Well-known expressions and their true meaning. speaking in tongues

Editorial Faktruma publishes a collection of the true meanings of Russians popular expressions and sayings that are familiar to literally everyone from the cradle. Learning about the history of the origin of these idioms is a real pleasure for all connoisseurs of our rich language!

1. Why in the West were they afraid of Khrushchev's "Kuzka's mother"?

famous phrase Khrushchev "I'll show you Kuz'kin's mother!" at the UN Assembly translated literally - "Kuzma's mother". The meaning of the phrase was completely incomprehensible and from this the threat acquired a completely sinister character. Subsequently, the expression "kuzkina mother" was also used to refer to the atomic bombs of the USSR.

2. Where did the expression "after rain on Thursday" come from?

The expression "after rain on Thursday" arose due to distrust of Perun, Slavic god thunder and lightning, whose day was Thursday. Prayers to him often did not reach the goal, so they began to say about the unrealizable that this would happen after a rain on Thursday.

3. Who first said: “Whoever enters us with a sword will die by the sword”?

The expression “Whoever enters us with a sword will die by the sword” does not belong to Alexander Nevsky. Its author is the screenwriter of the film of the same name Pavlenko, who remade the phrase from the Gospel "Those who take the sword will die with the sword."

4. Where did the expression “the game is not worth the candle” come from?

The expression "the game is not worth the candle" came from the speech of gamblers who spoke in this way about very small win, which does not pay off the cost of candles that burned out during the game.

5. Where did the expression “Moscow does not believe in tears” come from?

During the rise of the Moscow principality, a large tribute was levied from other cities. Cities sent petitioners to Moscow with complaints of injustice. The king sometimes severely punished complainers to intimidate others. Hence, according to one version, the expression “Moscow does not believe in tears” came from.

6. Where did the expression “this thing smells like kerosene” come from?

Koltsov's 1924 feuilleton told of a major scam uncovered in the transfer of a concession to exploit oil in California. The most senior US officials were involved in the scam. Here the expression "the case smells of kerosene" was first used.

7. Where did the expression “there is nothing behind the soul” come from?

In the old days, it was believed that the soul of a person is placed in a recess between the collarbones, a dimple on the neck. In the same place on the chest was the custom to keep money. Therefore, they say about a poor person that he "has nothing behind his soul."

8. Where did the expression "beat the buckets" come from?

In the old days, chocks chipped from a log - blanks for wooden utensils - were called baklushas. Their manufacture was considered easy, not requiring effort and skill. Now we use the expression "beat the buckets" to refer to idleness.

9. Where did the expression “not by washing, so by skating” come from?

In the old days, village women, after washing, “rolled” the laundry with the help of a special rolling pin. Well-rolled linen turned out to be wrung out, ironed and clean, even if the washing was not of very high quality. Today, to indicate the achievement of the goal in any way, the expression "not by washing, so by rolling" is used.

10. Where did the expression "case in the bag" come from?

In the old days, the messengers who delivered the mail sewed caps or hats under the lining very important papers, or "deeds" so as not to attract the attention of robbers. This is where the expression "in the bag" comes from.

11. Where did the expression "let's go back to our sheep" come from?

In medieval French comedy A wealthy clothier sues a shepherd who stole his sheep. During the meeting, the clothier forgets about the shepherd and showers reproaches on his lawyer, who did not pay him for six cubits of cloth. The judge interrupts the speech with the words: "Let's return to our sheep", which have become winged.

12. Where does the expression "do your bit" come from?

AT Ancient Greece there was a small coin mite. In the gospel parable, a poor widow donates her last two mites for the construction of the temple. From the parable came the expression "to contribute."

13. Where did the expression "Kolomenskaya Verst" come from?

In the 17th century, by order of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the distances between Moscow and the royal summer residence in the village of Kolomenskoye were re-measured and very high milestones were installed. Since then, tall and thin people have been called the "Kolomenskaya verst."

14. Where did the expression "chasing a long ruble" come from?

In the 13th century, the hryvnia was the monetary and weight unit in Russia, divided into 4 parts (“ruble”). A particularly weighty remnant of the ingot was called the "long ruble". The expression about big and easy earnings is connected with these words - “chasing a long ruble”.

15. Where did the expression "newspaper duck" come from?

“One scientist, having bought 20 ducks, immediately ordered to cut one of them into small pieces, with which he fed the rest of the birds. A few minutes later, he did the same with the other duck, and so on, until there was one left, which, in this way, devoured 19 of her friends. This note was published in the newspaper by the Belgian humorist Cornelissen to mock the gullibility of the public. Since then, according to one version, false news is called "newspaper ducks."

A question was received at the address of our site: Is it possible to use the words ap. Paul "I thank my God: I speak in tongues more than all of you, but in church I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others, than the darkness of words in an unknown tongue" (Acts 14, 18-19) should be understood as an indication of the need translation of the service from Church Slavonic into Russian? This article may be the answer to this question.

To understand the idea of Paul, it is necessary to consider this expression in a broader context. What is "I speak with tongues"? This is an indication that the apostle had the "gift of tongues." "Gift of tongues", or glossolalia, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit (harismata), i.e. special manifestations of the power of the Holy Spirit, which distinguished the Apostolic Church, which were sent down to the first Christians to strengthen the faith, to build the Church, to regenerate man and mankind. Chapters 12-14 of I Corinthians are the most important source of our knowledge about these gifts, they contain the most complete teaching about the holy gifts. The question, what was the glossolalia, is the most difficult to interpret. Here is what priest Michael of Thebes writes about this, who devoted a thorough study to this problem: "This question has not yet been resolved, and it seems that it will not be resolved satisfactorily, unless new documents are opened that shed light on this subject as well." A researcher closer to us in time, Edelshtein Yu. it was widely used by Gnostics and Montanists, evolved towards orgiasm and magic, essentially merged with pagan manticism, so church writers (Eusebius Pamphilus and Jerome Stridon) began to interpret glossolalia as possession by an evil spirit.

But in reality, there are two approaches to explaining the essence of glossolalia in the literature: 1) it is understood as speaking in unknown languages, i.e. speaking in a language that a person has not been trained in, 2) ecstatic states in very different manifestations.

What do we know about this gift from Holy Scripture? The apostles themselves receive the gift of "tongues" on the day of Pentecost after the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them (Acts 2:3-11); the disciples of John begin to speak in tongues and prophesy in Ephesus after the baptism and the laying on of hands by the apostle Paul (Acts 19:6); in Caesarea, the Holy Spirit descended on the pagans who listened to the sermon of the Apostle Paul, and they began to "speak with tongues" (Acts 10:46). I Corinthians - evidence that the gift of speaking "with other tongues" was widespread among the Christians of the community of Corinth. But in the writings of the apostolic men - St. Barnabas, St. Clement, St. Ignatius the God-bearer, contemporaries of the apostles, i.e. in the era of distribution among the first Christians of this gift, there is no mention of glossolalia, no explanation of what it is. Explanations and interpretations appear in the era of the Church Fathers (perhaps the first interpreter was Irenaeus of Lyons (202), when this gift ceases to operate among Christians and takes the form of ecstatic, meaningless language among the Gnostics and Montanists, "about which Edelstein wrote. John Chrysostom (347-407) said that this whole area is distinguished by great obscurity, which comes from the fact that we do not know the very facts about which the apostle speaks, and what happened in the apostolic time is no longer repeated. in the writings of the Church Fathers: Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom (Interpretations on the Epistles of Paul), Gregory the Theologian (Word 41 on Pentecost), a first look at the essence of glossolalia is formed, i.e. understanding it as speaking in unknown languages, but, more importantly, a semantic connection is drawn between Pentecost and the Babylonian pandemonium.

The Bible teaches that at first there was one language on earth, given by God to Adam before the fall (Gen. 2:19-20). After the Babylonian pandemonium (Gen. 11:1-9), people begin to speak different languages. "... A single language - this greatest gift ... - was turned by people into evil, to assist in the development of the stormy and lower instincts of their nature ... Seeing that humanity has firmly embarked on this disastrous path of wickedness and does not show any intention to leave it and repent, the merciful Lord himself decided, by an extraordinary act of His omnipotence, to bring people from it and thereby save them from COMPLETE moral destruction. God ... forced them to speak in different languages ​​and thereby destroyed the means of mutual exchange of thoughts. " What happens on the day of Pentecost? The ability of people to understand each other is being restored, the language barriers erected by sin are falling [Philologists who are trying to comprehend linguistic problems from an Orthodox point of view are referred to the book by A. M. Kamchatnov, N. A. Nikolina "Introduction to Linguistics". Moscow, 1999] The Holy Fathers of the Church not only pointed out the connection between these two events, thus laying the foundation for the tradition of understanding glossolalia as speaking in unknown languages, but also explained why the apostles received the "gift of tongues" before other gifts. Because they had to disperse to all countries to preach the good news about the coming of the Savior into the world, and "just as during the pandemonium one language was divided into many, so now many languages ​​\u200b\u200bare united in one person, and one and the same person, at the suggestion of St. Spirit, began to speak in Persian and Roman and Indian, and in many other languages. And this gift was called the gift of tongues, because the apostles could speak in many languages ​​- as if the Spirit had given them prophecy.

So, let us repeat, the patristic tradition is to understand glossolalia as speaking in unfamiliar languages. This understanding is enshrined in church services. In the kontakion of St. We sing of Pentecost: "When tongues of confluence descended, dividing the tongues of the highest: when you spread out fiery tongues, the whole call was united: and according to we glorify the All-Holy Spirit." Translation: "When the Most High came down and confused the languages, then by this He divided the nations, when He distributed the fiery tongues, He called everyone to unity; and we unanimously glorify the All-Holy Spirit."

Before the Ascension, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself commanded His disciples to remain in Jerusalem, where the Holy Spirit descended upon them, and the first Christian Pentecost coincided with the Jewish Pentecost. Acts 2:5 says, "There were Jews in Jerusalem, devout people, from every nation under heaven." Those. in this city, destined to become the center from where the rays of the gospel light were to illuminate the entire universe, on the occasion of the holiday, a really multilingual crowd gathered: these were Jewish pilgrims of the dispersion, who had lost their language and spoke the languages ​​of the peoples in whose lands they settled, and foreign proselytes who accepted the Jewish faith, and, as John Chrysostom notes in "Conversations on the Apostolic Acts", "many of the pagans also appeared here." It is known that at the time of the coming of Christ, many pagans, showing interest in the divine truth hidden in the Old Testament, they came to Jerusalem on great feasts to worship and were even allowed into the outer courtyard of the temple. And all this linguistically motley crowd was attracted "by a noise from heaven" and gathered at the house where the descent of the Holy Spirit took place on the apostles, and, as it is written in Acts 2:6, "everyone heard them speaking in his own language", "and others mockingly said: they drank sweet wine (2:13) Is there a contradiction here? ", others, perhaps not hearing their own language in this general confusion, are trying to explain the miracle according to their own understanding - to each according to faith. Isn't this repeated every time a miracle occurs - and our ideas about the laws of nature are refuted by the ashes of God? There is no doubt that that it is precisely the patristic tradition of understanding glossolalia that exactly corresponds to the description in Acts, although, of course, there are many questions that remain unanswered Did the apostles understand what they were saying through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? Was it the miracle of speaking or hearing, i.e. the apostles spoke in one, their native language, and the assembled people heard them each in their own dialect? This question has already been asked by St. Gregory the Theologian, but inclined towards the first interpretation. Did the glossolalia of the apostles and Corinthian Christians manifest itself in the same forms? The patristic tradition tends to consider these phenomena of the same nature, although if you read I Corinthians, you can see some new features. The apostle says that some are endowed with the "gift of tongues", others with the gift of "interpreting tongues" (I Cor. 12:10); "If anyone speaks in an unfamiliar language, speak two, or many, three, and then separately, but one explain" (14:27); "Whoever speaks in an unknown language does not speak to people, but to God, because no one understands him, he speaks secrets with the spirit" (14:2). It can be assumed that the gift of speaking in an unfamiliar language in a monolingual community becomes devoid of internal meaning and requires help for perception. Perhaps, returning to the question of St. Gregory the Theologian about the miracle of speaking or hearing, the miracle of Pentecost had both forms, and later the Corinthians manifested themselves in two ways - the gift of speaking and the gift of interpretation. The practice of several people speaking at the same time further complicated the situation and introduced an element of disorder into the meetings of the early Christians. If by the III century. glossolalia disappears among Christians, then this happened, most likely not suddenly, not immediately, but both gifts were gradually obscured - the meaning of speech was depleted, and meaningless linguistics remained only in the heretical movements of the Gnostics and Montanists.

Let us turn to the interpretation of the blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria. “Those who at the beginning believed and were baptized all received the Spirit. But since He was invisible, His power was given external evidence; and those who received Him either spoke in different languages, or prophesied, or worked miracles. The Corinthians because of these gifts there were rebellions: those who received more were exalted, those who received less - envied them. "The gift of tongues was in abundance among the Corinthians; they were more exalted by them, since it was first given to the apostles and therefore was considered the most important of the others."

So, in I Corinthians. Apostle Paul warns the Corinthians against sinful misuse of the gift of the Holy Spirit, which in its original form is no longer manifest today and there can be no direct transition to the problem of the Church Slavonic / Russian language.

It must be said that Orthodox authors approach the problem of the "gift of tongues" very cautiously; the later interpreters of the Epistles of St. Paul, this moment is simply silent (for example, in St. Theophan the Recluse). On the contrary, an increased interest in glossolalia is observed in Protestantism, because in this direction there are strong tendencies towards a literal restoration of the forms of religious life and institutions of the original Christian Church. In 1755 Middleton's book "On the Gift of Tongues" was published in London, and since then a discussion about glossolalia has flared up, a dispute has been waged with the patristic tradition of its understanding and an ecstatic theory is being formalized, in which the emphasis is on a special state in which the speaker of "other tongues" is and various conjectures are expressed about the specific manifestation of this gift. Of course, new authors look for the ancient origins of the ecstatic theory and find them in Tertullian, the famous theologian of the 2nd-3rd centuries, who converted to Montanism, where, as has been repeatedly mentioned, the "gift of tongues" degenerated into meaningless language.

Much space is devoted to the analysis of Protestant theories in the book of St. Michael of Thebes. The variety of points of view, perhaps, comes down to three main understandings - the language of the glossolalist is: 1) an obsolete language - Hebrew, which fell out of use in the era of the Savior's coming into the world, or obsolete expressions of the Greek language; 2) "divinely inspired speech", i.e. ecstatic, inarticulate speech, in which no human meaning was supposed; 3) hymnology - an enthusiastic rhythmic recitation, this is the so-called musical-hymnological interpretation.

It is immediately evident that all theories reject the foundation: the connection of Pentecost with the Babylonian pandemonium - and begin to erect the building of their points of view on particulars. Yes, in the Middle Ages it was widely believed that the paradise language of Adam was Hebrew, as the most ancient language, but even then doubts were expressed about the correctness of this position, and modern linguistics unambiguously proved that there are more ancient languages. Yes, the ancient tradition of pronouncing prayer texts among many peoples assumed that the text was necessarily pronounced aloud, and musical and rhythmic design in pre-literate eras was a feature not only of religious texts, but of the text in general, we can say that the ancients did not know boring prose. As for ecstatic states, I will confine myself to reminding you that Orthodoxy seeks to keep a person in spiritual sobriety.

Turning to Russian Orthodox authors of the 19th - early 20th centuries, one becomes convinced that some of them did not avoid a bias towards the Protestant understanding of this phenomenon. So the saint himself. M. Theveisky understood the phenomenon of glossolalia very broadly - this is everything that is heard, but not understood, and concluded that glossolalia is spilled around us: we hear choral singing, but we cannot make out the words, a five-year-old child hears, but does not understand philosophical speech, Catholics do not understand worship in Latin. When attempts are made to substantiate the necessity of translating a Slavic liturgy into Russian by referring to I Corinthians, perhaps we are confronted with just such an understanding of glossolalia. But let's be logical to the end - a quickly, slurred Russian text can also easily turn into a similar glossolalia. The successors of the patristic tradition of understanding the "gift of tongues" were St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, an outstanding scientist, rector of the MTA, Professor A.V. Gorsky, S.N.

In conclusion, I would like to note that, regardless of the interpretation of the words of the Apostle Paul, the problem of modern believers not understanding the Church Slavonic language is more acute today than ever, and the question of a new Slavonic translation of some texts sounds louder and louder. But this is a separate, very serious topic, which, with God's help, we hope to continue in the future.

Priest Michael of Thebes. Spiritual gifts in the early Christian Church. The experience of explaining 12-14 chapters of the first epistle of St. app. Paul to the Corinthians. Moscow, 1907 page 5.
Yu.M.Edelstein. The problem of language in the monuments of patristics: the history of linguistic teachings. Medieval Europe. Leningrad, 1985 page 202
Quoted from M. Fiveyskizh, p. 5.
Explanatory Bible, or Commentary on all the books of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. Petersburg, 1904-1907, T. I, p.81"
Blessed Theophylact Archbishop of Bulgaria, Commentary on the Acts of St. apostles, abbreviatedly selected from the interpretations of John Chrysostom and some other fathers. Skeet, without a year, p. 27.
Prayers and chants of the Orthodox prayer book (for the laity) with a translation into Russian, explanations and notes by Nikolai Nakhimov. St. Petersburg, 1912, p. 123.
Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria., Commentary on the Epistles of St. apostle Paul. Skit, without a year, pp. 173, 174.
S.N. Bulgakov. Name philosophy. Paris 1953, Moscow, 1997, pp. 36-37.

Galina Trubitsyna

19 / 07 / 2002

PEOPLE AND SWALLOWS

The cat would chatter
Yes, the language is short.
Proverb

The earth is inhabited by many living beings. Of these, only man has the gift of speech. A person can think, that is, reason logically. Other animals do not. Why is there such a difference between them?
Apparently, the mammal "man" is somewhat different from the rest of its relatives. There is some essential difference that made him a special being, talking and thinking; exalted him above all, allowed him to become the master of nature. What is it?

If we figured this out, we would understand why only man created a language for himself. And we can understand this because our great teachers, the founders of Marxist science, showed us the right path in solving this problem.

Fast forward to the south, to the Ukrainian steppes, in the time of Taras Bulba or Bogdan Khmelnitsky. Even then, people built bleached Ukrainian huts there from clay mixed with straw and manure. The very ones that Gogol later glorified, Shevchenko sang, were immortalized in their paintings by many artists.

People built these huts, and under the thatched roofs, cute birds, swallows, from the same clay, with an admixture of the same straw, molded semicircular ladles of their nests. People and birds worked side by side and, at first glance, they worked in exactly the same way.

Three or four centuries have passed. The great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of those who patiently smeared clay dwellings over the old Dnieper are erecting gigantic buildings of iron and concrete in the same places. People remained people, and their work and what they create with the help of this work have changed beyond recognition.

And the swallows? And now, like four hundred, like fourteen hundred years ago, they rush around human buildings. And today they stick their nests to their cornices - exactly the same as in the time of Bulba. Nothing has changed either in their "work" or in its results. Nothing - absolutely nothing! - did not become different in the funny birds themselves. And it will not become different as long as the swallows remain swallows or until a person begins to transform their nature with an imperious hand. Why is it so?

Swallows are different. The killer whale, familiar to everyone, sticks a clay basket under the eaves of village huts.

The river bank digs, like a mole or a shrew, deep - you can’t reach the bottom with your hand - holes in clay cliffs along the banks of rivers.

Both birds are great masters in their craft: one is a "sculptor", the other is a "digger", "miner".

But here's what's interesting. Settle the sand martin where there are no steep river banks. She will not breed chicks, she will stop breeding. Thousands of times a day, rushing past the comfortable nests that were built from the "improvised" clay of her killer whale sister, she will never, in any case, try to imitate them, will not act like them.

And vice versa: a village killer whale, deprived of soft and sticky mud, will die without a home, but will never try to learn from its shore sister her ability to dig warm holes-caves; at best, she will settle in one of the finished ones.

And the man? Man is another matter.

For centuries, the inhabitants of the steppe south have built houses of clay for themselves. But, having moved to Siberian taiga places, they immediately got the hang of cutting down wooden huts here. It can be said that from killer whales they seem to have turned into thrushes and robins, which make nests from stems and twigs.

Throw a steppe into a mountainous area, and he will dig a cave for himself, like a shore. Settle him among the ice of the Arctic - he will begin to erect plagues from the snow and will hide in them from storms, like a polar partridge. It is quite clear that there is an essential difference between the work of man and the work of animals. What is it?

There are at least three differences here: one is relatively simple, the other two are much more complicated.

Why does a killer whale build nests using clay mixed with saliva? Because nature itself provided her with the salivary glands necessary for this. She is not able to dig minks: her paws and beak are not suitable for "mining" work. Even if she really wanted to dig in the ground, nothing would come of this attempt.

The sand martin, on the contrary, can easily drill a meter-deep cave, but does not have a drop of sticky saliva to cement the nest clay with it. If some ingenious coastal builder had built such a clay cup, it would have become sour and fell apart from the first rain. It turns out that both birds received the tool they need from nature and cannot replace it with anything else. They cannot be retrained, retrained until their nature changes, until they cease to be themselves.

A man today sews a lace dress with the thinnest needle, and tomorrow he stabs a log with a heavy cleaver or flattens iron with a blacksmith's hammer. It was not nature that provided him with both tools; he himself prepared them for himself with the help of the only natural tool - his hand.

Here is a very important difference between human labor and those "works" that are performed by animals. Man works with the help of tools that he makes for himself according to his own discretion and needs, while animals act only with those organs that nature has provided them with.

Therefore, a person can dig a hole today, cut down a tree tomorrow, then knead the dough. And the sand swallow can only dig. Very good to dig, but only to dig. Yesterday and today, tomorrow and always. She does not know how to make a single tool, and is not capable of performing any other work. Its "labor" already differs from human labor in that it does not change, does not improve even for millions of years, until the animal organism itself changes.

Now, if under the influence of external conditions the very nature of a given animal becomes different, then new instincts may appear in an animal of this new breed. It will begin to behave in a new way, and in natural conditions it will behave like this for new millennia, until the time for the next change comes for it.

True, we now know that even the strongest innate impulses - those that make a kitten chase after a ball, a puppy circle for a long time before going to bed, a swallow to sculpt, and a shorebird to turn into a miner bird - that even they are not immutable, not are eternal. A change in external conditions, the environment, created by nature or by the powerful intervention of man, can gradually remake them too.

We observe such alteration in the domestication of animals. A wild cat, falling into a trap, will die of hunger without making a sound; any noise on his part would draw the attention of stronger predators to him. And the home, stuck in a narrow gap, will yell loudly, calling for help: both he and his ancestors have long ceased to be afraid of predators, they are accustomed to human protection. The behavior of the tamed cat has changed dramatically.

But even here, under this powerful protection, such a change took millennia: and now cats run wild very easily. How much more slowly, and then only under very favorable circumstances, such a restructuring of innate impulses can occur in the wild! But in the life of animals, it is precisely these impulses - in science they are called instincts - that determine a lot.

What do they represent?

Skilled ignoramuses
Have you ever seen a duckling just hatched from an egg? It is very worth seeing.

Here is a chick, hatched, moreover, not by a mother duck, but by a machine - an incubator, has just broken the egg shell. They put him in a warm place. He is dry and squeaks a little.

Take a basin or a bath, pour tepid water into it and carefully put a fluffy crumb on its surface, which is half an hour old.

At the same moment, he will start working with webbed feet, exactly like an adult duck embarking on its thousandth journey. Just like her, he will take a sip of water with his beak, wag his tail, which is almost impossible to see, and swim. Who taught him this? Nobody. Here's the lucky one!

Remember how you yourself were taught to swim. There was a lot of work and failure.

I learned to swim like this:
The first step was to remove the shoe;
Sat on a damp stone
I sat down and took the second one...
Today I’ll just turn around, -
I'll learn how to swim tomorrow!
Watching the sunset...
Suddenly my older brother comes.
And my older brother screams:
"Jump into the water, they say!"
V. Lifshitz

Described quite accurately.

Only little by little, moving from step to step, you mastered this art under the guidance of your elders. At first you floundered in the water "like a dog", then you swam with saplings, but now you are demonstrating crawl, breaststroke, and butterfly in the pool. And in a year you expect to break many records, surpass other swimmers.

The born swimmer, that duckling or gosling, has long become a wise bird, the father of a whole waterfowl, web-footed tribe. But even today it swims in exactly the same way as on the first day of its existence. Then he swam without learning and since then he has not really learned anything new. And will not learn. He is a skillful ignoramus. His guide was instinct, your teachers were your mind and other people.

When I was born, I did not know how to knit fishing tackle, nor to mold clay bowls for milk. But if I need it, I, like Robinson Crusoe, will learn both. At first, of course, I will work worse than my teachers, then I can catch up with them and, perhaps, even surpass them. Who knows: maybe I'll even improve their skills!

But the baby spider, having been born yesterday, already knows how to weave webs no worse than the most experienced spider, who has eaten a lot of flies in his lifetime. The bee, leaving the chrysalis, begins to sculpt cells or prepare wax no less skillfully than the elderly winged craftswomen of her hive.

But no matter how long they live in the world, a young bee and a novice spider, they will never overtake the elders. None of them will ever come up with anything essentially new in their work. Never starts to do "the same thing, but not so."

Animals are skillful ignoramuses. Their "work", which does not even deserve this proud name, is mainly controlled by the wrong mind that guides our labor activity, but quite different natural ability. This is instinct.

It should not be thought that instinct does not play any role in human life. When you were born, you didn't have to be taught to suck on a pacifier or howl in pain either. Everyone knows how to do it instinctively, that is, without training, and, moreover, no worse than our distant ancestors did the same thing. Not worse, but not better either. Exactly like them!

But everything else we learn from others, we learn with the help of reason. That is why we can not only catch up with our teachers, but also far surpass them. The young Soviet pilot now flies much better than they could, the veterans of aviation in 1915 do this. The modern engineer builds plumbing much more skillfully than all the most talented builders of ancient Rome. But they were the teachers of his teachers.

This means that the second important difference between our labor and what we call the "labor" of animals consists precisely in this: they "work" instinctively, while we, people, rationally. Them. there is no need to study, but we need to. Learning is possible only by communicating with your teacher, receiving instructions from him and understanding them. This is what is especially important for us.

WHY DON'T THE ANTS SPEAK?
The spider lives and, if you like, "works" in unsociable loneliness. He himself, alone, angrily weaves a net - he catches flies. And he also eats them alone, without companions. If a cross-spider meets any house spider, they will have nothing to talk about among themselves: just one of them will try to grab and eat the second one. Yes, and with close relatives, the cross acts just as ugly. "Spiders are very quarrelsome," writes Brem.

It is quite clear that these ferocious hermits do not need a language at all, no matter how much they "work". With whom will the crossman share those evil "thoughts" that come to his mind while he sits in the center of his nets? He has no language. He does not, of course, have any "thoughts".

Much more developed solitary animals do not need a language either: the lion beast, the eagle bird. They hunt, build nests, protect their cubs instinctively, without conferring or conspiring with each other about anything. They do not have to teach each other, to reason with one another. Their simple natural feelings - anger, pain, tenderness - are easily expressed by roars, moans or purrs without any words, without any language.

Yes, but there are animals that lead a herd lifestyle. Locusts fly and crawl in billions of flocks, herring swims, lemmings run across the tundra, antelopes travel, birds make their flights. They don't seem to mind learning the language. Negotiations would be useful for them: after all, they live in friendly societies.

No, it just seems. Watch a colony of crows in a spring grove or swallows living under the same roof, and you will see that they live side by side, but not together. No one saw two crows conspire and drag together at least one rod larger than themselves to the nest. It never happened that two or three gray couples took it into their heads to build one common, more comfortable dwelling by joint efforts.

Sometimes an inattentive observer is mistaken. Here in the tropics lives a bird - a "public weaver". Colonies of weavers build themselves something like a gigantic city, with hundreds of nests under one roof. But ornithologists have long established: weavers are true individual farmers: each pair builds only its own nest; these nests merge into a common structure not by the will of the birds, but simply from crowding.

Here is a pair of our swallows making a nest. They seem to be working according to a clever arrangement, according to a precise plan. Otherwise, how do they always get a cup with a hole in one side? But in reality it turns out that this does not depend at all on the will and consciousness of the birds. The female and the male start and finish work at the same time; but the more careless male never manages to bring as much clay as the female. She is finishing her half and is already starting to lay eggs, and this lazy person has not yet completed the job, but one is no longer able to work. So the piece remains unfinished - just at the entrance to the nest.

There are, finally, very special creatures, of which there are very few on earth: bees, ants, termites. These seem to be continuously working: it is not for nothing that people have long considered both the bee and the ant to be models of diligence. They always work together and only together; a bee evicted from the hive dies without even trying to build a "private" wax cell for itself. That's who, it would seem, needs a language3.

But this is not true. Why should they, if every bee and every ant, from the moment of birth until death, perfectly does exactly what they should do, and never tries to do anything else? They just can't be wrong.

It is not worth advising a young bee: "Make, dear, a cell like this." This is as pointless as persuading a chilled person: "Shiver, my friend, more with your back." Without your advice, everyone who is cold will tremble like everyone else. So the bee will mold her wax exactly as it is necessary: ​​otherwise she cannot mold it.

An ant, seeing a grass aphid for the first time in his life, will not ask anyone what? he is supposed to do with her, and immediately he will begin to "milk" her sweet juice as if he had read many of the best books "on aphid milking". He is incapable of not milking aphids. He cannot milk them any other way. Never try to do the same with any other insect. All ants have been milking only aphids for millions of years, and, moreover, in exactly the same way. So what are they talking about with each other?

We humans are in a completely different position.

Since our shaggy, hairy ape-like ancestors first descended from the treetops to the ground, stood on their hind legs, freed their forelimbs for work and, having gathered in a whole horde, killed the first large beast by joint efforts, trapping it in a pit-trap - Since ancient times, man has lived and worked together with other people.

Dig a trap for a fanged mammoth, drag logs to the shore and build a platform for your pile village, cut down part of the forest and plow the ground, burn and gouge the trunk of a huge tree onto a one-tree boat - all this can be done not alone, but only together.

This is not enough: some "ant lion", a bizarre insect of our pine forests, also digs traps for ants in the sand, and digs them very skillfully. But he does it instinctively, as he always did. But the ancestors of man did not dig any traps before, and then they began to dig them. No natural instinct could tell them how to do it. It was necessary that one of the people conceived such an innovation, while others recognized his thoughts, understood them and learned to help him.

This requires communication. In order to hunt animals today, to collect a supply of roots tomorrow, and in two weeks to roll off a huge rock that closes the entrance to a new cave, it is necessary each time to coordinate and combine the actions of many people in a new way.

Consistency, or, as scientists say more precisely, sociality, of human labor is the most important third condition and property that distinguishes it from the "work" of all other animals. People work not only side by side, but also together. More experienced teachers teach beginners: some ask for support, others, having learned about it, come to their aid in time. Goals and working conditions are changing; every time you have to do it differently. Aspirations arise that even the hard workers from the animal world are completely unaware of: to make work easier, to speed up its implementation, to improve the quality of what is manufactured or constructed. And all this is possible only if each worker knows what he wants to do and what his comrades are doing.

Communication during labor, which is necessary for man, is what distinguishes his labor from the "labor" of animals more than anything else. And communication requires language. It is perfectly clear, therefore, that language must have appeared in man in connection with his labor, which, starting from the simplest, slowly but steadily became more complex and, as it were, grew. And we have every reason to think that language was born from those exclamations necessary for work, from those exclamations and fragmentary sounds that people exchanged from the earliest times, doing their hard work in those days. These exclamations must in no way be confused with the "involuntary cries" discussed above. Each of us "gasps" in fright or groans in pain both in public and alone. This happens really "involuntarily". But no one will shout "hey hey" all alone, no one will whisper "shhh" to a creaking tree, no one will shout "whh" to a rushing stream. All these are exclamations, presupposing an interlocutor, a listener, an accomplice in a joint business, who must hear them and whom they must somehow influence. They are emitted only in order for the hearer to do something, to change his behavior in some way. They gave rise to the language.

Let's sum up everything that has been said.

Among all the animals of the world, one and only - man - at one time dramatically rebuilt his life. The monkeys remained to live in the trees, and our ancestors descended from the branches to the ground. They straightened up, took a new, vertical position. Their front legs turned into hands free from rough work - walking, into the first tool of labor, capable of serving for the manufacture of other, already artificial tools. The human chest has also changed; his larynx also became different; they were, as it were, prepared for their future special work; they were able to gradually become not only respiratory organs, but also organs of speech.

After this happened, a person was able to do not the only thing to which nature intended him (as monkeys only collect everything edible), but many different things, any, according to his desire and need.

By changing the tools that serve him, he could now freely change the nature of his work: from a digger to become a fisherman, from a fisherman - a lumberjack or a bricklayer. He began to create for himself, as needed, either the “paws” of a mole, or the “beak” of a woodpecker, or the “claws” of an osprey fisherman, or the “fangs” of a lion or the thrifty “cheek pouches” of a hay rat.

This is not enough: a woodpecker or an osprey cannot improve its beak-chisel or its sharp paws. And man got the opportunity to improve the results of labor by improving artificial organs - tools. He acquired the ability to learn new types of labor using new tools. At once, with one blow, he seized into his power all the wealth of work that animals of the most various kinds, families and breeds. At the same time, he learned to be a spider weaving webs, and a wasp sculpting clay vessels for honey, and a wood borer engraving cunning moves on wood, and a tiger killing buffaloes, and a termite erecting huge and complex buildings of their "cities". He became a man.

And if before that he, like his other relatives, was still well served by instinct, now it took new mentor. Instinct will not help someone who has been hacking with an ax all his life to master a saw or a gimlet. Only the mind can do this.

And the mind was born. He was born, of course, not in the head of one or another of the people. It has grown over long millennia in the minds of many representatives of the human race. People created their minds by working. Labor is unthinkable without the guidance of reason, but reason cannot be born without labor.

At the same time, both of them, reason and labor, could not become what they are now, without the third accomplice in this great cause - without language.

An ability that was unnecessary for the beast - language - turned out to be necessary for man. So it was created by human, very special, joint work carried out not alone, but by the whole society.

"First, work, and then, along with it - articulate speech ..." - the great thinker Friedrich Engels expressed this wonderful truth so precisely and strongly.

Weird question! Obviously, the one that we now use: "the ability, making sounds (remember Kuprin?), to express one's thoughts: the ability, listening to these sounds, to understand the thoughts of another." Are there any other forms or types of language? Did they ever exist? Are they finally possible?

Two hundred years ago, M. V. Lomonosov wrote:

"... in addition to words, thoughts could be depicted through different movements eyes, faces, hands and other parts of the body, as pantomimes are presented in theaters ... "Agreeing that such a mimic language would be inapplicable in the dark, inconvenient during work, when hands are busy, Lomonosov nevertheless considered its existence theoretically possible.

It would seem very logical. But about forty years ago, the famous Soviet linguist N. Ya. Marr came up with a theory that is directly opposite. According to Marr, humanity began precisely with a sign ("manual", as he called it) language; For many millennia, people didn’t know anything else, and sound speech appeared a whole epoch later, when the “manual language”, which had already turned into a complex and developed system, began not to help people in their forward movement, but, on the contrary, hindered it. Sound speech, as it were, replaced its older brother, "manual language"; however, from this point of view, he could also be considered her father: sound speech, as it were, gradually grew out of sign language, retaining many of its features.

At one time, this Marr hypothesis was a success. It was later heavily criticized. Now the linguists of our country are firmly convinced that "the matter began" not with the "kinetic" ("manual") language, but directly with the sound. Sign language has never been an independent system for transmitting thoughts from person to person. As today, even in the deepest antiquity, hand movements, facial expressions only accompanied the sounding speech, were her faithful, but modest assistants.

The question arises: why did this happen? What, some indestructible laws of nature make it completely impossible for the emergence of ways not related to sounds to communicate internal experiences and thoughts to each other? Or is it possible to admit - even on some other planet, under other conditions - the existence of living and intelligent beings that communicate not with the help of sound waves, but otherwise, acting not by hearing, but by sight, touch or even smell of the "interlocutor"?

The question is not very simple. I happened to meet comrades who considered his very staging to be something wrong and unscientific. "Where there is no sound speech," they argued, "there is not and cannot be any conversation about 'language'. Even a science fiction writer has no right to imagine such a thing!"

At the same time, others were perplexed: why, in fact, is even the same Marrian "manual" language impossible? Even we now constantly gesticulate while speaking, out of a desire to give expressiveness and brightness to our speech. There are peoples, especially from among the southerners, who do not know how to talk at all without waving their arms: in one novel of the twenties, a young Egyptian or Syrian Goha, having first encountered Europeans, formed a very unflattering idea of ​​​​them: he was annoyed that they, even arguing , did not make any gestures at all; it was hard and uncomfortable for him to converse with them—this immobility seemed unnatural to him. So you and I find the obnoxious manner of speaking without opening your lips unpleasant ...

And yet, what? talk about trifles: each of us has seen a hundred times that deaf-mutes talk to each other for hours on end without uttering a single word; and they understand each other perfectly. If this is not a "manual" language, then what is it?

The question is confused; these contradictions need to be sorted out.

Primarily; When Soviet linguists condemned Marr's hypothesis, they were not interested in the question - could or could theoretically have been created non-sound, - let's say, "manual" (or any other), language. They argued that in the real, actual history of mankind, it has never been created as such, as a whole, complete, independent system. What can we say about what could have been, if in fact it did not happen? And everything that we know about the past of the human race proves that sign language has never existed and does not exist by itself; always he is, as he was, only a modest assistant to another language, sound. Could it have happened otherwise? Maybe - yes, maybe - no; the only important thing is that this did not happen in reality and, arguing the opposite, Marr was mistaken.

If you think about it, you will not see anything strange in this at all. Man, not yet becoming a speaking creature, possessed, in addition to arms, legs, eyes, ears and vocal cords. He needed hands, feet and eyes every minute for the most important things, for work. And when the need arose to find among the organs of the human body those that could be entrusted with the duty of messengers, it is very clear that it had to be transferred to relatively freer candidates.

Our distant ancestor would be good if, when erecting piled structures, chipping flint pebbles for tips or hunting brown giants - mammoths, he would constantly break away from his - manual! - business, waving these very hands, shaking his head, grimacing, and even turning away from his prey to see that his brothers would gesture to him! Already Lomonosov perfectly understood the unreality of such an assumption. “However,” he concludes the thought cited at the beginning of the chapter, “in this way (that is, with gestures. - L. W.) it would be impossible to speak without light, and other human exercises, especially the works of our hands, would be a great insanity for such a conversation. ..."

To this we can add that such a way of talking itself would turn out to be an even worse "crazy" for any business, for every job.

Obviously, we cannot fail to see what the great Pomor noticed two centuries ago.

But does this mean that modern science completely denies the very possibility of the existence of a "non-voiced" language? Really, if people, by the will of nature, did not have either a voice or hearing, then they would never have managed to become people, would they have to remain forever pitiful, speechless creatures, unable in one way or another to "speak with their soul"?

Not at all. Of course, if a person has not one pair of hands, but two or three, he has, in addition to his five human senses, one or two more (fish, bats, some insects are luxurious, using some mysterious "locators" for us , the so-called "sixth", "seventh", whatever sense), if his nature were even more generously endowed, he would very likely have gone along a completely different path, creating his instrument of communication. One can imagine a world where highly developed beings have somewhere on their foreheads a patch of skin capable, like the skin of a chameleon (but at the behest of consciousness), to change its color. There is no guarantee that such beings would not use this property of theirs to create with its help not a sound, but a "color" language, to perceive "words" not with their ears, but with their eyes. You can think of dozens of other curiosities, but what's the point?

Leonardo da Vinci said: "The world is full of possibilities never yet realized!" - and you and I are not busy reading a science fiction novel. We are busy with science. So let's proceed in our reasoning not from what "could be if ...", but from simple and real facts. An independent and independent non-sound language could or could not have arisen - the tenth matter. The important thing is that on earth, in human society, it has never been created.

“How could you not?” you say. to be sound speech; therefore, it is the first in order of occurrence, at least among this group of people!

Is it possible to say about deaf-mutes that they use Marrov's "sign language"? No; those of them that are explained with the help of hands usually do not gesticulate, but, as it were, write their sentences in the air letter by letter, word by word. What words do these sentences consist of? Of any special, so to speak "deaf and mute"? No, from the most common Russian words, only depicted not in our alphabet, not in our letter, but in another alphabet, consisting of different combinations of fingers. But after all, you and I sometimes resort to the same thing: sailors at a distance at which sounding speech does not reach, signal flags, use the semaphore alphabet ... Telegraph operators constantly use the so-called Morse code ... There is nothing surprising in this and unusual.

Surprising, rather, something else: how and from where could deaf people learn our words, the words of people speaking and hearing? And do they even know them?

Of course, they know: now the vast majority of citizens of our country suffering from deaf-mutism are quite literate people. Without any difficulty they read our newspapers and books, write letters, and write them not in some special "their own", but in our well-known, "sound" words. Obviously, under favorable conditions, they are quite capable of learning our language. But as?

They could only learn it from people speaking. This means that in order to be able to create what seems to us to be the "sign language" of the deaf, it is necessary that a sound language already existed somewhere before it: the first grew only from the root of the second.

True, if no one interferes in the life of a deaf-mute child, if he is forced to communicate only with his own kind, then in the end, together with his comrades, he creates for himself something like a primitive sign language, in which one can somehow explain himself in the circle of the most simple questions: to express everyday desires, to share the most simple joys and sorrows, to formulate some of their own, extremely limited thoughts. But these "thoughts" cannot be compared with what we mean by the word "thought"; they are much poorer, simpler, more primitive; they are unable to express common ideas, nothing more or less abstract. It is not for nothing that teachers of the deaf and dumb, the so-called teachers of the deaf, try to wean their pupils from gesticulation as quickly and decisively as possible, or at least reduce it, like us speakers, to a purely auxiliary secondary role, replacing it with a completely different kind of language accessible to them.

In the last century, the main task of the deaf teacher was to teach pupils to use the simplest "finger alphabet". Many people think that even now the matter is reduced to the same topic.

Meanwhile, this is far from being the case. Now people have mastered the art of transmitting to the deaf and dumb the ability to read our words, the words of people who speak, with their eyes: by the movements of the lips of the one who speaks. And not only to read, but also to understand. And not only to understand, but, in turn, to pronounce these words so that others understand them. Pronounce it even though you can't hear it yourself!

In addition, as soon as this becomes possible, the deaf and dumb are taught our usual reading and writing. It's a bit more difficult than teaching normal speakers, but it still works great.

I think the main thing is now clear in the question of the deaf and dumb. There are no real deaf-mutes, who in any way, would not have been introduced to universal human speech in our country. They in one form or another take possession of its various more or less convenient substituents, firmly associated with it. In their special schools, they go through the same program as talking children. Some of them then successfully enter general universities and calmly study in them along with everyone else.

They read in public libraries, watch movies (never complaining that the "sound is bad" as long as the picture is clear enough); they listen to lectures, which are either read to them somewhat more slowly than usual, or translated into manual alphabet by special translators. Soviet law rightly regards them as full-fledged citizens of our country, like me or you. But all this, of course, is only because humanity has found ways to attach them to the main tool of our culture, to the sound human language.

They can say to me: well, with the language so. But what about the thinking of such people? Does it differ from ours or completely coincides with it? What are they thinking? In what amazing and bizarre forms is it cast, perhaps?

I cannot answer this difficult question in detail and clearly here. One thing can be said: of course, in its form, and in its very nature, the thinking of the deaf and dumb cannot but differ from ours. It is not easy for us speakers to imagine how they picture the world, even in those cases when they themselves try to tell us about it.

Isn't it amazing, for example, that deaf-mutes, who perfectly understand your speech by the movement of your lips and articulately answer you, at the same time have not the slightest idea, say, about music or singing? I will say more: probably, the hall, crowded with reverently motionless people, in front of whom on the stage another person, without producing any noticeable effect, quickly and quickly goes through the keys of the piano with his fingers for some reason, and another strangely rubs the silent strings with a hair bow, it seems to them extremely ridiculous, perhaps even implausible, spectacle.

The occupation of a whistling boy, a mooing cow or a singing rooster seems wild to a deaf-mute; It is impossible to understand why they all make such strange and useless gestures! On the other hand, instant photographs taken during a conversation of people can make the same ridiculous impression on them, but for the exact opposite reason: there we hear sounds that they do not perceive, and here they reach those sounds that are completely imperceptible to us, which the camera imprinted forever on a completely mute, from our point of view, record: a man is sitting, and on his lips the eternal, never ceasing "u-u-u-u-u" or "m-m-m-m-m" is frozen . All this, in our opinion, is almost unimaginable ...

How will you judge inner world people whose disease has taken almost one-fifth of the outside world we perceive?!

However, we have gone very far from our main topics, and what I have told you about now has only an indirect relation to them.

However, we nevertheless found an exact answer to our main question: the contradiction in the views of science on the question of "non-voiced forms of language" turned out to be non-existent, and Marr's theories were certainly erroneous.

Yes, it is theoretically possible to imagine various other kinds of language besides spoken language. But in practice, mankind has created precisely this one full-fledged and accurate language for communication - sound. It was he who was first created in the process of labor and helped labor lead to the "humanization of the monkey." He made people in the full sense of the word people. He ensured the creation of human culture with everything that is good and what remains bad in it.

About him, and only about him, we will talk on all further pages of this book. About sound language. And about human, closely connected with it, thinking.

HOW TO STUDY IT?
Man created language, and language repaid its creator a hundredfold. He allowed him to develop the human brain, ennobled it, gave him the opportunity to think, fight and develop. He has greatly facilitated and made more fruitful tireless human labor.

In the end, it can be said without much exaggeration that it was he, the son of labor - language, who brought man into people.

It happened a very long time ago, an infinitely long time ago. It is impossible to count a certain number of years, even a very large one, and determine the date after which people, having become talking beings, from animals turned into people. It is impossible to celebrate the ten thousand year or hundred thousand year "anniversary" of a language. There is no way to honor his "inventor" with a monument. There were millions of these inventors, and they worked on their wonderful work for a huge number of years. And now, as soon as we turn to questions related to the past of the language, we have to delve into such a distance, and the depth of time, where everything is lost in a fog, impenetrable at first glance.

Indeed, it is difficult, but possible to find out, as our ancestors said a thousand years ago. From this time there are some written documents. There are records made by people from other countries - Byzantines, Arabs; they described in those very times the language of the "Russians" that was alien to them, but which interested them. Finally, it is quite possible that our people themselves could save from that time - not even in writing, but in their memory - individual ancient words, proverbs, jokes, fairy tales, songs ... We will soon see that this is actually it happens, because between our ancestors and us there is a centuries-old, never interrupted connection.

But think: how will you restore the language of people who lived hundreds of thousands of years before our time?

They couldn't write; They didn't leave us a single letter behind them. They did not have any literate contemporaries who could tell anything about their language: all their peers were just like them, shaggy, low-browed barbarians. There is little hope for such!

It is hard to imagine that something significant could reach from their time to us and in the very memory of peoples: too long, infinitely long has the path traversed since then by mankind been. So are we really doomed to forever remain in ignorance of everything that lies beyond the era of written language?

It would be extremely sad: the most ancient, most imperfect written signs that are known to us and can be read by us are not older than five or six thousand years. But man has existed on earth as a man for hundreds of thousands of years. So we can only study a tiny fraction of the history of a language, a measly percentage of that entire span of time? Fortunately, the situation is not so hopeless, if you look at it more closely.

First of all, we have the right to conclude by analogy about many things. What does it mean?

If I can observe how the trees of today's forest grow and develop, how a sprout is knocked out of an acorn, how a mighty tree arises from a sprout, how it gradually begins to bear fruit, grows old and finally dies, I can positively assert that trees also developed in the forests of Ivan IV or Vladimir of Kyiv. It is unlikely that I will make a significant mistake in this. Having found in some ruins a block cut down in the year of the baptism of Russia, and counting five hundred growth rings on it, I will boldly insist: this tree was then five thousand years old. And I have to admit my confidence is justified.

The same is true with language. We have never seen and will never see our great-grandfathers, people of the Stone Age. However, history has allowed us to observe in our time the life of tribes and peoples that are approximately at the same stage of development that our ancestors once went through. In Australia, in Africa, in South America there are still corners, the inhabitants of which, until recently, did not come out of the Stone Age. They are or have just been at a stage of development close to what science calls "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic".

Observing them, we can, with a sufficient degree of probability, transfer these observations into the distant past, into the depths of time, and think: this is how our ancestors lived, spoke, thought, erred and groped for the truth for an infinitely long time ago.

Of course, this is not a very accurate and not completely indisputable way. But in the absence of a better one, one constantly has to resort to it in the science of language, when it comes to the most distant times from us. When it comes to a more recent time, an amazing discovery of the last century comes to the rescue, what is called the "comparative-historical method" in linguistics.

What it is? This cannot be explained in a nutshell. We will have to devote at least several chapters of this book to this method. But first I will try simple example, a comparison, perhaps rude, to make it clear what will be discussed.

Scientists observing the animal world find in it a whole range of living beings, now more, now less closely resembling each other. These are monkeys of different species and families, semi-monkeys, or lemurs, and, finally, humans.

Studying all of them, zoologists come to the idea of ​​their close relationship. It becomes quite probable that all these dissimilar animals descended from some common ancestors; such a conclusion arises when one compares the various organs of their descendants. There is so much in common between them that a simple coincidence of this similarity cannot be explained in any way.

However, having established the common origin of many species, we cannot indicate anywhere in the living nature of their common ancestor: it does not exist. The creatures that gave rise to both monkeys and humans died out a long time ago, disappeared. So, we are not able to imagine what they were like?

Science shows that this is not the case. Based on a careful comparison of organisms, animal descendants, noticing in them common features By observing how they develop, scientists have found it possible to "theoretically restore" the image of their never-before-seen ancestor. We now more or less clearly imagine what he was like, what kind of life he led, what appearance he had, how he looked like an ape and than like a man. And we have every reason to believe that we are right in our conclusions obtained by such a "comparative anatomical method."

This method allows paleontologists to establish with sufficient accuracy, using the found bone, what the entire long-extinct animal was like, where it lived, what it ate, what features it had. And usually subsequent, more complete finds gradually confirm these comparative anatomical "predictions".

But if all this is possible in zoology and paleontology, then why is it impossible to apply a similar, only no longer "comparative-anatomical", but "comparative-historical" method in the science of human languages?

Yes, this is to some extent possible, if only we establish for sure that, firstly, there is some kind of connection between the languages ​​of people by origin, and, secondly, we find the laws by which they live and develop.

This is what I want to talk about in the next chapters of my book.

ABOUT IVANS REMEMBERING RELATIONSHIP
In the pre-revolutionary years, there was a walking expression "Ivan, who does not remember kinship." AT figuratively so they called people without any traditions, indifferent to everything. This expression came from convicts. People who fled from hard labor, falling into the hands of the police without documents and wanting to hide their past, all, as one, called themselves "Ivans", and when asked about their relatives, they answered that "they do not remember their relationship." So, "Ivans who do not remember kinship" and wrote them down in police reports.

The name Ivan was not chosen by chance: it has long been considered a typical, characteristic Russian name, beloved by our people.

But after all, unlike such names as Boris, Gleb, Vsevolod, Vladimir, this name is not Russian in origin. Ivans are available in other countries. True, our Russian Vanya, having met his, say, French "namesake", also Ivan, does not immediately recognize himself in him, and vice versa. In French, Vanya will be Jeannot?, and Ivan - Jean. No wonder A. S. Pushkin called Vanyusha the famous French fabulist Jean La Fontaine:

You are here, lazy, careless,
The simple-hearted sage
Vanyusha Lafontaine!

Strange: between the words Ivan and Jean there seems to be nothing in common. Why should we consider that Jean is a translation into French our Ivan? To understand this, you will have to ask Ivan to recall his relationship, and, moreover, very distant.

Thousands of years ago, among the Jews of Asia Minor, the name Yehohan?n was common. In their language, it meant approximately: "God's mercy", "God's gift".

When a new religious doctrine arose in Palestine and then spread widely throughout the world - "Christianity", the names of the ancient "prophets" and "holy people" began to pass to other peoples. Together with the Christian faith, the name Yehohanan penetrated into Greece.

However, the sounds of this word alien to the Greeks (especially its second "x") proved difficult for the Greek language. Gradually, the Greeks remade Yehohan?n into Ioan?nes, throwing out sounds that were uncomfortable for them and providing it with the ending "es", characteristic of Greek masculine nouns (the Greeks pronounced the names Pericles, Achilles as Peri?kles, Achi?lles, etc. ).

From the Greeks, through the Romans, the name Ioannes spread throughout Europe when it became Christian. But if you were to look for him now in the directories there, you would not immediately recognize him. Here's how it sounds in different languages:

in Greek-Byzantine - Ioannes
German - Johann
in Finnish and Estonian - Juhan
Spanish - Juan
in Italian - Giovanni
in English - John
in Russian - Ivan
in Polish - Jan
French - Jean
in Georgian - Ivane
in Armenian - Hovhannes
in Portuguese - Joan
Bulgarian - He

So guess what, Yehohanan, a name containing nine sounds, including four vowels, is the same as French Jean, consisting of only two sounds, among which there is only one vowel (and that "nasal"!) Or with the Bulgarian "He"!

It is all the more interesting to find out why this word in each of the languages ​​\u200b\u200bchanged in this way and not otherwise. That it accidentally turned into Juan among the Spaniards, and John into John among the British, or are there some solid reasons behind these metamorphoses?

To judge this, let's trace the history of another name that also came out of the East - Joseph.

There it sounded like Yosef. In Greece, this Yosef became the Greek Joseph: the Greeks did not have two written signs for "y" and "and", and the ancient sign "e", "this", over the following centuries in the Greek language began to be pronounced as "and", "ita ". In this form, this name Joseph was transferred by the Greeks to other peoples. Here is what happened to him in European and related languages:

in Greek-Byzantine - Joseph
in German - Josef
Spanish - José
in Italian - Giuseppe
in English - Joseph
in Russian - Osip
in Polish - Yuzef (Yuzef)
in Turkish - Yusuf (Yusuf)
French - Joseph
in Portuguese - Juse

Now I will ask you to take a closer look at both of our tablets, and you will see for yourself: the changes that have occurred with the names, apparently, are not accidental.

Pay attention to the initial sounds of these words. In both cases, the original names began with "iota" and the following vowel: "ye", "yo". And here in place of "iota" we have, also in both cases, in German"y" (Joseph), in Spanish - "x" (Juan, Jose), in English and Italian - "j" (John, Joseph, Giovanni, Giuseppe), the French and Portuguese - "g" (Jean, Joseph, Joan, Juse).

If such substitutions occurred only once, we could not assert anything. Once they are repeated, there is a certain "suspicion". And if we started testing it on other names, the result would invariably be the same.

in Latin - Julia Geronimus
Spanish - Julia Jeronimo
in Italian - Giulia Geronimo
in French - Julie Geraud(ni)m

I gave proper names as an example, and not any other words, just for simplicity. With regard to Christian names, it is easier to establish where they came from and what path they traveled, passing from language to language. But what about other, ordinary words?

Exactly the same. The sounds included in them also change from language to language according to certain and precise laws.

Lived, for example, in the ancient Italian (Latin) language, the basis "yur" (jur), which meant "right". The word "yus" (jus), in genitive case"juris" (juris), and meant - "right". The word "jurare" (jurare) - "swear", "swear".

This Roman basis has been carried over into many languages. At the same time, exactly the same thing happened to her as with the names. Take the French word "juri" (jury), Spanish "jurar" (hurar, swear), Italian "jure" - "right", "English" judge "(judge - judge, expert), and you will be convinced of this. we noticed a permanent rule, a certain law.

But it's very significant. If only words always, passing from language to language, change in the same way, according to the same rules, conclusions that are extremely important for science follow from our observations. Let's take one living example.

I know that in French there is a verb "jouendre" (joindre). It means "to connect".

Looking into the dictionary of the Latin, ancient Roman language, I see the word "jungo" (jungo) there. This is also a verb, and it also means "connect", "attach". Is there a relationship between them? How to test this assumption? Maybe the French "juendre" is just a new version of the old Latin stem "yung"?

If this is so, then the basis that penetrated from Latin into French could easily make its way into other related languages ​​of Latin, say, into Spanish.

But after all, we have already seen that words that began in Latin with "yu" in Spanish took on a different form: "hu". This means that there is reason to look in the Spanish dictionary for some such words, the meaning of which is associated with the concept of "gathering", and the first syllable is the syllable "hu".

We seek and indeed we find. Here is the verb "huntar" (juntar) - "collect", "connect". Here is the noun "junta" (junta), meaning "assembly", "gang". There are other related words.

The thing is amazing: not knowing the Spanish language, we, on the basis of the linguistic law, "predicted" the presence of certain words in it. And they didn't make any mistakes.

"Yes, it's really wonderful!" - you say. And yet, agreeing with me, you cannot appreciate even a tenth of the enormous significance of our observations. In order to understand what a powerful tool in the hands of science can be the linguistic law I have sketched out, we need to understand the question of similar and dissimilar words in different languages.

SIMILAR AND DIFFERENT
If all the words of one language were similar separately to the words of other languages, it would be quite easy to master someone else's speech.

But in fact, in different languages, the words are, of course, different; everyone knows it.

However, it sometimes happens in two completely different languages ​​to find words that are very reminiscent of each other. For example, in the Arabic language there is the word "kahua". It can be translated into Russian as "coffee". Where does this coincidence come from?

This case is very simple. The plant that produces "coffee beans" comes from sun-scorched Arabia. The Arabs learned to use it much earlier than the peoples of Europe. However, there is an assumption that coffee was discovered and used for the first time in Kaffa, one of the regions of Ethiopia.

If so, then the Arabic "kahua" is, in turn, only a reworking of this name. The neighbors of the Arabs (and the neighbors of these neighbors) borrowed from them both the drink itself, made from the fruits of "kahua", and its name. Then each nation somewhat changed the Arabic word in its own way, and now the Arabic "kahua" turned into the French "cafe" (cafe?), into the German "caffe" (kaffee), into the Polish and Czech "kava" (kava), into the Hungarian "kave" (kahve)4.

This often happens. Having met in two languages ​​words similar in sound and at the same time meaning similar concepts to each other, we constantly say: these are the fruits of mutual exchange between these languages. Before us is "borrowing". It goes without saying that borrowed words are a minority, an exception, in most languages. They do not give the language its main features.

Less often, perhaps, the linguist stumbles upon other cases. It happens that in two languages ​​two words exactly coincide in sounds, but their meaning is completely different.

How the word sounds: What does this word mean?
in Russian: What does it mean
in another language:
beetroot barren land (Turkish)
breaker foam wave nose (Turkish)
fool fool stop (turkish)
fist clenched hand ear (Turkish)
tobacco smoking potion plate (Turkish)
cornfield pasture yard (Japanese)
pit deepening mountain (Japanese)
side side goat (Dutch)
beach (French)
cat male cat hut (English)
dirt (German)

How to explain that the sounds of these multilingual words roughly coincide with each other?

It can be assumed that some of them could also penetrate from language to language with the help of borrowing, which we have not yet figured out. So, for example, in Turkey there is one of the species of the Nicotiana plant, which is called in Turkish: "tobacco" (plate), for its wide rounded leaves, while any tobacco in general in Turkey is called "tyutyun". It is possible that our name "tobacco" is somehow connected with this variety. But this is only an assumption.

The vast majority of such coincidences are the result of pure chance. There is nothing in common between the Russian and Japanese "pit", as well as between the Russian and French words "cat", no. Each of them has its own, different from its twin, history and its own, very special, origin.

Let's take the French word "cat" - "coast" (c\^ote). This word is closely related to the French "kote?" - "side" or with the Spanish "costa". (costa) - "shore".

And our Russian "cat", no matter how unexpected it may be for you, has a common origin not with him at all, but with French word"sha", which is written: "khat" (chat), and with the ancient Latin "catus" (catus). Both "sha" and "katus" mean "male cat", "cat".

The study shows that the similarity between the rest of the words in our list in most cases is actually a curiosity of the language, an accident.

Maybe then we can simply say: if two words in two languages ​​are similar only in sound, but are not related to each other in meaning, there is nothing in common between them?

No, it would be imprudent to say so.

Look at another list of Russian and non-Russian words:

How the word sounds in Russian: What does it mean
we have: How it sounds in other languages: What does it mean in them:
in Czech:
case work dylo gun
shame shame shame attention! beware!
cannon gun gun gun
reader one who reads reader numerator (fractions)
stale stale stale fresh (cool)
crush crowded crush tax
in Bulgarian:
chains chains chains mountain ranges
coffin burial box coffin grave
boron coniferous forest boron pine
lip lip lip mushroom7
friend comrade friend other, not this one
fast fast bistor transparent8
in Polish: What does it mean in Polish:
sequence order, queue sequence crowd, rabble
rank rank rank deed, deed
time of day, time of day, time of day (60 minutes)
hour 60 minutes hour time, it's time
sour cream sour cream sour cream cream in general

Looking through this list, one can come to the conclusion that here we have the same “whims” of languages, a game of random coincidences.

But, thinking about each of the word pairs, you come to a different conclusion: between the meanings of the words included in these "pairs", there is known connection, not always direct and clear, not conspicuous, but still undeniable.

The word "cannon" in our language means a firearm, and among the Czechs it means a weapon, but also a firearm. There are significant similarities between the two subjects.

The word "chains" in our country always meant "iron fetters, chains"; their fanatics of the past days hung on themselves in order to "exhaust their flesh." And among the Bulgarians "veri? Goy" is called a mountain range. It would seem, what can be found in common here? But think for yourself: after all, we also call "mountain ranges" "mountain ranges." Obviously, in both words, Russian and Bulgarian, this meaning - "chain" - is the main, main one, and what kind of chains, iron or stone, we are talking about, is a secondary question.

Sometimes the same word, occurring in two languages, has a meaning in them not only "dissimilar", but rather the exact opposite. Here is an example: we say "stale" about bread that has already cooled down and withered; “warm”, soft bread is contrasted with cold, “stale” bread. And among the Czechs, the word "stale" means just the opposite: "fresh", "cool"9. How did the meanings of this word differ so much?

Think for yourself: in both languages ​​there is also a common shade of meaning: "cold", "cooled down". Cooled bread is stale bread. A person in whose chest "feelings have cooled down" is a callous, cold-hearted person. We have it in Russian.

And the Czechs went the other way. They have "stale vitr" - "cool", that is, fresh, wind. The same word in two peoples has opposite, but closely related meanings.

This is not at all like what we had in the case of the Russian and Turkish words "kula?k": there was neither similarity nor opposition between the meanings; they just had nothing to do with each other. The word "shame" among the Czechs means "carefully", "beware", among us Russians - "shame", "shame". It would seem that what is common? But it is easy to figure out: both go back to the Slavic verb "to behold" - "to look." “Shame!”, that is: “look around, be vigilant, vigilant!”, “Shame!”, that is: “what a sight!”. Pushkinists, for example, point out that in Pushkin's poem "The Village" the words "ignorance is a destructive shame" do not mean "the shame of ignorance", but "the destructive spectacle of ignorance", "Disgrace" once simply meant "spectacle"10.

This means that it is true: among the words of two or more languages, we have the right to consider such words related to each other that have similar sounds and meanings that have something in common with each other. But this commonality is not always easy to detect. To judge her, one has to do great job, to search for the meaning of other words that are clearly related to these words in both languages, to investigate how their understanding changed in the distant past ... We must always refer to the history and data of languages ​​​​and those peoples who speak them.

FROM "WOLF" TO "LU"
Now we know how things are when we have before us words that are similar in sound, but dissimilar in meaning, in meaning,

However, we already know that quite often in languages ​​one encounters the opposite situation: the meanings almost coincide, and the sounds of words seem to have nothing in common.

We have seen examples of this. The Russian "cat" is no more similar to the French "sha" than the English "John" to the ancient Greek "Ioannes". But we have established that these words have a common origin.

Linguists find such outwardly dissimilar, but related words in various languages. great amount, and to a person who is not knowledgeable in linguistics, it may sometimes seem that they just want to fool him. Well, pray tell, what can be common between such words as:

Russian "live" and Latin "vivus" (vivus), which also means "live";

Russian "one hundred" and German "hundert" (hundert), also meaning "one hundred";

Russian "wolf" and French "lu" (loup) - also "wolf"

But linguists argue that the words of each of these pairs are related to each other.

Until you have seen the laws that change the sounds of words in different languages, you would probably never believe such statements. But now that it has become known to you that such changes are taking place, and, moreover, not somehow, but according to firm rules, now it will be easier for you to listen to my evidence. For simplicity and clarity, let's take only one of these pairs: the Russian "wolf" and the French "lu".

Here is how the word meaning gray predator sounds in a number of languages:

in Russian wolf in Lithuanian vilkas
in Ukrainian vovk in ancient Indian vrkas
in Serbian vuk in ancient Greek lukos
in czech vlk in latin lupus
in Bulgarian vuk (or valk) in Italian lupo
in german wolf in romanian loop
in english wolf in french lu

Really curious. Every two adjacent words seem to us very similar to each other: "wolf" and "vovk", "vovk" and "vuk", "loop" and "lu" ... But the extreme ones in the series are "wolf" and "lu "It's like they have nothing in common.

But this is a fairly common occurrence in the world. Our modern horse is not at all like its distant ancestor, the small, dog-like animal Phenacodus, who lived millions of years ago. But between the phenacodus and the horse, scientists discovered a whole chain of animals, less and less like the first, more and more like the second; eogippus, mesogippus, hipparion, etc.

And we understand that the Phenacodus did not turn into a horse immediately, but through gradual transitions. Something remotely similar, apparently, can sometimes occur in the wonderful world of words.

We are now sophisticated people. With the example of human names, we have seen how far the word "laws of sound correspondences" between individual languages ​​can lead. If the Roman "Julia" turned into the French "Julie" and the English "Jalie", is it surprising that the ancient Indian "vrkas" could have sounded like "lucos" among the ancient Greeks? After all, in the transition from language to language, the law of sound correspondences affects not just one sound of a word, but many of its sounds, and each in a different way. It is clear that sometimes it can take on a completely unrecognizable appearance. And yet the linguist, armed with an exact knowledge of this law, can, as we have seen, not only trace, but also predict these amazing transformations.

Exploring the languages ​​of the world in this way, linguists stumbled upon a remarkable discovery. Among them (languages) there are some that are very similar to each other in various features; the resemblance between others is incomparably less noticeable; finally, there are those in which no similar features are found, no matter what "laws of correspondences" you apply to them. This should be shown with an example.

Return to the plate of amazing transformations of the "wolf". It is easy to see that it breaks up into two clearly distinguishable parts.

In the first part, the word "wolf" contains consonant sounds: "v", "l" ("r") and "k": "wolf", "valk", "vilkas", etc.

In the second group, other consonants take their place, in a different order: "l", "k" ("p"): "lukos", "lupus", "lupo", "lu".

We have already agreed that both groups are interconnected: one can also find something in common between "vrkas" and "lu?kos". But it is indisputable that within each of the two groups the words differ incomparably less than the entire first group differs from the second. "Wolf" is more similar to "wu? ka" or "vlka" than to "lu? po" or "lu? kosa". Everyone will notice the similarities within the groups; only a linguist can prove what is common between the words of both groups.

Apparently, between the languages ​​of each of these groups there is a closer similarity, a deeper connection than between them and the languages ​​of another group.

And next to this, linguists come across languages ​​in which words are no longer connected at all with any known to us. In Azerbaijan, "wolf" is "kyrt", in Finnish - "sushi", in Japanese - "okami". Between these words and the word "wolf" no laws of sound correspondences will find anything in common.

The resemblance, as we have seen, was based on law. But perhaps the dissimilarity depends on pure chance?

No, it's not! Here is how the words that peoples call three very important concepts for them sound in different languages:

in Russian mother house mountain
in Polish, uterus house gur
womb dum chora in czech
in Bulgarian T-shirt house mountain12

It is clear that there is a great and close similarity between these languages. If we take other languages, the picture will be different again. Here are the same words:

in Russian mother house mountain
finnish IT koti maki
ana ev dah in Turkish
haha uchi yama in japanese

It is striking that these languages ​​have no visible resemblance either to the languages ​​of the first group or to each other. This first impression (which, as we now know, cannot be blindly trusted!) is also confirmed by linguists.

The first four languages, they say, are close to each other; the last three are far from them and from each other.

Now, perhaps, one of the most basic whys comes onto the scene. Why did these groups of similar and dissimilar languages ​​arise? Why in the world of words do we see a picture that reminds us of the usual situation in wildlife: cereals are similar to each other, but sharply separated from cruciferous or coniferous? At the same time, conifers and cruciferous plants themselves, differing from each other, have some similar features. Biologists have figured out where the similarities and differences between living organisms come from. We must also establish this for our subject of observation - languages.

LANGUAGE FAMILIES
You meet a person whose nose is like two drops of water similar to the nose of your good friend. How can you explain this similarity?

It is easiest to assume that it is caused by the simplest chance; everyone knows such coincidences are not uncommon.

If you meet two people who have something in common in their manner of speaking, in their movements or in their gait, it is very likely that this is the result of involuntary or voluntary imitation, so to speak, "borrowing": students often imitate their favorite teachers, children - adults, soldiers - commanders.

But imagine that there are two people in front of you who have the same color of eyes, and the shape of the chin, and the sound of the voice, and the manner of smiling. Both use the same expressions in conversation, and even have completely similar birthmarks in the same places. It is unlikely that you will explain all this by chance. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume that these faces are relatives: they both inherited similar features from their common ancestors.

Moreover, one does not have to look for explanations in a random similarity if you see not two creatures similar to each other, but their whole group, consisting of many members. It is much more plausible to assume that here, too, the similarity is caused by common origin, kinship.

As we have seen, in the world of languages ​​we observe just such a picture: there are whole groups of languages ​​that for some reason closely resemble each other in a number of ways. At the same time, they differ sharply from many groups of languages, which, in turn, are in many ways similar to each other.

The word "man" sounds very similar in a number of languages, in those in which, as we have seen, the words meaning the concepts "mother", "home", "mountain" are similar:

in Russian - man
in Ukrainian - cholovik13
in Polish - man
in Bulgarian - chovek
in Czech - man

All these languages Slavic peoples.

There are other language groups within which we notice no less similarity, but between their words and words Slavic languages common is much more difficult to find. Yes, "human"

in French - (x) omm
in Latin - homo
in Spanish - (x) ombre
in Italian - (y) omo
in Romanian - om

These languages, as we see, belong to the peoples of the Romance language family.

At the same time, among the Turks, Tatars, Azerbaijanis, Turkmens, Uzbeks and other peoples of the Turkic tribe, the concept of "man" will be expressed by the word "kishi?" or in other words close to it. These words are not similar to either Slavic or Romance, but these languages ​​again have a great similarity with each other.

One has to assume that such a resemblance could not have arisen for some unknown reason, so-so, by chance. It is much more natural to think that it is the result of kinship between similar languages.

Indeed, linguistics teaches us that in the world there are not only individual languages, but also large and small groups of languages ​​that are similar to each other. These groups are called "linguistic families", and they arose and developed because some languages ​​are able, as it were, to give rise to others, and the newly emerging languages ​​necessarily retain some features common to those languages ​​from which they originated. We know families of Germanic, Turkic, Slavic, Romance, Finnish and other languages ​​in the world. Very often kinship between languages ​​corresponds to kinship between peoples who speak these languages; so at one time the Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian peoples descended from common Slavic ancestors.

However, it also happens that the languages ​​of two tribes or peoples turn out to be related, while there is no relationship between the peoples themselves. Many modern Jews, for example, speak a language very similar to German and related to the Germanic languages. However, there is no blood relationship between them and the Germans. On the contrary, the relatives of the Jewish people are the Arabs, Copts and other peoples of Western Asia, whose languages ​​do not in any way resemble the modern Jewish language, the so-called "Yiddish". Here is the Hebrew language, almost forgotten and abandoned by today's Jews,15 which is closely related to Arabic, Coptic, and other Semitic languages.

It is easy to establish that such a situation is rather an exception to the rule than the rule itself, and that most often, especially in antiquity, the relationship between languages ​​coincided with the blood relationship between the tribes of people. But it is very important to find out how exactly such related languages ​​arose?

We know only a relatively small number of cases when people could directly observe the process of such emergence of new languages ​​from old ones, but still they happened.

All of you, of course, know the magnificent monument of the language of ancient Russia, the famous "Tale of Igor's Campaign".

We, Russians, consider this ancient poem a monument of our, Russian, language; she was born when this language was in many respects different from the one we speak now.

But our fellow Ukrainians, with exactly the same reasons, are proud of the Slovo as a monument to the Ukrainian language. Of course they modern language very different from that in which the brilliant poem is written, but nevertheless they regard it as an example of its ancient forms. And, it must be admitted, both of these opinions are equally valid.

Isn't it strange? After all, today no one will hesitate to distinguish Russian poetry or prose from Ukrainian. No one will consider Pushkin's poems as written in Ukrainian; Shevchenko's poems are certainly not Russian poetry. So why can such doubts arise about the "Word" that was born into the world seven hundred years ago? Why Mayakovsky should be translated into Ukrainian language, and Ukrainian writers or poets - into Russian, but the creation of an unknown genius of ancient times is absolutely equally accessible (or equally incomprehensible) to both Moscow and Kyiv schoolchildren? What does it say?

Only that the difference between our two languages, which is very significant now, in the 20th century, was incomparably smaller seven hundred years ago. In those days, these two languages ​​were much more similar to each other. Obviously, both of them come from some common root and only in the course of time they diverged from it each in their own direction, like two trunks of one tree.

Approximately the same (only over an incomparably shorter time, and therefore on a much narrower scale) can be observed in the history of the English language in England itself and across the ocean, in America. The first settlers from England began to arrive in New World almost at the same time when the great English playwright Shakespeare lived and worked. Since then, about four centuries have passed.

During this short period of time, the language of the English, who remained "at home", has changed quite a lot. It is not very easy for modern British people to read Shakespeare, just as it is not easy for us to read works written in the days of Derzhavin and Lomonosov.

The English language in America has also changed. The young American also does not understand everything in Shakespeare's dramas.

But the question is: did both branches of the same English language change in the same direction - European and overseas? No, not in one. And the best proof of this is that in the works of Shakespeare, young Americans and Englishmen today are hampered by the same passages in the text. Both cannot understand the same thing in them. And here, reading contemporary authors, the New Yorker is puzzling over exactly what the Londoner easily understands in the English book. On the other hand, an Englishman who picks up an American text will not understand exactly those words in it that are perfectly clear to an inhabitant of Chicago or Boston.

At the same time, it is necessary to make a reservation: the difference between English and American speech is very small. Nowadays, between people, even those living thousands of kilometers apart, the connection is not broken. There is a post office and telegraph between England and America all the time. English newspapers come to the States; English is taught in the schools there. In turn, the American capitalists shower old England with their books, movies; by radio and by any other means, they seek to convince the British of the superiority of their American culture. There is a continuous language exchange. And yet, some differences emerge. We can talk, although, of course, not about a new American language, but, in any case, about a new dialect of the English language that was born across the ocean.

So just imagine how much faster, deeper and more irrevocably divergent languages ​​millennia ago. After all, then it was enough for a people or a tribe to be divided into parts, and these parts to scatter to the sides, as the connection between them ceased completely and forever.

Did it happen like that? All around.

This is the picture Friedrich Engels paints for us in his book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

In ancient times, human tribes were constantly falling apart. As soon as the tribe grew, it could no longer feed on its own land. I had to settle in different directions in search of places rich in booty or fruits of the earth. Part of the tribe remained in place, others went far across the then wild world, beyond deep rivers, blue seas, dark forests and high mountains, as in old fairy tales. And usually communication between relatives was immediately lost, because then there were no railroads, no radio, no mail. Arriving in new places, parts of one large tribe became independent, although related to each other by origin, "by blood", tribes.

Along with this, the language of a large tribe also disintegrated. While it lived together, all its people spoke about the same. But, divided, cut off from each other by sea bays, impenetrable deserts or forest wilds, his descendants, living in different places and in different conditions, involuntarily began to forget more and more old grandfather words and rules of their language, to come up with more and more new ones, needed in a new language. place.

Little by little the language of each detached part became special dialect, or, as scientists say, a dialect of the former language, retaining, however, some of its features, but also acquiring various differences from it. Finally, there came a time when these differences could accumulate so much that the dialect turned into a new "language". Sometimes it got to the point that it became completely incomprehensible to those who still spoke the language of their grandfathers or the second dialect of the same language, which had undergone other changes in other, distant places. However, somewhere in its depths, it still retained, perhaps invisible to an ignorant person, but accessible to a linguist, traces of its origin, features of similarity with the language of their ancestors.

Engels called this process "the formation of new tribes and dialects through division." The resulting tribes he calls "kindred" tribes, and the languages ​​of these tribes - related languages.

This was the case in ancient times, at a time when our ancestors still lived in a tribal society. Events proceeded this way not only in Indian America, but everywhere where the tribal system reigned. This means that our European ancestors also survived this era - they survived precisely in those days when the rudiments of our modern languages ​​were formed.

Then things went on much more complicated paths.

Where once small tribes of people roamed, powerful and huge states were formed. Some of them included in their borders many small tribes. Others arose near the lands where such tribes still continued to live their former lives. So, the ancient slave-owning Rome absorbed many even more ancient peoples - the Etruscans, Latins, Volsci and others, and then for many centuries existed next to the Gauls, Germans, Slavs who still lived in a tribal society.

In this new situation, languages ​​began to experience other fates. It sometimes happened that little people, having become part of a mighty state, renounced his own language and switched to the language of the winner. A culturally strong state, fighting, trading, coming into contact with its weak but proud neighbors - the barbarians, imperceptibly imposed on them its customs, laws, its culture, and sometimes even its language. Now it has become more difficult to consider that only related tribes always speak languages ​​related to each other. The Etruscans had nothing in common by blood with the Latins, but switched to their language, forgetting their own. The Gauls, the inhabitants of present-day France, spoke their own, Gallic language for many centuries; it was related to the languages ​​of those Celtic tribes with which the Gauls were related by blood. But then this language was supplanted by the language of Rome - Latin, and now the descendants of the ancient Celt-Gauls, the French, speak a language that is not at all related to the Celtic languages ​​​​(Irish or Scottish), but to Italian, Spanish, Romanian, that is, the languages ​​\u200b\u200bof Romance (Roman) origin.

Time passed, humanity passed from stage to stage of its history. Tribes grew up in nationalities, nationalities developed into nations, formed no longer necessarily from people who were related by blood. This greatly complicated the relationship between the people themselves. different origin and even more so between their languages. But still, some common features that once belonged to the languages ​​​​of peoples and tribes on the basis of their direct relationship with each other survived and even survived to the present day. Now they continue to unite languages ​​into "families", although there is no tribal, blood relationship between the nations that speak these languages ​​and cannot be.

Let us take as an example the Russian language, the great language of the great Russian nation. We know that this nation was formed, in addition to the Slavic tribes, from many other nationalities of a completely different, not at all Slavic origin. Some of them we know next to nothing. Who, in your opinion, were "Chud", "Merya", "Vepsians", "Berendeys" or "Torks"? But they once lived side by side with our ancestors. Then many of them joined the Russian nation, but this multi-component nation speaks a single Russian, and not some kind of composite language.

Well, maybe it was also formed in the same way from many different, unrelated languages ​​- “Chud”, “Vep” and others?

Nothing like that: no matter how many different languages ​​may collide and interbreed with each other, it never happens that a third language is born from two languages ​​that meet. Surely one of them will be the winner, and the other will cease to exist. The victorious language, even having adopted some features of the defeated one, will remain itself and will develop further according to its own laws.

Throughout its history, the Russian language, which was once the language of one of the Eastern Slavic peoples, has repeatedly encountered other, related and unrelated languages. But it was always he who emerged victorious from these clashes. He, remaining himself, became the language of the Russian people, and then the language of the Russian nation. And this nation, formed from millions of people of completely different origins, of different blood, speaks Russian, the same language that was once spoken by the ancient Rus, a Slavic tribe, blood related to other Slavic tribes.

That is why our language still turns out to be a language akin to Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, although neither Poles, nor Czechs, nor Bulgarians live within our country and did not take a direct part in the formation of the Russian nation. At the same time, it continues to be a very distant language, in no way related to the languages ​​​​of the same Izhors (Ingers), Karelians or Kasimov Tatars, although many of these peoples have become constituent elements of the Russian nation. Speaking about the relationship of languages, we always take into account not the tribal composition of the people who speak them today, but their distant - sometimes very distant! - origin.

The question is: is it worth it for a linguist to deal with such depths of history? What can it serve?

Very worth it.

Let us take as an example the neighboring Socialist Republic of Romania.

The Romanians live among the Slavic peoples (only from the west they are adjacent to the Hungarians, whose origin is very complicated). And the Romanians speak a language very different from both Slavic and Ugric (Hungarian) languages. This language is so peculiar that it is impossible to even suspect its relationship with its neighbors.

Linguists have established that the Romanian language is related to Italian, French, Spanish and ancient Roman (Romance) languages; after all, even the name "Romania" ("Romania" in Romanian) comes from the same root as the word "Roma" - "Rome" (in Latin). And even if we did not know anything about the history of the Romanian people, we would have to assume that at one time they experienced the strong influence of one of the peoples of the Romance language family.

So it was. At one time, Roman (that is, "Roman") settlers arrived on the banks of the Danube and founded their colony here. Accurate historical evidence has come down to us about this. But if, by chance, they had not turned out, linguists, studying the Romanian language without the help of historians, would have already suspected something similar and would have prompted other scientists to guess and search in this direction.

This is exactly what happened over the past half century with the long-extinct people of Asia Minor - the Hittites.

The Hittites left behind many different cultural monuments: statues, ruins and inscriptions in a language unknown to us and incomprehensible.

While these inscriptions remained undeciphered, scholars considered the Hittites to be a single people, closely related to their neighboring Assyrians and Babylonians, that is, the people of the Semitic tribe.

But then something truly amazing happened. The Czech scientist Bedzhih the Terrible, the greatest expert on the Semitic languages ​​of the ancient East, became interested in the Hittites. Apparently, the Hittites were indeed Semites: the monuments they left are written in cuneiform, similar to the writings of the old favorites of Ivan the Terrible, the Assyrians and Babylonians. The Semitic scholar Grozny hoped to study another Semitic tribe of antiquity.

The secret was not given to the hands for a long time, and its sudden solution struck like a thunderclap. With the help of indescribably difficult and witty tricks, Grozny managed to read the world's first Hittite phrase, the first after two millennia of silence:

NU EZZATENI VADAR MA EKUTENI
Her first word was like an adverb. The second was indicated by a cuneiform sign, which among many peoples meant "bread"; in Babylonian it was read "vinda". The whole sentence reminded Grozny of some kind of two-part formula, something like a proverb: "Bread and salt, eat, cut the truth."

So she looked, so she sounded... But what did she mean? The rest of her words did not at all resemble the words of the Eastern, Semitic languages ​​...

Grozny's story about how victory came to him is fascinating, like a detective novel.

For hours, days, weeks he tried to penetrate the meaning of the sounding abracadabra, and suddenly...

And suddenly a thought flashed through him, which he himself was frightened of, before it was unexpected and absurd.

Yes, this "vadar" does not resemble Semitic words in any way. But it is unbelievably similar to the words of a completely different world, to our European words. To the modern German "wasser" - water, to the English "wote" - also "water", to the ancient German "vatar" - another name for "water" ...

But then "ezzateni" can be compared with the Russian "is", with the Greek "edein", with the ancient German "ezzen" ... They all mean the same thing: "is". And the whole sentence can be read at least like this:

NOW EAT YOUR BREAD AND DRINK YOUR WATER.

And this is a very common promise of a new ancient lord to his new or old subjects. It means: "I will bring you peace and contentment..."

But if so, it is obvious that the Hittites were not Semites, but our close relatives the Indo-Europeans and spoke one of the Indo-European ancient languages ​​related to ours.

It is good, of course, that once again a person managed to read something written in unknown characters in an unknown language. But another miracle seemed even greater: these signs spoke not in the eastern, not in the Semitic, no, in the Indo-European and before that completely unknown language. The Hittites, who lived in Asia Minor, in their speech turned out to be close relatives to us.

Almost half a century has passed since this amazing discovery. During this time, a whole new science- Hittite studies. It was found that in the Hittite state peoples of various origins lived side by side, speaking a variety of languages ​​- both Semitic and those close to the languages ​​of the Caucasian peoples. But the Nesite Hittites, who left us hieroglyphic monuments, were the real Indo-Europeans. Now scientists are no longer arguing about their language and not even about their tribal affiliation. Scientists are now concerned about questions of a different order: how, through the Balkans or through the Caucasus, did the Hittites get to Asia Minor? What kind of history did they live, how was their life, their society organized? Until now, bits of information about this could be fished out only from Egyptian papyri; they were fragmentary and incomplete. Now we hear the voice of the Hittites themselves: a tribe that lives thousands of years ago, imperiously demands from us: "Revisit the history of antiquity! Make important amendments to it! We have risen in order to tell you in full voice about the immensely distant past."

And there really is nothing to argue about the language of the Hittites. Take a look at the table below - you will see for yourself how close many Hittite words are to the words of other languages ​​​​of the Indo-European root, how much they have in common, how the verb "to be" is conjugated in different languages ​​in the present tense, or what a striking closeness exists between many other Hittite words and other Indo-European languages.

Such is the great power of science, such is the admirable power of the human mind. It may seem that everything is available to him, that there are no insurmountable obstacles for him. But is it?

Old Indian (Sanskrit) Russian Latin Greek Germanic (ancient) Hittite
1st l. units h. asmi esm sum ami im ashmi
2nd, asi esi es ace is
3rd, asti is est esti ist ashti
1st l. pl. h. asmu esmy sumus esmen ziyum
2nd, asthu este estis este ziyut ashanci
3rd, ashti asti essence sunt eisi zind

Sanskrit Russian Lithuanian Latin Greek Hittite Germanic
Verbs admi em edmi edo edomei etmi essen
asmi ism (3rd l. unit: is) ezu sum (3rd l. unit: est) eimi (3rd l. unit: esti) eshmi im (3rd l unit h: ist)
Nouns uda (x) water vandu unda (wave) (x) eudor uatar wasser
nabhas sky dobesis (cloud) nebula (cloud) nephos (cloud) nepis nebel (fog)
hrd heart shirdis kor (kordis) cardia card khairto (hertz)
Adjectives navas new nauyas novus neos neua noi (written: neu)

As long as we are talking about the languages ​​of neighboring peoples, living side by side and at the same time, having a common historical past, and most importantly - separated only relatively recently, our scientists can easily trace the relationship between them. The fact that the Ukrainian and Russian languages ​​are brothers is clear not only to a linguist: the similarity between them is striking, confirmed and explained by the well-known history of both peoples. It is not so difficult to imagine the composition of the base language from which both of them once emerged. The same can be said about a somewhat earlier than Slavic, divergent group of Romance languages. Modern French, Spanish, Romanian and other related languages ​​grew and developed from the Latin of the ancient world. It would seem that there can be no doubt about the possibility of restoring their base language: Latin is still studied in schools, it can be written in, there is an abundant literature in Latin...

The trick, however, is that the Romance languages ​​were not born from this ringing, like copper, Latin of classical writers and orators, Ovid and Seneca, Cicero and Juvenal. They were born by a completely different language, the one that commoners and slaves spoke to each other in ancient Rome. It was and remained an oral language despised by writers. No speeches were recorded on it, no glorious poems were composed, no triumphal inscriptions were carved. Almost no monuments or descriptions have survived from it. We hardly know him.

There is nothing particularly surprising here: how much do we know about the folk oral language spoken by Moscow archers or Tver carpenters at the end of the 17th century?

Therefore, for the Romance languages, their source, the language of the basis, cannot simply be "subtracted from books." It has to be "restored" according to how its individual features are reflected in our contemporary descendant languages.

It must be admitted that linguists-novelists have learned to solve the problems associated with this quite well.

I will give just one example. In all ancient Roman books, the pear, the fruit of the pear tree, is called "pyrum" (pirum), and the tree itself is called "pirus" (pirus). No, it would seem, hesitation: in Latin, a pear is "pyrum"; it is indicated in all dictionaries.

There is only one problem: the names of the same fruit in modern Romance languages ​​testify to something else. All of them - the Spanish-Italian "pen" (pera), the Romanian "para" (para), "pen", the French "puar" (in writing - poire) - could not come from "pirum" and not from "pirus", but only from the Roman word "feast": the law of sound correspondences convinces us of this. And we do not find such a word either in Virgil, or in Lucretius Kara, or in other sources. What, it - was or was not?

"Did not have!" - in one voice, as it were, all the monuments of Roman literature affirm. "It should have been, which means it was! - said the linguists who worked on the Romance languages ​​by the comparative method. - It was, if only our method is correct!"

After this doubt arose, a few years passed. And so archaeologists removed a stone slab from the ground, for some reason inscribed not in the "noble" Latin of the classics, but in the "vulgar", that is, folk, language of the plebeians. This inscription mentioned the pear, the fruit of the pear tree; her name was rendered as "pira" (pira).

Isn't it amazing? Once upon a time, a great event happened in science: the planet Neptune was discovered not by an astronomer through a telescope, but by a mathematician, using complex calculations. The mathematician Le Verrier indicated to astronomers where they should look for a hitherto unknown planet, and as soon as they directed their telescopes to that point in the sky that he had outlined, a planet caught on the tip of a scientist’s pen, never seen before, shone in their eyes ...

It was an unprecedented, unforgettable victory of the mind, But in its own way the story with the word "feast" is worth, if you like, the story of Neptune Le Verrier.

Having learned about all this, another reader will finally decide: great! Everything in linguistics has already been done, and now the only thing left for scientists is to “restore” ancient words and languages ​​themselves further and further into the depths of centuries according to precisely worked out laws.

But in reality the situation is far from being so simple.

Mid 19th century. Just now, almost yesterday, people realized that the languages ​​of the world are divided into closed family groups, that within each family there is a close connection between them by origin. The similarity between two or more languages ​​is due precisely to this relationship; explained by it and, on the other hand, bears witness to it. This similarity must be sought between words, between parts of words, between their very sounds.

Something that had not been suspected until then was discovered: the Russian language turned out to be somewhat similar to the languages ​​​​of India, to the mysterious and "sacred" Sanskrit. So there is a relationship between them. Other European languages ​​- Russian and Latin, Lithuanian and Germanic - also turned out to be related to each other. It is not by chance that our word "house" is consonant with the ancient Roman "domus", which also means "house". The Russian "sheep" coincides, not by a whim of chance, with the Latin "ovis", with the Lithuanian "avis" and even with the Spanish, "ove? ha", - these are relative words: they all mean "sheep". In a word, what had previously seemed divided and almost motionless, those languages ​​of the world that seemed to grow across the face of the universe, like grasses in a meadow, side by side, but independently of each other - all this now began to resemble the branches of a huge tree, connected somewhere in between.

Most noticeable of all, of course, was a row of small trees or bushes: a lush Slavic bush-family, a wide crown of Romance languages, a knotty oak of the Germanic group... Then something even more unexpected began to grope behind this: apparently, and all what initially seemed to be "separate trees", in fact, are only branches of a trunk hidden in the depths of centuries, the name of which is "Indo-European common proto-language". Perhaps only its offspring-knots are our European languages ​​and the languages ​​of the ancient and new East, which turned out to be related to them, from Zend to Tajik, from Armenian in the west to Bengali in the east. It may turn out that the ancestors of all these diverse and diverse peoples once spoke it. We don't know him. He has been gone from the world for a long time. He disappeared without a trace. Without a trace? No, not without a trace! They left numerous descendants in the world, and according to the ancient features that they keep in themselves, according to what they all have in common, we can just as accurately restore the speech of the most distant forefathers, as linguists restored the Latin word "pi?ra" according to the words "pen, para, puar", living in modern Romance languages. Is not it?

Realizing this possibility, scientists all over the world were even, as it were, somewhat suppressed by it. After all, if such work had been successful for the Indo-European base language - the "proto-language", as they said in those days, then why stop there? You can do the same with the Semitic and Hamitic, Turkic and Finno-Ugric language families. Then, instead of the current diversity and confusion, five, six, ten now unknown primitive languages ​​would appear before us, which once, thousands and thousands of years ago, were spoken by people all over the world. To know them, to learn to understand them would mean to a greater extent to reveal and recreate the life and culture of that time.

If a Roman commoner knew the word "pyra", there is no doubt that the very fruit "pear" was known to him. The Romans undoubtedly ate these very "feasts"; language indicates that.

In the same way, if in the Proto-Indo-European language we find names for cereals, such as rye, oats, barley, we will get our hands on the first information about the then agriculture. If it is proved that at that time verbs like "plow", "weave", "spin", there were names of animals - "horses", "cows", "goats", "sheep" - we will learn from them about the economy of antiquity, and in other words - about the political structure of that time ... who knows what else? It's a joke to say: to learn the language of an era from which absolutely nothing remains in the world!

All this shocked linguists around the world. The best minds "for starters" rushed to work on the "restoration" of the Indo-European parent language, and there, perhaps, an even more amazing miracle - the universal parent language of all the peoples of the earth, the first that people learned ...

What did this titanic work lead to?

SHEEP AND HORSES

How would you like such a fable, or rather, such a moralistic tale in nine lines?

Sheared sheep saw horses carrying a heavily laden wagon,
And said: "My heart shrinks when I see
People driving a horse!" But the horses answered:
"The heart shrinks when you see that people
They made warm clothes from sheep's wool,
And the sheep are shorn!
Sheep have it harder than horses."
Hearing this, the sheep went to the field...

Well, what's the fable? "She's unremarkable!" - you say. And you'll be wrong. This fable was written in 1868 by the famous linguist August Schleicher; wrote in the Indo-European proto-language, in a language that no one has ever heard, from which not a single sound has come down to us, in a language that, very possibly, never existed at all. Because no one can say: was he the way he was "restored" by Schleicher and his associates.

So. Allowing some exaggeration, I could perhaps say that the fable you have just read is the only material result of the work of several generations of linguists who have devoted their efforts to restoring the parent language. Of course, it cannot be argued that their work turned out to be completely aimless and fruitless. It would be more correct to admit that it has brought great benefits to science. It led to many remarkable discoveries in the most diverse and very important areas of linguistics. But the main task that the scientists of the 19th century set for themselves - the very reconstruction of the ancient language-base - turned out to be decidedly impossible. And today we have before us only a pile of very dubious assumptions, more or less witty hypotheses and conjectures, and not a genuine language restored from scratch.

Many will ask the question: why did this happen?

It is unlikely that I could acquaint you now with the most important and deepest causes of failure: for this we are too far gone in the linguistic sciences. But I will try to tell you something.

Restoring the words or grammar of the language-base for any modern language family, say for the Romance or Slavic, linguists have to think about times that are at most one and a half or two thousand years away from us: the Romans of the time of Trajan or Theodoric spoke "Vulgar Latin"; the common Slavic language probably lived around the middle of the first millennium of our era or a little earlier. But then, next to the Roman Empire, there were other countries that are well known to us; in the Latin language of those times, there is a fairly rich literature that has come down to us. Into the very books of the writers of that time, written in "classical Latin," the Latin of the people penetrated either in the form of mocking quotations cited by aristocratic authors, or in the form of errors and omissions accidentally introduced by plebeian authors. Here, thanks to this, an involuntarily random word was preserved, there - even a whole phrase ...

At the same time, we have an excellent general idea of ​​the world of that time and its life. We know enough about how many and what languages ​​existed at that time, in what areas of Europe they were common, with whom exactly they coexisted, whom they could influence ... All this helps us firmly and confidently accept or reject almost any conjecture of linguists, check with data the history of the peoples themselves, their every assumption about the life of the language.

As for the common Indo-European language-base, if it actually existed, then at least several thousand years ago. What do we know, what can we say about this monstrously distant time? Nothing or almost nothing!

We do not know either the exact places of settlement of many peoples of that time, or the number of languages ​​they spoke. We have no idea how many and what kind of branches the common language could break up, with whom and with what the initial dialects that separated from it came into contact. From all this there are no books that we could decipher, no inscriptions, no other articulate evidence. And therefore, every judgment about such a deep antiquity can either be accidentally justified, or - more often - turn into a genuine "fortune telling"; may be confirmed someday or remain forever an intricate fantasy.

I will give just one example here.

Among the Indo-European languages, scientists of the 19th century have long identified two groups that are sharply different in their characteristics: Western and Eastern. They were distinguished by many clear, interconnected traits and features. But the most characteristic thing seemed to be this: among all Western peoples, the numeral "100" was denoted by words beginning with the sound "k", to one degree or another similar to that ancient Latin "centum" (centum, one hundred), which later began to be pronounced as "centum (compare such words as "percentage" - 1/100, as "centurion" - centurion in the Roman troops, etc.). Among the peoples of the eastern group, the same numeral sounded similar to indian word"satam" (also meaning "hundred"). It is easy to understand that, say, the French language, where "100" sounds like "san" (moreover, this word is written: "cent"), belongs to the western group, and Russian ("one hundred", "hundred") belongs to the eastern. The linguists agreed to call these groups the following: "Satam group" and "Kentum group". This division seemed to be firm and indisputable; nothing was to shake him.

And suddenly, already in the 20th century, ancient manuscripts were found in China that belonged to the previously unknown Tocharian language. When they were read, they saw that this language belongs to the Indo-European languages. It was curious, but not all that amazing. Something else was striking: it belonged to the typical "centum" languages, to the Western languages,18 although the place where the people who spoke it lay far to the east, on the easternmost outskirts of the Indo-European world. It was supposed to be the Satam language, and it...

The discovery of the Tocharian language greatly disappointed many "comparative" linguists, that is, linguists - supporters of comparative linguistics, especially those who were still striving to get to the secrets of the "proto-language". One extra language - and so many firmly established conclusions and explanations collapsed at once! And who can say how many such discoveries the future will bring us? And who can guarantee that there are not ten or five languages ​​that have disappeared forever, about which we will never know anything? Meanwhile, they were, lived, influenced their neighbors, and without knowing them, there is nothing to think about accurately reproducing the picture of the linguistic state of people in such a distant past.

Thus, the main drawback of the comparative method in linguistics became clear - its approximateness, its inaccuracy. He is a great helper so far. his testimony can be verified by data from outside - information from history, from the archeology of ancient peoples. But as soon as the boundary of such a test is crossed, this excellent tool of knowledge instantly turns into a magician's wand, if not into a magician's wand, which can cause the most unfounded, although outwardly plausible, idea of ​​the past.

Our modern science, Soviet science, made this clear to itself long ago. She soberly evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of comparative linguistics. It is powerless to resurrect something that was immensely long ago and of which no real traces remain: in the same way a geologist cannot recreate the exact outlines of mountain ranges that turned into sand and clay millions of years ago.

But it not only can provide significant assistance to the study of the history of really existing and once existing languages; it is now, perhaps, the most important instrument of this work.

It only needs to be continuously improved, tested by other sciences, improved.

This is what our Soviet linguists are doing now.

----------------

Notes:
1If he was born diving, he will dive at the first need. If a pelican, even mortal danger does not drop him under water: he cannot do this, although, it would seem, he could learn quite easily.

2I have repeatedly seen cows or horses drown in swamps. The unfortunate animal dies, and the whole herd, ten meters away, indifferently nibbles grass or stupidly digests chewing gum ... What kind of mutual help is there!

3Bee science has discovered very interesting phenomena over the past decades. Returning from a bribe, the bees perform a kind of dance in the hive with complex and changeable figures. From this dance, the rest of the hive workers will know exactly where and how far they need to fly for honey. It would seem that here is a special language for you, sign language. It would seem that this is a clear manifestation of the "mind" of animals. But the author of an excellent book about bees, I. Khalifman, quite rightly writes: "Bees look ... very "smart", however ... a little more than a dog suffering from worms and instinctively eating the anthelmintic plant Chernobyl, which she finds among many others ".

No, bee dances are not a language: they do not convey any "thoughts". It is an instinct, blind and unconscious, though at the same time very complex and precise.

4 Having got to Holland with other oriental goods, it received the Dutch form of the name "koffie" there. From the West, already in the time of Peter I, new words were brought to us in Russia: "coffee", "coffee", and then "coffee".

5 There are exceptions to this rule. In modern Persian, more than half of the borrowed words. There are a lot of them in Turkish and English. But in Chinese they are almost non-existent.

6Linguistic experts will tell us, however, that "coincidence" is an error of unsophisticated hearing. In fact, the sounds in different languages ​​are different. So, if we take the word "cat", then the sound "o" and the sound "t" in it are completely different in its French, English and Russian versions. But we can ignore this for now.

7 The word "lip" in the meaning of "mushroom" is also known in some regions of the country, in its north and west. There, "mouth" means "mushroom"; there is an expression "on the lips, on the berries." It seems strange only at first glance: after all, tinder fungi growing on trees are commonly referred to as "sponges". It can be assumed that the sea "walnut sponge" itself - both the animal and its skeleton used instead of a bath washcloth - is called a "sponge" precisely by its resemblance to this type of dry porous mushrooms.

8 The name of the Bulgarian river Bistritsa does not mean at all "swift", as it seems to us Russians, but a "transparent" river.

9V Polish the same word means both "hard" and "vigorous", "strong". Here is another line of development of meaning.

10 Among the Serbs, even now, "disgrace" is a spectacle; in Polish "shame" - appearance, outward appearance.

11Linguists, when investigating a question, use, of course, more than this law alone, they study correspondences not only in the sounds of words, but also in grammatical forms. I'm not talking about it now for the sake of simplicity.

12Old form; now - "planina".

13Although here it means husband, husband.

14V Turkic languages the word "adam" (man) still lives, but this is a borrowing from the Arabic, that is, Semitic, language. We will not talk about him here.

15 Except those who live in the State of Israel; it is the official language there.

16 No wonder Mr. Philip in E. Hemingway's play "The Fifth Column" says about himself: "I can speak both English and American..." (E. Hemingway, Izbr. izv., M. Goslitizdat, 1959, vol. II, p. 505).

There is no need to explain here that this Russian language, having remained "the same" to this day, has by no means remained "the same". It has changed very much, so much so that we now hardly understand the ancient written monuments. But still, both here and there we have one language - Russian.

18However, not all scientists agree with this.

We are publishing a collection of the true meanings of Russian winged expressions and sayings that are familiar to literally everyone from the cradle. Learning about the history of the origin of these idioms is a real pleasure for all connoisseurs of our rich language!

1. Why in the West were they afraid of Khrushchev's "Kuzka's mother"?

Khrushchev's famous phrase "I'll show you Kuz'kin's mother!" at the UN Assembly translated literally - "Kuzma's mother". The meaning of the phrase was completely incomprehensible and from this the threat acquired a completely sinister character. Subsequently, the expression "kuzkina mother" was also used to refer to the atomic bombs of the USSR.

2. Where did the expression "after rain on Thursday" come from?

The expression "after rain on Thursday" arose out of distrust of Perun, the Slavic god of thunder and lightning, whose day was Thursday. Prayers to him often did not reach the goal, so they began to say about the unrealizable that this would happen after a rain on Thursday.

3. Who first said: “Whoever enters us with a sword will die by the sword”?

The expression “Whoever enters us with a sword will die by the sword” does not belong to Alexander Nevsky. Its author is the screenwriter of the film of the same name Pavlenko, who remade the phrase from the Gospel "Those who take the sword will die with the sword."

4. Where did the expression “the game is not worth the candle” come from?

The expression "the game is not worth the candle" came from the speech of gamblers who spoke in this way about a very small gain that does not pay off the cost of the candles that burned out during the game.

5. Where did the expression “Moscow does not believe in tears” come from?

During the rise of the Moscow principality, a large tribute was levied from other cities. Cities sent petitioners to Moscow with complaints of injustice. The king sometimes severely punished complainers to intimidate others. Hence, according to one version, the expression “Moscow does not believe in tears” came from.

6. Where did the expression “this thing smells like kerosene” come from?

Koltsov's 1924 feuilleton told of a major scam uncovered in the transfer of a concession to exploit oil in California. The most senior US officials were involved in the scam. Here the expression "the case smells of kerosene" was first used.

7. Where did the expression “there is nothing behind the soul” come from?

In the old days, it was believed that the soul of a person is placed in a recess between the collarbones, a dimple on the neck. In the same place on the chest was the custom to keep money. Therefore, they say about a poor person that he "has nothing behind his soul."

8. Where did the expression "beat the buckets" come from?

In the old days, chocks chipped from a log - blanks for wooden utensils - were called baklushas. Their manufacture was considered easy, not requiring effort and skill. Now we use the expression "beat the buckets" to refer to idleness.

9. Where did the expression “not by washing, so by skating” come from?

In the old days, village women, after washing, “rolled” the laundry with the help of a special rolling pin. Well-rolled linen turned out to be wrung out, ironed and clean, even if the washing was not of very high quality. Today, to indicate the achievement of the goal in any way, the expression "not by washing, so by rolling" is used.

10. Where did the expression "case in the bag" come from?

In the old days, the messengers who delivered the mail sewed very important papers or “deeds” under the lining of their caps or hats so as not to attract the attention of robbers. This is where the expression "in the bag" comes from.

11. Where did the expression "let's go back to our sheep" come from?

In a medieval French comedy, a wealthy clothier sues a shepherd for stealing his sheep. During the meeting, the clothier forgets about the shepherd and showers reproaches on his lawyer, who did not pay him for six cubits of cloth. The judge interrupts the speech with the words: "Let's return to our sheep", which have become winged.

12. Where does the expression "do your bit" come from?

In ancient Greece, there was a small coin lepta. In the gospel parable, a poor widow donates her last two mites for the construction of the temple. From the parable came the expression "to contribute."

13. Where did the expression "Kolomenskaya Verst" come from?

In the 17th century, by order of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the distances between Moscow and the royal summer residence in the village of Kolomenskoye were re-measured and very high milestones were installed. Since then, tall and thin people have been called the "Kolomenskaya verst."

14. Where did the expression "chasing a long ruble" come from?

In the 13th century, the hryvnia was the monetary and weight unit in Russia, divided into 4 parts (“ruble”). A particularly weighty remnant of the ingot was called the "long ruble". The expression about big and easy earnings is connected with these words - “chasing a long ruble”.

15. Where did the expression "newspaper duck" come from?

“One scientist, having bought 20 ducks, immediately ordered to cut one of them into small pieces, with which he fed the rest of the birds. A few minutes later, he did the same with the other duck, and so on, until there was one left, which, in this way, devoured 19 of her friends. This note was published in the newspaper by the Belgian humorist Cornelissen to mock the gullibility of the public. Since then, according to one version, false news is called "newspaper ducks."

We are publishing a collection of the true meanings of Russian winged expressions and sayings that are familiar to literally everyone from the cradle. Learning about the history of the origin of these idioms is a real pleasure for all connoisseurs of our rich language!

1. Why in the West were they afraid of Khrushchev's "Kuzka's mother"?
Khrushchev's famous phrase "I'll show you Kuz'kin's mother!" at the UN Assembly translated literally - "Kuzma's mother". The meaning of the phrase was completely incomprehensible and from this the threat acquired a completely sinister character. Subsequently, the expression "kuzkina mother" was also used to refer to the atomic bombs of the USSR.

2. Where did the expression "after rain on Thursday" come from?
The expression "after rain on Thursday" arose out of distrust of Perun, the Slavic god of thunder and lightning, whose day was Thursday. Prayers to him often did not reach the goal, so they began to say about the unrealizable that this would happen after a rain on Thursday.

3. Who first said: “Whoever enters us with a sword will die by the sword”?
The expression “Whoever enters us with a sword will die by the sword” does not belong to Alexander Nevsky. Its author is the screenwriter of the film of the same name Pavlenko, who remade the phrase from the Gospel "Those who take the sword will die with the sword."

4. Where did the expression “the game is not worth the candle” come from?
The expression "the game is not worth the candle" came from the speech of gamblers who spoke in this way about a very small gain that does not pay off the cost of the candles that burned out during the game.

5. Where did the expression “Moscow does not believe in tears” come from?
During the rise of the Moscow principality, a large tribute was levied from other cities. Cities sent petitioners to Moscow with complaints of injustice. The king sometimes severely punished complainers to intimidate others. Hence, according to one version, the expression “Moscow does not believe in tears” came from.

6. Where did the expression “this thing smells like kerosene” come from?
Koltsov's 1924 feuilleton told of a major scam uncovered in the transfer of a concession to exploit oil in California. The most senior US officials were involved in the scam. Here the expression "the case smells of kerosene" was first used.

7. Where did the expression “there is nothing behind the soul” come from?
In the old days, it was believed that the soul of a person is placed in a recess between the collarbones, a dimple on the neck. In the same place on the chest was the custom to keep money. Therefore, they say about a poor person that he "has nothing behind his soul."

8. Where did the expression "beat the buckets" come from?
In the old days, chocks chipped from a log - blanks for wooden utensils - were called baklushas. Their manufacture was considered easy, not requiring effort and skill. Now we use the expression "beat the buckets" to refer to idleness.

9. Where did the expression “not by washing, so by skating” come from?
In the old days, village women, after washing, “rolled” the laundry with the help of a special rolling pin. Well-rolled linen turned out to be wrung out, ironed and clean, even if the washing was not of very high quality. Today, to indicate the achievement of the goal in any way, the expression "not by washing, so by rolling" is used.

10. Where did the expression "case in the bag" come from?
In the old days, the messengers who delivered the mail sewed very important papers or “deeds” under the lining of their caps or hats so as not to attract the attention of robbers. This is where the expression "in the bag" comes from.

11. Where did the expression "let's go back to our sheep" come from?
In a medieval French comedy, a wealthy clothier sues a shepherd for stealing his sheep. During the meeting, the clothier forgets about the shepherd and showers reproaches on his lawyer, who did not pay him for six cubits of cloth. The judge interrupts the speech with the words: "Let's return to our sheep", which have become winged.

12. Where does the expression "do your bit" come from?
In ancient Greece, there was a small coin lepta. In the gospel parable, a poor widow donates her last two mites for the construction of the temple. From the parable came the expression "to contribute."

13. Where did the expression "Kolomenskaya Verst" come from?
In the 17th century, by order of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the distances between Moscow and the royal summer residence in the village of Kolomenskoye were re-measured and very high milestones were installed. Since then, tall and thin people have been called the "Kolomenskaya verst."

14. Where did the expression "chasing a long ruble" come from?
In the 13th century, the hryvnia was the monetary and weight unit in Russia, divided into 4 parts (“ruble”). A particularly weighty remnant of the ingot was called the "long ruble". The expression about big and easy earnings is connected with these words - “chasing a long ruble”.

15. Where did the expression "newspaper duck" come from?
“One scientist, having bought 20 ducks, immediately ordered to cut one of them into small pieces, with which he fed the rest of the birds. A few minutes later, he did the same with the other duck, and so on, until there was one left, which, in this way, devoured 19 of her friends. This note was published in the newspaper by the Belgian humorist Cornelissen to mock the gullibility of the public. Since then, according to one version, false news is called "newspaper ducks."