Genealogical classification of languages: basic principles and features

The basis of this classification of languages is the principle of their historical relationship, that is, the initial ascent of a group of languages to a common, root language. It is not always possible to establish this parent language, but, nevertheless, a clearly traceable link gives linguistics scholars a good reason to assume its existence in the distant past. In order to look for similar elements in different languages, a comparatively historical method is traditionally used - it is on the data obtained with its help that the traditional genealogical classification of languages is based.

According to the clearly expressed principle of historical kinship, or historical similarity, languages are usually divided into several fairly large groups, called in families by linguistics. All languages that are within the same family have some similarity in the structure of words, features of pronouncing sounds or in the rules of word formation. Far from always, these connections are visible at first sight - sometimes a huge amount of laborious work is required, which will help to reveal the distant kinship of certain languages. But, nevertheless, traditional linguistics, having agreed with the fundamental idea that some languages have common roots, easily finds similar moments in their structure and features.

The genealogical classification of the languages of the world today implies not only a division into language families - within each family there are other degrees of kinship of languages, on the basis of which groups are distinguished. It should be noted that languages from different families do not have similarities, and this makes it possible to speak with confidence about the different nature of their origin. The presence of some similar aspects, caused by historical borrowing of words and word forms, only confirms the disunity of different language families.

Within each family, the genealogical classification of languages implies the isolation of several branches (groups), the languages in which are much more similar to each other than to the rest of the family. This may be due to later linguistic processes in one or another territory that caused the splitting of the language into several similar groups, or by the increased isolation of a particular nationality due to historical, natural or military cataclysms.

Often, within the language subgroups, the genealogical classification of languages also identifies languages with the closest possible ties - they are usually called subgroups. A vivid example of such a classification is traditionally considered the division of Slavic languages belonging to the Indo-European family into the East Slavic, West Slavic and South Slavic subgroups.

In some cases, the lack of historical knowledge and the disappearance of certain nationalities lead to a number of definite difficulties. So, some languages, despite a long study, can not be attributed to a particular language family, since they do not have a pronounced similarity with the rest of its members. The genealogical classification of languages usually refers to such cases as languages "beyond classification".

But it should be noted that the data obtained by linguists in the course of researching a particular family can not be considered static. Very often, the emergence of new information or the discovery of previously unknown texts written in one or another language, makes it necessary to revise the traditional classification, again and again analyzing the facts that were previously considered established.

Therefore, even languages that are still outside of any family are quite likely, in a few years, as a result of obtaining new data, to be assigned to an already known family or to become the basis for the development of a new classification.