Linguistic typology has different divisions based on the objectives of
analysis. According to the object of study, linguistic typology may include the
following sections:
Genealogical typology
In genealogical typology of languages, a classification
is based on the
genetic principle, that is, grouping related languages by origin into language
families. Genealogical typology became possible only after the concept of
linguistic kinship arose in 19th century and the principle of historicism was
confirmed in linguistic research. It is formed as a result of the study of languages
using the comparative-historical method.
The comparative historical method is used to establish the relationship of
languages. This method is based on a comparison of languages
and is aimed at
elucidating their historical past. A comparative historical method is based on the
laws of phonetic changes, on the laws and trends of morphological, word-
formation, syntactic and lexical levels of a language. Using this method, scientists
compare genetically identical words and forms of related languages with each
other and restore, their
original form, their archetypes, or proto-language.
To prove the genetic relationship of languages, the existence of systemic
tendencies in the language development is analyzed. In this case, the specific
criterion is the presence of systematic relationships like lexical and grammatical
similarities, and the presence of regular phonetic correspondences in the original
material of languages. Moreover, when identifying lexical similarities, not all
words should be used, but only those that express vital concepts (basic
vocabulary): body parts (arm, leg), terms of kinship (mother, father), some
actions (take, eat, give) etc. It can be easily noticed that in the structures of many
languages of Europe
there are common features, for example, Polish
woda
,
Russian
вода
, English
water
, German
Wasser
, etc. Such common features can
be found not only in geographically related but also geographically and
historically unrelated languages. For example, the table of basic words in 11
different languages extracted from A.A.Reformatskiy illustrates
the resemblance
of such distinct related languages as English, Greek or ancient languages like
Sanskrit and Avestian.
This kind of phonetic and semantic resemblance can be explained that all these
structures go back to one common proto-language, the appearance of which has
been successfully restored by scientists.
According to the genealogical classification, all related languages can
make up a language family. Within a family, languages can have more or less
common
features, so they are grouped into branches. Inside the branch, the
proximity between languages can also be different, so within the branch they are
divided into subgroups. For instant, into Indo-European language family Slavic,
Germanic, Romanic, Celtic, Indo-Iranian and other branches are included, and
into Germanic group German, English, Swedish, Norwegian.
As a rule, proto-language of the language family was supposed to exist 6-
7 thousand years ago. This time interval was taken from the example of the Indo-
European language family, which is the largest in the world – about 3 billion
people speak its languages. In
recent decades, linguists have made attempts to
implement a genealogical classification of languages for a time period earlier than
7 thousand years ago. In this case, it is supposed to talk about macro-families that
unite several distinguished language families. One of such macro-families is the
Nostratic macro-family, which, in addition to the Indo-European, includes the
Altai, Ural, Afro-Asian and other language families. According to various
estimates, it is assumed that a single Nostratic-parent language existed 10-20
thousand
years ago
8
. In the following extract several words resembling
phonetically and semantically in 3 language families are illustrated.
“Nostr. * bura 'snow (sand) storm': sem. * bwr 'sandstorm, wind' (Arabic
barih 'hot wind with sand, Somali fora 'strong wind with dust'), Indo-European.
*bher 'storm, to rage' (Russian. storm, Iceland. byrr 'tailwind'); Ural. *pura 'to
blow' and *purka 'blizzard' (Fin. purku 'blizzard, winter storm'); alt. *bura / bora
'storm, blizzard' (Tatar. buran 'blizzard', Even. borga 'blizzard,
8
https://spravochnick.ru/yazykoznanie_i_filologiya/sistemy_klassifikacii_yazykov/genealogicheskaya
_
klassifikaciya_yazykov/
