gabriel Fallopius (1561), "Anatomical Works" by Bartholomew Eustachio (1552), "On Contagious Diseases and Their Treatment" by Girolamo 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. Its last Russian edition was 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 common name Romanesque. To them belongs Italian language, French and Provencal languages ​​that developed in the former Gaul, Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese - on the Iberian Peninsula, Romanian - on the territory of the Roman province of Dacia (present-day Romania), Moldavian and some others, of which the Sardinian language should be especially noted as the most close to Classical Latin of all modern Romance languages.

The attempts of the Romans to subjugate the Germanic tribes were unsuccessful, but the economic ties between the Romans and 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 the 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 only the 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, known in one way or another by thousands or even millions of people - although no one speaks it as their 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.

Latin (or lingua Latina) is a language that is considered dead. It is one of the most ancient written languages ​​of the Indo-European family. Romance languages ​​originate from it, and this is French, and Italian, and Spanish with Portuguese, and a number of other languages. Many words in modern languages ​​have Latin roots, Latin is the basis of writing for many languages.

But is Latin really dead?

Of course, for more than a thousand years no one has spoken Latin as their first language. Even the best teachers Latin cannot use it in Everyday life. Latin has not been required for admission to universities for a long time, it is not popular among students.

But! Latin is still in use! Moreover, in some American schools, the Latin course is becoming more popular. Why do people learn this dead language?

It created many significant literary works, it was spoken and written in the Roman Empire, which influenced the development of all of Europe. Latin is needed by linguists, historians, physicians and biologists, lawyers, chemists. Knowledge of Latin catchphrases increases the level of culture. Latin makes it possible to touch ancient culture, makes it easier to learn other Romance languages.
In addition, today the Latin language - official language Vatican, Holy See and Order of Malta.

Latin is one of the most amazing languages. It is considered dead, as it has long gone out of colloquial use, but it is taught at universities, used in the scientific community, and many words from Latin are still in use. The Latin language is partly dead, and partly preserved as the language of science, medicine, terms.

Latin language

Latin, or Latin, is one of the oldest written Indo-European languages. It appeared among the peoples of ancient Italy around the second millennium BC, displaced other languages ​​spoken by the Italians, and became the main one in the western Mediterranean. The language reached its greatest flourishing in the first century BC, when the development of the so-called classical Latin began - the literary language in which Cicero, Horace, Virgil, Ovid wrote. Latin improved simultaneously with the development of Rome and its formation as the largest state in the Mediterranean.

Further, this language survived the periods of postclassic and late Latin, in which similarities with the new Romance languages ​​were already outlined. In the 4th century, medieval Latin was formed, which was significantly influenced by Christianity. The Bible was translated into Latin, and since then it has become a sacred language. All theological works were written on it. Renaissance figures also used Latin to write their works: Leonardo da Vinci, Petrarch, Boccaccio wrote in it.

Latin is a dead language

Gradually, the Latin language disappeared from the speech of people; in the Middle Ages, more and more often as spoken language local dialects were used, but Latin lived in religious texts, scientific treatises, biographies and other works. The rules for pronunciation of sounds were forgotten, the grammar changed a little, but the Latin language lived on.

It can be officially called a dead language since the 6th century, after the fall of the Roman Empire, when barbarian states began to flourish and Latin gradually fell out of everyday use. Linguists call a dead language a language that does not exist in everyday life, is not used in live oral communication, but exists in the form of written monuments. If there is not a single person who speaks the language as if it were their own, then the language is considered dead.

But Latin is a special dead language, which can be called such with a stretch. The fact is that it is still actively used in many areas of life. Latin is widely used in medicine and biology, as well as in other sciences, but even in ordinary life people still use some proverbs and sayings in Latin.

In addition, Latin is actively used by the Catholic Church, it is the official language of the Vatican, the Holy See and the Order of Malta.

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Describing the languages ​​of the world, linguists use various classification principles. 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 peace. The main feature of the former is their use in everyday language practice by a relatively large community of people (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.

A dead language, unlike a living one, 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, for various reasons, ceased to be used in live human communication (Latin, Ancient Greek, Coptic, Old Norse, Gothic). The second group of dead languages ​​are 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).

It occupies a very special place among the rest. Without a doubt, Latin is a dead language: in a living speaking practice it has not been used since about the sixth century AD. But, on the other hand, Latin has found the widest 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.