There are about 5,000 living languages \u200b\u200band dialects around the world. The multilingualism of the Earth's population has developed for many reasons, for example, the disunity of the life of 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. There are about 13 such proto-languages \u200b\u200bin total.
People around the world speak different languages
... Sometimes in one state there are several dozen languages \u200b\u200band dialects, for example, in the United States in New York alone, people speak 129 languages \u200b\u200band dialects. Distinguish between living (spoken), dead (for example, Latin) languages, the language of the deaf, artificial languages and even fictional ones, for example, the elvish one from J. Tolkien's trilogy "The Lord of the Rings".
The common function of all varieties of languages \u200b\u200bis communicative. It is a means of sound, sign (written) and sign communication, information transfer.
Until now, there are two scientific hypotheses for the origin of languages, as well as many myths and legends. Some scholars suggest that all modern languages originate from one language, the so-called pro-world. However, it is not necessarily the primary language. There may have been other languages \u200b\u200bin the past that have become extinct. This linguistic hypothesis is called the theory of monogenesis.
The second hypothesis, the theory of polygenesis, is that now existing languages descended from several proto-languages \u200b\u200bthat were created and developed independently of each other. In any case, none of the concepts can be confirmed historically due to the long age and lack of evidence.
One way or another, the tribes that inhabited the Earth several millennia ago already spoke different languages. The planet's population grew, states were created, there were massive migrations and mixing of peoples, lands were seized, the social order changed. All these changes could not but affect the development of languages.
The tribes grew, branched out, mastered new territories, the same languages \u200b\u200bin different places developed in different ways, dialects appeared. Thus, today it is already difficult to imagine that, for example, English and Russian languages \u200b\u200bbelong to different branches (Germanic and Balto-Slavic) of the same language family - Indo-European. Its proto-language, Proto-Indo-European, arose about 5-6 thousand years ago.
There are 5,000, and according to some estimates, about 7,000, languages \u200b\u200bin the world. They are studied by an extensive humanities linguistics. Linguists study linguistic laws and deduce general patterns, develop and supplement the existing classification. World languages \u200b\u200bhave many features in common, therefore linguistics studies similar tendencies of languages, analyzes them and deduces universal hypotheses characteristic of most known languages.
According to biblical legends, in ancient times people became so proud that they decided to build a city and a tower up to heaven. The Lord God decided to prevent the builders by mixing their languages.
The result of the wrath of God was not long in coming. The builders could not understand each other, thus the construction of the skyscraper was stopped, and people dispersed around the globe.
There is an explanation for 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 to protect it from change.
There are about 5,000 living languages \u200b\u200band dialects around the world. The multilingualism of the population of the Earth has developed for 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 \u200b\u200bthat descended from one proto-language can be attributed to one "family" of languages. There are about 13 language families around the world, from which many of the languages \u200b\u200bthat exist today arose.
"Why do people speak different languages?" - everyone asks this question in childhood, but not many people 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 legends, and a scientific hypothesis. All these versions are based on one simple fact, which is not difficult to notice and without special linguistic education: even the most different languages \u200b\u200bvery often have a lot in common.
Legends
When asked why people speak different languages, the legend of Australia has its own, very original answer: once the peoples were divided into "clean" and "unclean". Both of them were cannibals, but they ate different parts of the body - the "clean" ate meat, the "unclean" - internal organs... From everyday differences, in the opinion of the aborigines, linguistic differences originated.
Tribes from Indochina have their own vision of the problem: each of the races that make up mankind originally had their own dialect. There are six such races in total, and all of them, like branches, twist from a giant pumpkin - "progenitor".
Less exotic, but just as interesting is the version of the Amazon: the languages \u200b\u200bwere divided by God - he needed it so that, having ceased to understand each other, people began to listen to him more.
In the Iroquois tribe there is a belief that people who once understood each other quarreled and therefore lost their "common language", began to speak different. According to the myth, this disunity happened not even among strangers, but within one family!
There is a beautiful legend of languages \u200b\u200bbelonging to the tribe american Indian navajo. According to their mythology, they were created by a certain deity, which they call "a changing woman." It was she who created them in the first place and allowed them to speak in her language. However, later she also created bordering peoples, each of which has already endowed with its own language.
In addition, many peoples have beliefs about the one true, correct language... Thus, 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 of the sin of the Babylonian kingdom. Its inhabitants were so mired in vanity and departed from obedience to the Lord that they decided to build such a high tower in their city so that it would reach heaven - so people wanted to "catch up" with God. However, God did not allow sinners to carry out their plan: he mixed languages \u200b\u200bso that they could no longer communicate - so the Babylonians were forced to stop construction.
Many people know popular expression "Babel". It means confusion, confusion, turmoil and general misunderstanding - what happened when people lost their "common language." Thus, the Bible gives a more substantiated answer about why people speak different languages \u200b\u200bthan archaic folk legends.
Scientific theory
However, science also provides an equally interesting clue. After all, languages \u200b\u200bnot only differ from each other, but are also classified according to families, branches and groups - depending on the degrees of kinship. Thus, the languages \u200b\u200bof Europe come from the Proto-Indo-European language. Today it is not known to us (it can only be reconstructed), and monuments of writing in such a language have not reached 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, from a scientific point of view, is explained quite simply: language by its nature tends to share almost indefinitely. This is due to the geographical division. Since the time humanity began to divide into ethnic groups and states, such groups stopped communicating with each other - therefore, the language within each group developed in its own way.
Language families
There are more recent divisions into languages. So, for example, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Serbian and many others are related: their similarity is noticeable - more or less - with 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 (what is the difference between Catholics and Orthodox!) Play such a significant role.
What is happening with languages \u200b\u200bnow
But has language stopped dividing? No matter how it is. It turns out that now there is a demarcation within one language, separated by borders. For example, the descendants of the 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 it, obviously with great difficulty.
"Different languages" of one people
But even not so distant areas have their differences. For example, it is not a secret for anyone that “entrance” and “front door”, “shawarma” and “shawarma” are one and the same, 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 peculiarities inevitably arise 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, "greening" in some village dialect is, then a German from one region of Germany may not understand a German speaking another dialect at all.
Why are there so many languages?
There is no single answer to this question, as well as to all questions concerning the distant past. There are several versions. According to one of them, there is a single language from which all the others were born. According to another version, the Neanderthals had a person with two mutations in the FOXP2 gene on chromosome 7, as a result of which this person's body became capable of language.
The question of language began to be asked by people a very long time ago, from the time ancient egypt... Ancient people, when faced with foreigners, did not understand their speech and considered them second-class people. The Greeks contemptuously called them "barbarians" because their speech seemed like a meaningless set of sounds: "var-var-var". Now, with the help of a computer, people can recreate many ancient languages \u200b\u200bfrom their roots. modern words... Studying languages \u200b\u200bfrom different angles, linguists have found that many languages, even at first glance completely different, have something in common. But why are they different? You can answer based on observations of languages modern people... In the Russian language there are words that are called differently in different regions. Some call "beet" "beetroot", "Thursday" - "four", "curb" - "curb". It all depends on the dialects. Neighbors have almost no differences in language; those who live at a distance differ in individual words or sounds. But their speech can still be understood. But understanding the neighbors' neighbors is no longer so easy. And what the distant ones say, you can't make out at all. This is how it appears new language... It is easy to determine that Russian and French are different languages: the speakers of one do not understand the speakers of the other at all. What is pomme in French? Hardly not having studied French, a person will guess that this is an "apple". And if you compare Russian and Ukrainian: "yabluko", then there is no need for translation, the word is clear, by itself. Despite the fact that the languages \u200b\u200bare different, people who speak them will easily understand each other - there are so many similarities between them. But in addition to the remoteness of peoples from each other in distance and in time, the appearance of different languages \u200b\u200bis very strongly influenced by geography. On the island of New Guinea, the population speaks almost a thousand different languages! And all because the territory of the island is dotted with mountains and jungle. It is difficult for people to navigate it, they rarely communicate, they almost never exchange new words, so each village has its own language. Linguists call the Caucasus "a mountain of languages". There was even an old Arab legend: "Allah had a bag in which different languages \u200b\u200bwere kept. Traveling around the world, he gave each people one language. But when he traveled all over the world, except the Caucasus, there were still a lot of languages \u200b\u200bin the bag. Allah just turned the bag over the mountains and poured out all the languages. Therefore, now there each tribe has its own dialect. " There are a lot of such countries and localities with different dialects.