People began to speak different languages. Why do people speak different languages? What's happening with languages ​​now

According to biblical traditions, in ancient times people were so proud that they planned to build a city and a tower as high as heaven. The Lord God decided to interfere with the builders by mixing their languages.

The result of God's wrath was not long in coming. The builders could not understand each other, thus the construction of the skyscraper was stopped, and people dispersed all over the globe.

There is an explanation in the difference in the language of people and from a scientific point of view. Linguists say that language, as a means of communication between people, is constantly changing. It is argued that there is no barrier that would protect him from change.

There are about 5,000 living languages ​​and dialects worldwide. The multilingualism of the Earth's population developed due to many reasons, for example, the disunity of the life of the ancient tribes, who lived in groups, and did not even suspect the existence of other people.

Each tribe created its own so-called proto-language, which subsequently developed and branched out. All languages ​​that have evolved from the same proto-language can be attributed to one "family" of languages. Around the world, there are about 13 families of languages, from which many of the existing languages ​​​​have arisen.

According to biblical traditions, in ancient times people were so proud that they planned to build a city and a tower as high as heaven. But God decided to thwart their plan by mixing the languages ​​of the ancient builders so that they no longer understood each other...

Why do people speak different languages? Linguists are ready to solve the Babylonian mystery
http://www.zavtra.com.ua/news/socium/49232

Before the start of the great migration out of Africa, something happened to humanity and a new form of communication emerged. Most modern languages ​​were born during the Ice Age. Having made this conclusion, linguists are getting closer and closer to the origins of speech, comparing their hypotheses with the biblical legend.

According to biblical traditions, in ancient times people were so proud that they planned to build a city and a tower as high as heaven. But God decided to interfere with their plan, mixing the languages ​​​​of the ancient builders so that they no longer understand each other. The grandiose construction stopped, and multilingual builders dispersed throughout the earth.

Linguists have their own view of the problem - the language is constantly changing, and there is no barrier that could protect it from these transformations. Words invented and borrowed from other languages ​​are constantly wedged into our communication.

At the same time, for reasons that are not entirely clear, some languages ​​evolve much faster than others. Italian, for example, has remained much closer to Classical Latin than French. Lithuanian has many words that exactly match Sanskrit, which was spoken 3,500 years ago.

American linguists conducted a study in an attempt to reduce all the world's languages ​​to a single root. About 50,000 years ago something unusual happened to our ancestors in Africa. Moreover, the ancient people, who had already existed for at least 150 thousand years, suddenly began to behave differently.

Until then, their behavior was hardly different from the mores of the Neanderthals. They used stone tools and had some form of communication that scientists suggest was based on gestures, facial expressions and sounds.

The advent of speech accelerated progress. Scientists believe that a new means of communication has allowed humanity to make a huge leap forward. This event was more important than the computer or biotech revolutions combined, experts say.

It is assumed that ancient people developed speech before the great migration from Africa. “Perhaps they were trying to discuss the paths of the upcoming migration to Europe and Asia, and it was not so easy to manage only with gestures in this regard,” the scientists joke.

A team of researchers from the Santa Fe Institute is working to find the "mother of all languages". The Evolution of Human Languages ​​(EHL) project, led by Nobel laureate physicist Murray Gell-Mann, is creating a unique etymological base about all the languages ​​of the world. EHL linguists are trying to reconstruct and then compare ancestral languages, moving ever closer to the origins of human speech. The project has already caused a mixed reaction from the scientific community. Many linguists are convinced that beyond the threshold of eight thousand years, all attempts to find the language root are unreasonable.

EHL linguists were only angered by the criticism. They grouped all the world's languages ​​into 12 linguistic superfamilies, four of which (including the languages ​​of Eurasia, North Africa, Oceania, and possibly the Americas) were experimentally combined into one company, calling it Borean (which means "northern"). The ancestor of most modern languages, according to researchers, appeared 16 thousand years ago, when glaciers covered most of North America and Europe.

Linguists continue to develop their hypothesis. They seem to have proved how the lion's share of the Eurasian, American and North African languages ​​​​could form from one language group.

In their opinion, the Ice Age is to blame for everything. 20 thousand years ago, at its peak, humanity lost most of its linguistic diversity. As the glacier moved south, people migrated with it and mixed with each other both genetically and linguistically. As a result, a complex “linguistic puree” was formed, which scientists tried to disassemble.

Why do people speak different languages? There is no definite answer to this question. Scholars and the Bible interpret it differently. The first argue that initially all people spoke the same language, and understood each other perfectly. They solved all emerging issues peacefully, without resorting to violence. To some extent, this was due to their compact living. Simply put, all the tribes lived in the neighborhood, could easily communicate with each other, in the same language, understandable to everyone.

The Bible has a different point of view. In order to have access to heaven, people decided to build a tower, which was called the Babylonian. At the same time, they did not ask permission from God, which made him angry. As punishment, he settled people all over the planet, and forced them to speak different languages, which led to serious difficulties in their communication.

This is how the Bible interprets multilingualism. Scientists agree that the process of the emergence of different languages ​​was quite long. At first, people lived on earth in small groups and communicated with each other with gestures. Their main occupation was hunting. But in the process of evolution, a person had additional needs that led to the unification of various tribes. Now a person needed not only to hunt, but also to build housing, farm, make tools, sew clothes, etc. This could only be done together. It was in this way that peoples arose, with their own language of communication.

Initially, it differed little from its primitive counterpart, and only over time began to acquire its own dialect. At the same time, this process occurred individually for different peoples. The end result is well known to us. Today, each nation has its own language, and in order to understand each other, we are forced to resort to the help of an interpreter. At the same time, language transformation continues. To some extent, this is facilitated by wars leading to the seizure of foreign territories. As a result, languages ​​merge, leading to the appearance of certain linguistic symbioses, and completely unique dialects. Such, for example, is the dialect of the Transcarpathians. Their language contains many Slovak, Magyar, Ruthenian and Ukrainian words.

This is how new languages ​​are born. They may retain their grammar but include entirely new expressions. In this case, the language of the people of the conqueror always wins. So, for example, it happened with the tribes of the Franks, who lost their language and fell under the influence of Gaul. All that remains of him is the name of the country, which we all know well. In this case, we are talking about France.

Perhaps you once wondered why we speak different languages? Agree, it makes our life very difficult. Here, for example, you want to go on a trip somewhere abroad. Starting from the airport and ending with the search for accommodation on the spot, all these steps are impossible without knowing a foreign language. Fortunately, there is one international language - English. In principle, knowledge of this language is quite enough if you are going to . But, unfortunately, the inhabitants of far from every country are fluent in English. Where did this difference in languages ​​come from? There are two answers to this question: scientific and biblical.

Scientists version

Historians put forward the idea of ​​the emergence of linguistic differences in prehistoric times. The reason for this sudden change in speech lay in their misunderstanding due to the mountains, deserts, and oceans separating the human tribes. Thus, in each tribal group appeared its own dialect of the language available at that time. The more people there were, the more the difference in languages ​​increased. After a certain period of time, separate groups of words appeared. Scholars are of the opinion that All the languages ​​of the world have a common language base.

In addition to human languages, there are also artificial languages. This is a language system that was created by people for the purpose of communication between representatives of both nationalities and fantastic works.

Why People Speak Different Tongues - The Bible

We all know the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Initially, according to God's plan, they were supposed to live forever on earth. Children were to be born to them, who would later fill the earth. Initially, there was no talk of different languages ​​and misunderstanding of each other. But what happened? The fact is that the first people did not want to live according to God's standards and sinned by eating the forbidden fruit. What followed? Their descendants began to be born sinful and imperfect.

Centuries after the death of Adam and Eve people began to build the Tower of Babel. For what purpose? They were going to get to God himself. The instigator of this idea was Nimrod. He formed the first city on Earth - Babylon. God did not like the idea of ​​Nimrod and he confused the languages ​​of the builders. As a result, people could not continue this ill-fated construction, because they no longer understood each other. Nothing has changed since that time. But it is quite possible that one day God will decide to unite people again, giving them a single language that will become native to every person on earth.

"Why do people speak different languages?" - everyone asks this question in childhood, but not many solve this riddle for themselves, even as adults. From time immemorial, people have tried to answer this question: there is a biblical legend, and folk traditions, and a scientific hypothesis. All these versions are based on one simple fact, which is not difficult to notice even without a special linguistic education: even very different languages ​​very often have a lot in common.

legends

To the question of why people speak different languages, the legend of Australia has its own, very original answer: once peoples were divided into “clean” and “impure”. Both were cannibals, but they ate different parts of the body - the “clean” ate meat, the “unclean” ate internal organs. From domestic differences, according to the natives, language differences also went.

The tribes from Indochina have their own vision of the problem: each of the races that make up humanity had its own dialect. There are six such races in total, and all of them, like branches, twist from a giant pumpkin, the “progenitor”.

Less exotic, but just as interesting, is the version of Amazonia: God separated the languages ​​- he needed this so that, having ceased to understand each other, people began to listen to him more.

There is a belief in the Iroquois tribe that people who once understood each other quarreled and therefore lost their “common language”, spoke different ones. This disunity happened, according to the myth, not even among strangers, but within the same family!

There is a beautiful legend about languages ​​that belongs to the Navajo Native American tribe. According to their mythology, they are created by a certain deity, which they call "the changing woman." It was she who created them in the first place and allowed them to speak her language. However, later she also created bordering peoples, each of which endowed her own language.

In addition, many peoples have beliefs about a single true, correct language. So, the language of the Egyptians was given to them by the god Ptah, and the ancestors of the Chinese were taught their sacred language by the legendary emperors of ancient times.

Bible

There are, however, more familiar explanations for why people speak different languages; according to the Bible (Genesis, chapter 11), most are familiar with one of the most interesting Christian parables about the so-called Babylonian pandemonium.

This legend tells about the sin of the Babylonian kingdom. Its inhabitants became so mired in vanity and departed from obedience to the Lord that they planned to build such a high tower in their city that it would reach heaven - so people wanted to “equal” with God. However, God did not allow the sinners to carry out their plan: he confused the languages ​​​​so that they could no longer communicate - so the Babylonians were forced to stop the construction.

Many people know the popular expression "Babylonian pandemonium". It means turmoil, confusion, turmoil and general misunderstanding - what happened when people lost their "common language". Thus, about why people speak different languages, the Bible gives a more reasonable answer than archaic folk traditions.

scientific theory

However, science also provides an equally interesting clue. After all, languages ​​not only differ from each other, but are also classified into families, branches and groups - depending on the degrees of kinship. So, the languages ​​of Europe come from the Proto-Indo-European language. Today it is not known to us (it can only be reconstructed), and no written monuments in this language have come down to us. But many factors point to its existence.

However, if there was once, why are there so many of them today? The question of why people speak different languages ​​is explained quite simply from a scientific point of view: language, by its very nature, tends to divide almost indefinitely. This happens because of the geographical division. Since humanity began to divide into ethnic groups and states, such groups have ceased to communicate with each other - therefore, the language within each group has developed in its own way.

language families

There are also more recent divisions into languages. So, for example, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Serbian and many others are related: their similarity is noticeable - more or less - even to the naked eye. It happened because they came from the same language family - Slavic. It would seem that the peoples are so close, and border on each other - but still, so many different ones came out of the Old Slavonic language! It turns out that even large territories and cultural differences (which is worth one division into Catholics and Orthodox!) play such a significant role.

What's happening with languages ​​now

But has language ceased division? No matter how. It turns out that even now within a single language, separated by borders, there is a delimitation. For example, the descendants of Russians who remained in Alaska after its transition to the United States today speak a very strange version of Russian, which “ordinary” speakers, if they understand, will obviously have great difficulty.

"Different languages" of one people

But even in not so distant areas there are differences. For example, it's no secret to anyone that "entrance" and "front", "shawarma" and "shawarma" are the same thing, but for some reason both exist. Why does the language change within even one country? All for the same simple reason: St. Petersburg and Moscow, Arkhangelsk and Krasnodar are so far from each other that even in the absence of isolation and the existence of federal media, their own characteristics inevitably appear everywhere.

The situation is different, for example, in Germany. If in Russia a resident of the capital is still able to intuitively guess what, for example, "green" in some village dialect, then a German from one region of Germany may not understand a German speaking a different dialect at all.