What was the speech of the apostles when the Holy Spirit came upon them and they spoke in “tongues”? Were there many foreign languages or some common proto-language, which, according to the Bible, the builders of the Tower of Babel lost? What knowledge (or assumptions) does linguistic science have about a single parent language? Opinion of Yakov Georgievich TESTELTS, Professor of the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian State Humanitarian University.Descent of the Holy Spirit. Maesta, Sienese altarpiece cathedral, reverse side, Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308-1311.

- The story from the second chapter of the "Acts of the Apostles" is traditionally compared with the story of the eleventh chapter of the book of Genesis about the construction of the Tower of Babel, as a result of which God made people speak different languages ​​and "one did not understand the speech of the other." Researchers suggest that the tower meant a temple building like a huge ziggurat dedicated to the Babylonian god Marduk.

The meaning of the opposition is clear: the Spirit overcomes the consequences of ancient pagan pride, overcomes alienation and division: people who speak different languages ​​again understand each other miraculously.

The list given by the author of Acts includes peoples who spoke the languages ​​of several families. For example, the Parthians and Medes spoke dialects of the Old Persian language, belonging to the Indo-European family - the same one whose other branches included Latin and Greek. The inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Jews and Arabs spoke Semitic languages; the language of the Egyptians, the ancestor of Coptic, was distantly related to Semitic and represented a special branch of the Afroasian macrofamily. The Elamites spoke the Elamite language, the relationship of which has not yet been clarified.

Professional linguists do not view linguistic diversity as a calamity or punishment, just as it would be strange for biologists to complain about species diversity. On the contrary, linguists are in a hurry, while it is still possible, to study and describe endangered languages. Languages, although they live much longer than people, also die, and the era of globalization is accompanied by their mass disappearance. Of the approximately 5,000 languages ​​spoken today by the world's population, according to disappointing forecasts, no more than half will remain in 50 years. The vast majority of the languages ​​of the world are the languages ​​of small peoples, unwritten, they do not have high prestige and are used only in everyday life. People who speak these languages ​​usually do not value them and even see them as a hindrance to their education and career. However, the disappearance of any language, even one spoken by only a few hundred people, is a catastrophe, the same as the disappearance of any kind of animal or plant listed in the Red Book.

Every human language, whether it is spoken by a billion people or just a few dozen, is an amazingly complex and efficient system that contains unique information about the thinking and culture of the people who speak it. And even in the most seemingly well-studied languages, riddles and unresolved problems are still being discovered that baffle researchers.

Contrary to popular belief, there are no "primitive" languages ​​- the unwritten languages ​​​​of the Australian Aborigines, African Pygmies or Indians of the Amazonian Selva are as infinitely complex and interesting as the languages ​​\u200b\u200bof the peoples who created the great written culture. The language in which people stopped communicating is lost forever - only a little remains of it that linguists manage to fix: a dictionary, an outline of phonetics and grammar, written texts. You can learn about what linguistic diversity is and how it is studied, for example, from the wonderful popular book by Corr. RAS Vladimir Plungyan "Why are languages ​​so different?" (2nd edition in 2001).

The diversity of Earth's languages ​​is one of the world's great mysteries, and linguists have no generally accepted explanation for why it even arose. It could be that all people throughout the history of mankind would speak the same language - at least in terms of basic vocabulary, phonetics and grammar, in which case we would consider that all its basic characteristics are genetically programmed. According to the most famous modern linguist, the American Noam Chomsky, the foundations of the structure of human language are indeed laid down genetically. (A popular exposition of this theory can be found in the book Atoms of Language by the American linguist Mark Baker, published in Russian in 2003.)

The most important fact is that for some reason that is not entirely clear, all languages ​​change very slowly but steadily over time, and therefore people who originally spoke the same language - Slavs, Germans, Turks, Polynesians ... - having lost the possibility of a permanent contact with each other as a result of migrations, linguistic differences gradually accumulate, and in the end their languages ​​​​become mutually incomprehensible.

In some places on Earth, there is a unique linguistic diversity, with each village speaking its own dialect or language. For example, in small Dagestan, in fact, 50 languages ​​are spoken, which is an incredible number even compared to other parts of the multilingual Caucasus, and on the island of New Guinea - 800 languages.

Linguistic diversity probably appeared soon after the emergence of language. There is no consensus among specialists as to when human language arose, but it was clearly no later than the so-called Upper Paleolithic revolution about 50,000 years ago, when, according to many anthropologists, simultaneously with several technological breakthroughs, the so-called cultural universals are finally established - visual arts, music, religion, funerary practices, folklore, humor, games, cooking.

Was there originally a single language? Specialists in distant kinship tend to the idea of ​​monocentrism, that is, to the fact that at least most of the known languages ​​\u200b\u200bgo back to the same ancestor language - although it is impossible to prove this hypothesis at the present level of comparative historical linguistics. However, this common ancestor language did not necessarily coincide with the first language of mankind, since it could have arisen much later if no descendants were preserved from other languages. Comparative-historical linguistics can now reconstruct elements of historically unattested languages ​​that are 4-6 thousand years away from us (Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Semitic, Proto-Uralic, etc.). It is possible, although more hypothetical, to reconstruct the proto-languages ​​of the so-called macrofamilies, which are 10-15 thousand years distant from us. However, these chronological levels are very far from the level of the ancestor language of all existing languages ​​- linguists cannot yet reconstruct a language at a depth of 20, 30 or 40 thousand years, so monocentrism remains just a hypothesis.

Science does not deal with miracles, it prefers to deal with repetitive and reproducible phenomena. Therefore, it is not linguists who should be looking for an answer to the question of what exactly happened that day in Jerusalem - for example, did the apostles receive the gift of multilingualism or, conversely, their listeners received the gift of understanding a foreign language?

The traditions of many peoples say that there was once a single language on earth and that all mankind that inhabited it was one people. Attempts to revive primitive"The situation has been undertaken many times - and so far unsuccessfully ... About what a bad result the original " general”, tells the biblical legend of the Babylonian pandemonium.

Possessed by self-conceit, people wanted to erect a tower as high as the heavens, and God, indignant at their impudence, confused the tongues of the proud. Construction « initiative”failed with an incredible roar ( the remains of the tower, by the way, were found by archaeologists, so this is not an empty myth), and the peoples scattered as a result of God's punishment could no longer unite.

As time went. People with the development of civilization, of course, changed, but much of them remained the same as in prehistoric times. Including pride, which encourages building towers to the skies (an example of this is the skyscrapers multiplying on the earth, in the very name of which there is a hint of that very first biblical tower).

There was also an irrepressible desire to find a language that absolutely all the inhabitants of the planet would speak.

And, really, isn't it tempting to erase language boundaries?! Wouldn't it be great to remove break in communication”, standing in the way of the desire to read this or that book, watch a movie, communicate with people living on another continent? Over the past two thousand years, people have been trying to construct an artificial common language with varying frequency, since this does not happen naturally. This process was especially intensified in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Antique Roots The very first of the reliably recorded attempts to create an artificial language was the project of a certain philosopher Alexarch, a relative of Alexander the Great. In 316 BC, he founded the city of Ouranoupoli on the top of Mount Athos (in translation - “ heavenly hail"). For its development, Alexarch developed a whole " master plan”, in the end, of course, turned out to be utopian.

Along with other features that the inhabitants of a unique city should have, they " relied» also a unique, artificially created language. Unfortunately, nowadays no one knows what this language, according to Alexarch's ideas, was like. It can be assumed that it was supposed to be based on ancient Greek, but this is only a hypothesis ... More than a thousand years separated the first attempt from all subsequent ones. Only in the Middle Ages was the next attempt to introduce a single, common language for all.

This language for many educated people became not an artificial, but a dead language - Latin. However, it quickly became clear that, having taken root in science and philosophy, Latin could not gain a foothold either in literature or in colloquial speech. It has remained a purely scientific language, although in some way it is universal. Scientists all over the world, working in various fields of science, to this day cannot do without Latin, especially doctors, biologists and chemists.
In the seventeenth century, with the discovery of new lands and new sea ​​routes and the activation of international communication, the activity of apologists for a single language for the whole world has increased. At that time, several dozens of such projects were born in Europe, among the creators of which were Descartes, Newton, Leibniz and many other prominent figures of that time.

Inspirational Volapyuk The nineteenth century became the record holder for the number of artificial language projects per unit of time. He gave the world about three hundred projects of new artificial languages! The most famous of them was Volapuk, whose name was formed from the German vol (world) + puk (language), that is, " World language". Its author was Johann Martin Schleyer, a German Catholic priest, writer and philosopher. According to Schleyer, on the night of March 31, 1879, he had severe insomnia, he walked around the house all night until the Lord himself came to him, and Schleyer immediately understood what an international language should be. All night, in a fit of insight, he wrote down his grammar and vocabulary.

Already in May 1879, the first enthusiastic publication about Volapük appeared in the literary newspaper of a small Bavarian town, and a whole newspaper was published in it a year later.

In 1884, the first world congress of supporters of this language was held, and five years later, more than thirty magazines were published in Volapuk, there were about three hundred different communities of its adherents. In various countries, more than two hundred thousand people hastily studied " new world language» at specialized courses. However, due to the complexity and intricacy of the grammar, Volapük never became truly international. Interest in it gradually faded after the death of its creator Schleyer in 1912.

Dangerous Esperanto Volapuk was replaced by a more convenient and easy-to-learn artificial language that still exists today - Esperanto.

Structure and vocabulary of the language " Dr. Esperanto”- Warsaw ophthalmologist Ludwig Zamenhof, were so thoughtful and simple that even a person without special linguistic abilities could master it in four to five months. It is this ease of learning and use that has made Esperanto the most viable artificial language ever created.

In the thirties of the last century, the popularity of Esperanto was so high that many special services even paid attention to it (this was the first and only case of close interest in history " bodies to such a phenomenon as artificial languages). However, as a result of this unfavorable interest, many Esperanto speakers have had a hard time. In Germany, and then, according to her " urgent advice”, and in most European countries Esperanto was banned. In the USSR in the bloody 1937, more than thirty thousand Esperanto fans fell under the wheel of repression. Label what's in Nazi Germany that in Francoist Spain, that in the Bolshevik Union, one was stuck to Esperantists - “spies”.

However, in democratic Great Britain, they were also under the supervision of counterintelligence... Nowadays, more than two hundred new books are published in Esperanto every year (including those that were originally written in it, as well as translations of famous literary works - Pushkin, Balzac, Dickens, Marquez) , publishes about three hundred periodicals.

Despite a certain popularity and simplicity, Esperanto still has enough rivals today. Let us mention such linguistic inventions as Interlingua, Novial, Occidental, Intergloss, Ido, Kotava, Lojban, Neutral, Adjuvanto, Eljundi, Romanova, Praying Mantis, Sevorian, Wenedyk... The Elvish languages ​​of the great Tolkien, created by him for his own books. Now many fans of his work are seriously studying them and even trying to speak them.

Universal linkos There are even languages ​​specially developed by their creators for communication with extraterrestrial civilizations.

An example of this is linkos ( from lat. linqua cosmica - " space language» ), the brainchild of Hans Freudenthal, professor of mathematics at the University of Utrecht. It was invented in those years when the whole world was excited about the launch of the first space satellite and the first attempt to receive signals from extraterrestrial civilizations. Linkos is simple and unambiguous, it does not contain exceptions to the rules, synonyms, etc. In addition, Linkos is completely free from phonetic sounding - the words of this language will never be pronounced by anyone in the Universe. But they can be encoded in any system (for example, in binary) and transmitted into space by radio or in any other way.

Hans Freudenthal developed the lessons of the lincos with which the first message to the aliens should begin. The first lesson contains simple concepts mathematics and logic. It starts next natural numbers, which are transmitted by a sequence of pulses.

Then signs of numbers and the concept of " equals". Each sign is transmitted by an impulse of a special form. After that, arithmetic operations are demonstrated. Thus, an unknown correspondent takes a course in mathematics and masters the concept of " more», « less», « right», « wrong», « increases», « decreases”, etc.

Practical vocabulary Most artificial languages ​​are based on Romance languages, but there are exceptions to this rule. For example, Slovio, based on the languages ​​of the Slavic group and, in particular, in Russian. It was created by the linguist Mark Guchko with an eye to being understandable to all peoples who speak Slavic languages, without additional study, since the word is based on common Slavic vocabulary, intuitively accessible to any Slav.

The rationale here is this: the Slavs are the largest ethnic family in Europe, whose members are more than four hundred million people. Consequently, words have considerable practical prospects. For example, a German who has learned it will be able to overcome the language barrier in any of the Slavic countries, and in the context of a situation where most of them have become members of the European Union, this can be very useful both in everyday life and in business. Mastering a word is much easier than learning at least one of Slavic languages. For writing on it, you can use both Latin and Cyrillic.

Musical solresol However, the most original artificial language, of course, is the musical solresol. His first sketches appeared in 1817.

The author of Solresol, the Frenchman Jean Francois Sudre (1787-1862), originally from Albi, composed all the words, in addition to seven monosyllabic ones, from various combinations of seven musical notes: it has 49 two-syllable words, 336 three-syllable, 2268 four-syllable and 9072 five-syllable. For instance, " I am» is pronounced as do-re; " you you"- do-mi; " my"- re-do. Do-re-do means " time", do-re-mi -" day”, do-re-fa -“ a week", Salt-lyasi -" lift up", b-la-sol -" let down». « I love” in this language will sound like do-re-mi-la-si.

The place of stress in a word determines the category of the part of speech.

Solresol words can:

• be written in letters;
• the first seven Arabic numerals;
• notes;
• to be spoken or sung;
• be performed on any musical instrument that has a scale;
• flagged;
• be reproduced by the seven colors of the rainbow. In short, they have seven different forms of expression.

Sudra's project won the approval of various commissions of the Paris Academy of Sciences and numerous scientific societies, received a prize of 10 thousand francs at the international exhibition in 1851 in Paris and a medal of honor at the international exhibition in 1862 in London. He gained recognition from many prominent contemporaries, including Victor Hugo, François Lamartine, Alexander Humboldt. Unfortunately, in the future, interest in the musical language faded. And do not fade away, and - who knows? - perhaps a discordant choir of human voices would have long sounded like a well-tuned musical instrument.

But if in the end one of these languages ​​does become universal and the whole world speaks it, what will happen then? Will it not turn out that the Lord will again become angry and confuse languages, so that, for some reason known only to Him, there would not be a single means of communication for all mankind? And is it not for this reason that even the most popular among artificial languages, Esperanto, to this day cannot become truly universal and international, although it is much easier to learn it than English, Chinese or Russian. Esperanto remains more of a game, as are Slovios and many of their other relatives.

Is it because it allows us to avoid the second Babylonian pandemonium? After all, their towers of babel“We have already built and continue to build them, but for some reason the Lord allows this for the time being…

Doctor of Philology A. DULICHENKO (Tartu)

The need for a language - an intermediary between peoples - has always existed, and this role was played by the language of a particular country: ancient Greek, Latin, French, and now English. But such a position gives a lot of advantages to the country, on whose shoulders an honorable and prestigious duty has fallen. That is why the idea has long been born in the minds of people to create an artificial language that would provide everyone with equal opportunities. The issue became especially acute in the 19th century. In response, a huge number of world language projects have emerged. But the only one that has stood the test of time (more than a hundred years) has become the Esperanto language. Its creator, Ludwig Zamengov, was born in 1859 in the city of Bialystok, which was then part of Russian Empire. It would seem that it was in Russia, at home, that there should have appeared largest number followers of the world language. And for a while it was. Especially after the revolution, when the builders of the new society had no doubt that a worldwide revolution would break out in the near future. The mass repressions of the 1930s also hit Esperanto adherents, who, of course, were accused of espionage. Example - tragic fate teacher N. Usov. After this difficult period, the activity of Esperantists in the Soviet Union stalled for a long time. But it expanded and developed in the West. The most translated into Esperanto famous works world classics, wrote original works, organized conferences. What are the benefits of knowing the world language today, readers can learn from the article by T. Auzerskaya "Non-tourist travel".

"HOPEPING"

One of the many brochures late XIX century dedicated to propaganda all common language, said: "The ideal of a world language has been in the air for more than 200 years, and the need for it was felt by all peoples."

Indeed, the public consciousness of many countries lived in the expectation of an intermediary language, which was conceived as a language harmonious, simple and at the same time more perfect than any of the ethnic languages. The Iron Age, with its intensive contacts between peoples, with its great discoveries, which immediately "stepped over" the borders of countries and became the property of all mankind, raised the question of unifying systems of measures, weights, and classification of knowledge. Comparative historical linguistics, with its search for a parent language as a source of related languages, has created rich ground for the belief that a universal language can be built on the basis of common words and forms, going, however, not "down", not into the depths of centuries, but, on the contrary, moving "up". "to the present. Experience in the formation of a common literary language throughout the nation in a number of European countries also showed that it was created consciously on the basis of the processing of multi-dialect material. Interlinguistic thought also moved in this direction: the search for common elements that developed in the most common languages ​​of Europe as a result of cultural, scientific and other contacts.

The emergence of a language project that could be transformed into a language proper became inevitable. The first to overcome the border between the language scheme, between "pure cabinet grammar" and its practical implementation was the German Catholic priest from the city of Constance, Johann Martin Schleyer (1831-1912). First, he created a draft of the "world alphabet" (1878), and the following year - Volapyuk (literally translated "world language"). Here are two English words are presented in a highly deformed form: vol (in the form of the genitive vola) from world - the world and puk from speak - to speak. On the title page of the first textbook - "Volapyuk. The World Language. The Project of a Universal Language for All Educated People of the Whole Earth" - the author placed the motto "Menade bal - puki bal!" ("One humanity - one language!"). The first periodical, "Volapukabled" ("Volapyuk leaflet", or "List of the world language"), which Schleyer began to publish in 1881, ceased to exist in 1908. During the celebration of the centenary of the French Revolution and the World Exhibition (1889) opened on this occasion in Paris, the Volapukists held their third general congress. The only language of communication at the congress was Volapuk: it was used for discussions and presentations. For the first time, representatives of 13 countries (including two representatives from China and Turkey) resorted to communicating in a consciously constructed language. A colossal experiment for that time. "Volapyuk passed the practical test," was how the Soviet interlinguist E. Drezen later assessed this event. Mutual understanding achieved through Volapük inspired the supporters of the movement for a universal language.

It seemed that this problem was already solved. The number of publications in the new language has reached several hundred, including two and a half dozen journals and bulletins, textbooks and study guides. Courses were opened in various countries of the world, which were completed by more than 200 thousand people. Only in one Vienna (in 1887) with various educational institutions there were five courses, including those at the University of Vienna. In the commercial school in Paris and in some educational institutions in other countries, Volapuk was accepted as compulsory subject programs.

A new specialty has appeared - "Volapukatidel", that is, "teacher of the world language." In 1889, there were 2015 certified teachers of the world language in 40 countries of the world. A number of firms in large European cities use Volapuk in their correspondence, their ads in newspapers and magazines often end with the words "Spodon Volapuko" ("They are being written in the world language"). A propeller steamer with the proud name of the Volapuk sails along the Rhine, and some of the crew members can carry on a simple conversation with passengers in the world language. Attempts are being made to stage performances on Volapuk. Translations and even original works appear in the new world language, in which there are calls for the unity of peoples on the basis of a common language, blind faith that the world language will solve social problems which sharply stand before the peoples of all countries. Here is a fragment of the poem "The World Language" by one of the ardent admirers of Volapyuk in Russia at the end of the 19th century, Dmitry Chernushenko:

One language for all people
He will be a joy to all
Our century will be great for everyone,
He will become an obstacle to evil machinations ...

At the beginning of the 90s of the XIX century, as stated in the propaganda literature of that time, most of all certified Volapuk teachers were in Moscow, then in St. Petersburg, Tartu (Derpt) was in third place.

Volapiuk's supporters' movement consisted mainly of the intelligentsia and representatives of the petty and middle bourgeoisie. The ideas of the world language and Volapuk itself practically did not penetrate into the lower social strata of the population, although the labor movement that became more active in the second half of the 19th century in many European countries demanded a pooling of efforts, solidarity and, accordingly, mutual understanding.

Nevertheless, the rise of the Volapuk movement at the turn of the century was followed by its decline. There are several reasons for this, but the most important is the split within the movement: many demanded improvements, which the author refused. Volapyuk belonged to languages ​​of a mixed type, his grammar, extremely rational, logical, did not reflect many features of ethnic languages. In addition, the supporters of Volapyuk switched to the emerging Esperanto movement, which seriously competed with the language of I. M. Schleyer and won this rivalry.

With the advent of Esperanto, the claims of the participants in the movement also fundamentally changed. They are no longer talking about a world language for all mankind, but about an international auxiliary language. It is no coincidence that the author of Esperanto L. Zamenhof on the title page of his first textbook placed the motto "For a language to become universal, it is not enough to call it such."

The creator of Esperanto Ludwig Lazar Zamenhof (1859-1917) was born in the city of Bialystok, at that time part of Russia. He spent his childhood in a multinational and multilingual environment. "The idea of ​​an international language, the implementation of which I devoted my whole life to," he wrote to the Russian Esperantist N. A. Borovko, "appeared in my childhood." Originally as a kind of game: connecting words with each other various languages, Ludwig tried to create something like secret code to talk to classmates. Coming from a doctor's family, he, of course, first decided to resurrect one of the great languages ​​​​of antiquity and the Middle Ages - Latin, but then he came to the conclusion that this was not a solution to the problem.

Somehow paying attention to the inscriptions like "confectionery", "Swiss" on the streets hometown, he unexpectedly discovered that with the help of individual elements (like the suffix -skaya) one can compose new words. This provided great opportunities for the formation of concepts based on existing ones: “A ray of light fell on the menacingly thick dictionaries, and they [dictionaries] began to rapidly decrease in my eyes. The mechanics of the language was in front of me at a glance, and ... soon after that I already had a written full grammar and a small dictionary," Zamenhof later recalled. The end of the gymnasium course - 1878 - coincides with the appearance of the artificial language project "Lingwe universala" - "universal language".

In the circle of Zamenhof's young friends, the project aroused interest and even enthusiasm. But the father from the very beginning was against his son's "strange" hobbies, he insisted that Ludwig become an ophthalmologist, and sent him to Moscow.

After completing his studies, the young man came to Warsaw (the family already lived there). And then it turned out that the father had burned the manuscript of the linguistic project and all the sketches for it. Ludwig took the loss hard and could not start working again for a long time. In the early 80s, stealthily, so that his acquaintances and relatives would not recognize him, he again began to develop the foundations of an international language and completed the project by 1887. Fearing that clients would stop contacting an ophthalmologist-philologist, Zamenhof decided to publish the project under a pseudonym. He searches for it for a long time and stops at the word "hoping". On the title page lies the inscription: "D-r Esperanto". Further, in Russian, the title followed: "International language. Preface and complete textbook", but the explanation itself was given in the new language.

Zamenhof did not immediately find a publisher: no one took his work seriously and did not want to publish it. Thanks to the fact that the father-in-law gave money, Zamenhof was finally able to publish an international language textbook at his own expense, which was named after a pseudonym: "Esperanto". Then comes the Polish edition, and a little later - French, English and German.

What is special about Esperanto? Why was it destined to survive unlike other artificial languages?

One of the supporters of the movement for an international language in Russia wrote at the beginning of the century: "Yes, and it was time to stop: the horror seizes, as you remember that over the past 200 years, more than 150 systems of the world language have appeared." However, it should be borne in mind that "negative" experience also matters. Failures paved the way for a more successful solution.

First of all, Esperanto is characterized by the principle of "one sound - one letter", that is, the phonetic spelling of words (based on the Latin alphabet), which makes it possible to approximate oral speech to writing. This removes the difficulties of a graphic and spelling nature that arise when studying such European languages ​​as English and French, in which, as is known, there is a kind of "chasm" between the spelling of words and their pronunciation.

Esperanto grammar is reduced to 16 rules, which turned out to be enough to express the grammatical relations necessary for the system to fulfill its inflectional functions: rules for the formation of nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, numerals, conjunctions, prepositions, etc. This grammar practically knows no exceptions, which sharply differs from the grammar of ethnic languages. Anyone can learn the rules in a very short time.

As for the dictionary, on the contrary, it is close to the most common European languages ​​and is based on common lexical units. Such root elements as nepre - certainly, krom - except, cel - goal, dom - house, krut - cool, po - on, tri - three, past - graze, cerp - scoop, glad - stroke and etc. From French: buso (bouche) - mouth, mateno (matin) - morning, mem (memo) - itself, tre (tres) - very much, tuta (toute, Italian tutto) - whole, etc. From Italian: audiau (addio) - goodbye, artikolo (articolo) - article, cielo (cielo) - sky, popolo - people, promesi (-promesso) - promise, etc. From Latin: fenestro (fenestra) - window, homo (homo) - person, apud - around, dum - while, kun (cun) - with, sub - under.

So Zamenhof, constructing the grammar of Esperanto, in one case according to the principle of contrast with European languages, in the other - according to the principle of their similarity, found the best option.

In the first textbook, he also placed examples of literary creativity in a new language - a translation of famous classical works.

In science, disputes do not stop about whether literature in an artificial language should be developed. Can such literature have the same aesthetic values ​​that are characteristic of national literatures? While disputes are going on, Esperanto literature is writing its history, writing, despite a certain skepticism and silence on the part of "big literary criticism".

The experiment, begun a hundred years ago, has stood the test of time. The number of people using this language is growing every year. Esperanto is taught in 63 higher education institutions in 23 countries.

In the article "Non-tourist Journey" readers can read about how Esperanto speakers actively communicate with each other.

In conclusion, it should be added that the number of world language projects continues to grow. We will name only the most famous of them.

Ido, Historio di Nia Linguo, Edo, Glosa, Loglan, Lojban, Klingon, Latino Moderne, Novial, Lango, Romanova, Ceqli, Unish, Lingua Franca Nova, Folkspraak, Basic English, Atlango, Toki, Pona.

And more recently, two messages appeared on the Internet. First: a resident of the city of Lutsk (Ukraine) creates an "angelic" language. Secondly, the Elvish language of Tolkien began to be taught in the schools of England.

Translation of M. Yu. Lermontov's poem "The lonely sail turns white ..." into Esperanto

A lonely sail turns white
In the fog of the blue sea! ..
What is he looking for in a distant country?
What did he throw in his native land? ..
Waves play - the wind whistles,
And the mast bends and creaks...
Alas, he is not looking for happiness
And not from happiness runs!
Under it, a stream of lighter azure,
Above him is a golden ray of sunshine...
And he, rebellious, asks for a storm,
As if there is peace in the storms!

Blankadas velo unusola
En la nebula mara blu".
G^i kion lasis, kion volas
En fremdaj landoj serc^i plu?
Ondig^as kaj la vento spiras
Fleksante l "maston kun fervor".
Ve! Ne felic^on g^i aspiras,
Nek de l"felic^o kuras for.
G^in kovras blue rond" c^iela,
Sub g^i lazuras onda spac".
Sed s^tormon serc^as g^i ribela,
Kvazau en s^tormoj estas pac".

(Translated by K. Gusev.)

There is a parable that once all the people of the earth spoke the same language. But then they decided to erect a tower up to the sky - Babylon. And in punishment for the desire to become equal to the deities, the latter punished the builders with a mixture of languages, so that they no longer understood each other ... I wonder what language our descendants will communicate in?

Do you give "Europanto"?

Languages ​​are subject to evolutionary processes, just like all human civilization. Today, Sumerian and Latin are "dead" dialects, but once upon a time they were spoken by a significant part of the world's population ...

As the bonds between different nations and countries, there was a growing need for a global language in which representatives of various nationalities could freely converse with each other.

The Italian Diego Marania and his colleagues, who had to perform the duties of translators at various international meetings, symposiums, assemblies and other gatherings, noticed one interesting phenomenon. Business meetings were followed by traditional feasts, and then the multilingual community for free communication did not use English or any one particular language, but launched an "international mixture", a cocktail of different languages…

This is especially true for Europe. Today, any average-educated European knows hundreds of commonly used expressions and words, and flaunts them for better understanding and livening up the conversation. This invariably brings notes of fun and wit to the conversation, contributes to a more accurate transfer of meaning. And if some phrase flies out of memory, then it is easy to replace it with such an "international" one ...

For clarity, here is an example. The English "ay um" ("I am") can be successfully replaced by the Italian "il suo", the French "zhe sui", the German "their bin" ... Diego Marania jokingly called such a colloquial mixture "Europanto".

The trend is expanding. First, it satisfies a longstanding need for a neutral international language. Secondly, "Europanto" develops naturally, in contrast to the same Esperanto, which they tried to introduce artificially.

Great and mighty…

Some European publications have even begun to introduce separate sections in this mixed language. Yes, and in our newspapers and on television, there is also the dominance of "foreigners". One can be indignant at the "littering" of our native and great ... But doesn't this remind one of the fight against windmills?

No, no matter what anyone says, the emergence of a "world language", a language of interethnic communication, is an inevitable thing. Even without scientific calculation, one can see how many borrowings, digested and run-in words and hard-to-recognise roots from other languages ​​in the same Russian - you can find echoes of Greek, Latin, Romanesque, Turkic and other even more ancient dialects in it ...

And only sometimes do we suddenly realize that we have been speaking this international prose all our lives. And there are words that in all languages ​​are pronounced only in Russian, for example, "vodka" or "perestroika" ...

Will Spanish replace English?

Meanwhile, as the global system of information networks and communications developed, it became clear that the abundance of languages ​​does not contribute to scientific and technological progress and the interchange of cultural achievements. This is especially evident in the example of such a cosmopolitan country as the United States.

V North America 150 Indian languages ​​have already disappeared, the remaining 30 are probably waiting for a similar fate ... In the growing megacities of the New World, half a century ago, there were ethnic groups that used more than 200 languages. Of course, such discord, like the Babylonian pandemonium, could not last long...

Representatives of the older generations still preferred to speak the language of their ancestors, and young people already preferred English ... Moreover, it was not the pure language of the Anglo-Saxons, but enriched, digested "American English" ...

Yankee scholars, observing the process of "American cauldron", predicted the emergence of a single language. But the monolith did not work. The researchers found an unexpected pattern - the role of English on the world stage began to decline, and, according to forecasts, its use in the world will sharply decrease in about half a century. Already today, more and more people in America use not English, but Spanish for everyday communication ...

According to statistics, the rating of the prevalence of languages ​​on the planet so far looks like this: Chinese, Hindi, Urdu, English, Spanish, Arabic ... Each of them is spoken by half a billion people, Chinese by one and a half billion ... And, according to experts in demography and linguistics, from The 6 thousand languages ​​​​existing in the world in a couple of decades will be only 600 ...

And yet it is not in vain that they say: "How many languages ​​you know - so many times you are a person." After all, only having learned a foreign language, we can appreciate our native language.