PERSIAN(Farsi), native language Persians, official language Islamic Republic of Iran. Distributed throughout Iran (population more than 65 million people, about half are Persians). Persian, like the closely related Tajik and Dari of Afghanistan, belongs to the southwestern group of Iranian languages. Modern Persian has been formed over the past 70–80 years on the basis of living Persian dialect speech and classical Persian language(the language of classical Persian-Tajik literature of the 9th–15th centuries), on the basis of which three closely related languages ​​developed - Persian, Tajik and Dari of Afghanistan (divergences began in the 16th–17th centuries). Thus, a huge literary heritage in classical Persian (Rudaki, Ferdowsi, Omar Khayyam, Saadi, Hafiz, Rumi, Jami, etc.) is common to the peoples of Tajikistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

Modern Persian differs from classical Persian, and at all linguistic levels - in phonetics, morphology, syntax, vocabulary. The oral form of the literary language is based on the Tehran dialect. The Persian dialects of Kerman, Isfahan, Novgan (Mashhad), Birjand, Sistan, Sebzevar, etc. are also known. In general, the dialects of the Persian language have been little studied. The history of the Persian language has been recorded for over 2,500 years. It distinguishes three main periods: ancient, represented by the Old Persian language (6–4 centuries BC), middle (Middle Persian language, 3–4 centuries BC – 8–9 centuries AD. ) and new, represented by classical Persian and modern Persian (from the 8th–9th centuries to the present). The Persian language during its historical development underwent significant changes in phonetic, grammatical and lexical systems, going from a language with a developed system of inflectional forms (in Old Persian) to an analytical language. There are 6 vowel phonemes – i, e, ä, å, o, u; two diphthongs – , . There are 22 phonemes in the consonantism system. Nouns are characterized by the categories of number and definiteness/indeterminacy. The stress in most words falls on the last syllable. There are no categories of case and gender. The verb is characterized by the categories of person, tense, voice, mood. All verbs are conjugated according to a single type of conjugation and according to their structure they are divided into simple and complex. To connect words in a sentence, the isafet construction, prepositions and postposition -ra are used. Izafet design is special way expressions of an attributive connection in which its indicator (unstressed isafet particle; in Persian -e) is attached to the word being defined (not to the definition), e.g.: šahr-e bozorg « big city"(lit. "city that is big"), äsb-e pedär"father's horse" The lexical core consists of native Iranian words, many borrowings from Arabic (up to 50 % all vocabulary), Turkish, French, English and other languages. Persian writing uses Arabic script with the addition of four letters, which was quickly adopted after the conquest of Iran by the Arabs in the 7th century. The first written monuments date back to the first half of the 9th century.

Persian, or Farsi, is the official language of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It belongs to the Iranian group of the Indo-European family of languages. It is also spoken in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and the Pamirs (though the form of the language there is more archaic). Just a hundred years ago, this language was much more widespread - from the Middle East to India. The total number of Farsi speakers is quite large: 65 million in Iran, about 7 million in Tajikistan; plus Dari speakers (Farsi dialect): 34 million in Afghanistan and about 2 million in Pakistan.

In addition to Persian, the Iranian group of languages ​​includes many modern living languages: Balochi, Gilan, Dari, Kurdish, Mazandaran, Ossetian, Pashto, Tajik, Talysh, Tat, etc. The Iranian group also includes dead languages: Avestan, Alan, Bactrian, Old Persian, Median, Parthian, Saka, Scythian, Sogdian, Middle Persian (Pahlavi), Khorezmian.

There are three periods in the history of the Persian language: ancient, middle, modern.

Ancient period(VI-III centuries BC) is represented by the ancient Persian language, which was widespread in the southwestern part of the Iranian plateau (modern Fars province). The Old Persian language is attested by wedge-shaped inscriptions of the Achamenid dynasty (VI-IV centuries BC), executed on walls and architectural details palaces, tombs of kings, rocks, etc. The sacred book of the Zoroastrians, Avesta, was also written in one of the dialects of the ancient Persian language, which was named after the holy book - Avestan. And the language of the most ancient part of the Avesta (Gatas - hymns) is so close in sound composition and grammatical forms to ancient Indian (Vedic Sanskrit) that both of them can be considered as dialects of one common proto-language of the Aryans. Both Old Persian and Avestan languages ​​have a rich inflectional system with the presence of a pronounced grammatical category of gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), three numbers (singular, dual, plural) and cases (in Old Persian there are seven, in Avestan there are eight).

Middle period(III century BC - 7th century AD) is represented by the Middle Persian language (Pahlavi). It is the written and literary language of Iran during the Sassanian era (224-651 CE). It is based on istakhra, a dialect of the capital of one of the southern provinces of Iran - Fars (Persians), the homeland of the Sassanids. The period of the reign of this dynasty became the heyday of writing in the Middle Persian language. Later, having ceased to be the language of living communication, Middle Persian remained for many centuries as a written language, mainly among the Zoroastrians. Two categories of monuments in the Middle Persian language have reached us: those written in Pahlavi script and those created using other types of writing. Monuments of the first category include: inscriptions on various buildings, tombstones, rocks, on coins, seals, amulets, vessels, as well as quite extensive Zoroastrian literature of spiritual and secular content. The writing of the Middle Persian language was based on the Aramaic alphabet. The oldest example of book writing is the Christian Pahlavi Psalter (translation from Syriac). The manuscript dates back to approximately the 7th century AD. e. The Psalter was found in Bulayik (north of Turfan). Quite a lot of examples of Zoroastrian literature have come down to us, mainly of religious content: Bundahishn (Universe), which sets out the views of Zoroastrians on the creation of the world, “Datastan and Menoye Khrat” (“Judgments higher intelligence"), "Pandnamak and Zardusht" ("Book of Zoroaster's instructions"), etc. Monuments created using other types of writing include: Manichaean texts written in Manichaean and Sogdian script and Turkic runic writing. Manichaean texts are also of religious content. Pahlavi, in comparison with Old Persian, is characterized by a simplification of morphology, a change in syntax, as well as some phonetic shifts. It is dominated by the features of the analytical system. Due to the collapse of inflection, already in a very early period of its development it loses grammatical categories gender and case, dual number, verb forms change significantly. During the period of the dominance of the Arab Caliphate in Iran (VII-X centuries AD), Arabic became the state language, as well as the language of literature and writing.

New period(modern) began approximately in the 7th-8th centuries AD. e. and continues to this day. By the beginning of the 9th century, a literary language was emerging in Central Asia and Khorasan, called the Dari language in various literary and historical works, as well as Parsi (or Farsi), which became the common language for the Persians and Tajiks. The creation of the first written monuments based on the Arabic alphabet dates back to this period.

Modern Persian and Tajik languages ​​represent a further modification of the Dari language, that is, they are practically two branches of the originally single Dari language. The Iranians, having adopted Islam, began to spread it further across the territory of modern Transcaucasia, Central Asia, Afghanistan and India. This gave rise to calling Persian the second language of Islam. In a large part of this region, classical Persian becomes the common language for Indians, Iranians, Tajiks and other peoples, functioning as the language of literature, science, culture and interethnic communication. Therefore, in the languages ​​of this region, along with Arabic borrowings, there are also many Persian words and expressions.

In the X-XV centuries, a wealth of literature, mainly poetry, was created in Farsi. Among the authors are representatives of the peoples of Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia: Rudaki (10th century) in Bukhara, Ferdowsi (10th-11th centuries) in Khorasan, Omar Khayyam (12th century), Jami (15th century) in Herat, Saadi (13th century) and Hafiz (XIV century) in Shiraz, Nizami (XIII century) on Azerbaijani soil, Rumi (XIII century) in Balkh (Khorasan). The great scientist Abu Ali ibn Sina (Avicenna), prominent historians of the Iranian Middle Ages Beyhaki, Gardezi, Rashid ad-Din and others wrote in Farsi.

The conquest of Iran by the Arabs had a significant impact on the Persian language: Arabic graphics were borrowed, and the vocabulary was enriched with a huge number of Arabic words. According to experts, more than half of the active lexical composition of the modern Persian language are words of Arabic origin. However, the grammatical structure of the Persian language has shown exceptional stability in relation to the Arabic language and has not undergone almost any changes.

Literary and colloquial Farsi had a noticeable influence on the development of other Iranian, Turkic and Modern Indian languages.

The writing of the Farsi and Dari languages ​​is the Persian alphabet, created on the basis of the Arabic script, supplemented by several signs for sounds not found in Arabic. The Tajik language uses the Cyrillic alphabet (introduced in 1939; acquired modern look in 1998).

Persian belongs to the southwestern subgroup of the Iranian group of the Indo-European family. Its closest relatives are the Luro-Bakhtiyar dialects, which in all likelihood developed from Early New Persian (VII-VIII centuries), as well as the Tat language, found in the Republic of Azerbaijan. Somewhat more distant relatives of Farsi are the native dialects of Fars, the dialects of Larestan and Bashkardi, like Persian, which originate from the Middle Persian language.

During the classical period of Persian (and [ɒ:], the use of digraphs (which can lead to homography, e.g. sh = š , but the combination of corresponding consonants is found in some Persian words).

The Persian language belongs to the Iranian group of the Indo-European family of languages ​​and goes back to the dialects of the ancient Aryans (Indo-Iranians), some of which in the late II - beginning 1st millennium BC e. advanced from Central Asia to the west of the Iranian plateau, where in the historical region of Parsa (Fars) they became known as the Persians.

If ancient Persian monuments are cuneiform rock inscriptions of the Achaemenids of the 6th-6th centuries. BC e. - demonstrate a language with a pronounced inflectional structure of the synthetic type, then its descendant, the Middle Persian language (monuments of the 1st millennium AD) is a language with highly developed analyticism, which has lost the nominal declension and in terms of morphology is significantly close to the modern Persian language.

Thus, the basis of the New Persian language was not the dialects of Fars, as in the case of Old Persian and Middle Persian, but the dialects of Sistan and Khorasan, where local Iranian dialects (primarily the Parthian language) were replaced by Koine Persian in the late Sasanian era. Further to the east, in the territory of Transoxiana (Bactria, Sogdiana, Chach and Fergana) the Persian positions lingua franca greatly intensified with the Islamic conquest, the rapid assimilation of the local eastern Iranian population served as the basis for the emerging Persian-speaking Tajik community. Together with Khorasan, these regions formed a single area, to which the appearance of early literature in New Persian was dated. In particular, in the formation of the New Persian literary language big role played the dialect of Bukhara, which became in the 10th century. the capital of the Samanids and the center of cultural life in the eastern parts of the Caliphate.

Initially, literature in New Persian was exclusively poetic; the first prose text dates back to 957 - a century after the appearance of the first verses. Gradually, from XI-XII, Persian gradually begins to be used in other areas of cultural life, although during this period it still gives way to the Arabic language.

Since the 12th century. literary Persian significantly expands not only its scope, displacing literary Arabic, but also its geography of distribution. It becomes the common literary language of the population of Greater Iran and the lingua franca throughout the eastern part of the Islamic world, from Anatolia to Northern India. Having begun to function as the official language of the Khorasan dynasty of Iranian origin, the Samanids, Persian did not lose its status as the language of office, fiction and scientific literature in subsequent centuries under rulers of Turkic origin (Ghaznavids, Seljuks, Ottomans, Khorezmshahs, Timurids, Baburids, Safavids, Qajars, Afsharids, etc. ) It was during the period of the X-XIV centuries. created world-famous Persian poets from different parts of the east of the Muslim world, whose legacy is rightfully included in the classics of world literature: Rudaki, Ferdowsi, Omar Khayyam, Nasir Khosrow, Nizami, Saadi, Rumi, Attar, Hafiz Shirazi, Jami, Dehlavi and many others. The richness of Persian literature, the length of its tradition and the noticeable influence it exerts on neighboring peoples allowed European literary scholars and linguists at a congress in Berlin in 1872 to recognize Farsi as a world classical language on a par with ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit.

Persian was widely used as a language of international communication and as a literary language - including in regions where its speakers never formed the majority of the population. In Central Asia, spoken Tajik dialects, supplanted by Turkic languages, became the substrate for the Uzbek and Turkmen languages, and Farsi literature had a direct impact on the formation of the Chagatai literary language. At the other end of the eastern world, the Seljukids and the rulers of the Ottoman Empire, some of whom were famous Persian poets, patronized literary Persian for many centuries, and the influence of Persian on the Ottoman language was very great. In India, the Persian language was patronized by Muslim sultans, starting with the Ghaznavids (10th century) and including the descendants of Tamerlane - the Great Mughals. Indian Koine Urdu developed under significant Persian influence, and this influence is still noticeable in colloquial speech throughout North India.

As an intermediary language, Persian was even more widespread. For example, Farsi was the only Eastern language that Marco Polo knew and used in his travels through China, conquered by the Mongols.

Over more than a thousand years of history, the New Persian language certainly could not remain unchanged, just as regional differences could not help but appear in it. Since the 16th century. previously uniform in language and style throughout Iran, Transcaucasia, Central Asia and India, the literary and written tradition of Farsi begins to demonstrate disintegration into local forms: Western Iranian, Central Asian (“Tajik”) and North Indian. In addition to the accumulated dialect differences, this was largely due to the division of the Persian-speaking space between the Shiite Safavid power (the predecessor of the modern Republic of Iran), the Sheibanid states in Central Asia and the Mughal Empire in India, to which from the 18th century. states of Afghan-Pashtuns were added, and the weakening of cultural ties between these states.

The vowel system of Classical Persian as a whole continued the vocalism of Middle Persian, which consisted of 8 phonemes and was characterized by a phonological distinction between short (a, i, u) and long (ā, ī, ū, ē, ō) vowels. In addition, two diphthongs developed in New Persian: ai and au. In modern language, opposition in longitude has been replaced by phonological opposition in quality, complemented by opposition in stability - instability in a weak (unstressed) position. In different regional variants, the transformation of classical vocalism occurred differently. In Iranian Farsi, unstable vowels correspond to short vowels of the classical language, stable vowels correspond to long vowels, and ē coincides with ī and ō with ū.

The vowels of Early New Persian in the modern language correspond to the following sounds (in IPA transcription, their common transliteration is given in brackets).

Unstable vowels differ from stable vowels in that they are more subject to reduction in the unstressed position. In the shock position, the longitude of the unstable ones is practically no different from the stable ones. The vowel /ɒ/ is a rounded back sound, perceived by Russian speakers almost as a long /o/.

The transformation of vocalism of the classical language clearly shows the difference between the main forms of the modern New Persian language:

In the Persian language, the following consonant phonemes are distinguished (in IPA symbols):

The phonemes /p/, /t/, /k/ tend to be aspirated, especially before stressed vowels and sonorant consonants, as well as at the end of a word: پول pul"money", توپ tup"ball" . /k/ and /g/ are palatalized at the end of words and before front vowels: گرگ gorg"wolf". Voiced consonants at the end of a word are almost not deafened.

In addition, the phonemes /k/ and /g/ tend to be velarly pronounced before the vowels [ā], [u], [o]. (For example, this is how the first /g/ in the word “wolf” is pronounced - [ġorg"]).

In classical Persian, as in modern Tajik and Dari, two uvular phonemes were distinguished: fricative voiced /ʁ/ (in native words, Arabisms and Turkisms) and stop /q/ (only in Arabisms and Turkisms). In modern Farsi of Iran, these two phonemes coincide in one (transliterated as q). It has two voiced allophones: fricative [ʁ] and stop [ɢ]. The stop variant occurs at the beginning of a word.

The glottal stop /ʔ/ can occur in words borrowed from Arabic.

Stress in the Persian language is two-component - force (dynamic) and tonic. Falls, as a rule, on the last syllable: خانه‌ xân e"house", خانه‌ها xâneh â "Houses". Stress on the first syllable is characteristic of some conjunctions and particles (بلی b a li"yes", اگر a gar“if”, etc.).

In verb forms starting with prefixes mi- And be-, the main emphasis is on the prefix, and the secondary emphasis is on the personal ending: می‌روم miravam"I'm coming."

The main types of syllables are: CV - دو do"two", تو to"You"; CVC - دود dud"smoke", مار mâr"snake"; CVCC - مست mast"drunk", صبر sabr"patience", گفت goft"said"; VCC - آرد ârd"flour", اسب asb"horse" (read: asp); VC - آب âb"water", از az"from, from"; V - او u"she, he."

The word and morpheme cannot have the initial structure CCV-; in borrowed words of this type, a vowel prosthesis or epenthesis /e/ or /o/ is usually inserted: استکان estekân(Russian glass), درشکه doroške(Russian droshky). An exception is borrowings with the initial “mute with smooth” (C + l or C + r): C + l or C + r: پلان plan‘plan’, پراژه prože"project".

In words of Iranian origin, the following combinations -CC-/-CC are common outside of morphemic seams:

In Arabic words there can be a wide variety of combinations of consonants and geminates, in some cases in spoken language they are greatly simplified.

The grammatical structure of the Persian language can be characterized as inflectional-analytical with elements of agglutination. The conjugation of a verb is inflectional, where personal endings combine the meanings of person and number, while many aspectual and modal forms of the verb are expressed analytically. Most nominal categories are also expressed analytically; in addition, there are nominal affixes of the agglutinative type.

Names in Persian do not have a gender category, which also applies to personal pronouns of 3 liters. units h. Instead of the category of animate/inanimate, there is a category of person/non-person, in which animals are also included in the composition of non-persons. It is expressed lexically (by correlation with pronouns ke/ki"who" or če/či“what”, “who (about animals)”), and syntactically (peculiarities of agreement with the predicate).

The formal division of names into nouns and adjectives is weakly expressed; non-derivative adjectives do not differ in appearance from nouns; derivatives are characterized by special suffixes. The substantivization of adjectives is widely developed. The definition is always immutable and its role is indicated syntactically. The main way to introduce a definition is izafet design, where the main word in the noun phrase (defined) is marked with an agglutinative unstressed indicator -e(after vowels -ye), to which the definition adjoins in postposition. If there are several definitions, they are “strung” on top of each other also using izafet:

This is an almost universal way of expressing both a qualitative definition and a definition by belonging, so the Persian izafet corresponds to the Russian phrase with both an adjective and a genitive. For example, ketâb-e mâdar‘mother’s book’; ketâb-e mâdar-e Âmin"book of Amin's mother"; šâh-e bozorg'great king', šâh-e bozorg-e Iran"Great King of Iran" In preposition to nouns there are limited types of definitions, primarily attributive pronouns. From qualitative adjectives(and adverbs) degrees of comparison can be formed: comparative (affix -tar) and excellent (affix -tarin).

The category of case is completely lost in Persian. Case meanings are expressed analytically and syntactically: by numerous prepositions, postpositions -râ, izafetny construction and position of the word in the sentence. Postposition -râ, which marks a direct object, also gives it the meaning of definiteness; an indefinite direct object is usually not marked with it.

In the nominal syntagm, all affixes have a strict place. All postfixes except exponent plural, always come after the last definition in the isafet chain:

(Preposition) + Noun + (plural affix) + izafet ( -e) + Definition + (affix comparative degree. -tar) + (article -i) + (postposition -râ):

The name system is supplemented by pronouns. Personal pronouns are characterized by suppletive stems for three persons and two numbers. In the third person singular, demonstrative pronouns are used for non-persons.

Polite pronoun man(“I”) can be replaced by bande (بنده), ânhâ(“they”) - on išan (ایشان).

Possessive pronouns are missing. Instead, an isafet chain is used: medâd -e u (“his pencil”) or pronominal enclitics: medâd am (“my pencil”)

Personal pronouns are accompanied by a reflexive pronoun xod“himself”, “oneself”, as a definition - “your own”.

Conjugation. In addition, the verb receives the expression of present-future, past and perfect forms.

The conjugation is the same for all verbs in all forms. In the stressed version, personal endings are used in the present-future tense, in the unstressed version - in the past tense and as a short verb connective. The exception is 3 l. units h., where in each of these cases there is a different ending.

Every verb has two stems: presentation(present tense - ONV) and preterial(past tense - OPV), for example, kon-: card-"do", row- : raft-"go", suz- : suxt-"burn, burn" ruy- : growth-“grow (about plants).” The first of them continues the ancient Iranian finite basis of the present tense, the second - the passive participle with * -ta-, therefore, in most verbs it is formed from the first by non-trivial historical alternations both in the final vowel of the root and often in the vowel of the root. In total, there are about thirty types of the ratio ONV ~ OPV.

From the ONV tense the present-future and present definite tenses, the aorist subjunctive mood and the imperative mood are formed. From OPV, forms of the past tense are formed, as well as the past participle of -e, actively participating in the formation of analytical species-temporal forms.

Verb forms budan“to be” is used as a verbal connective, the use of which is formalized and almost does not allow omission. In the present-future tense, several variants of the connective are used:

In many contexts, variants of the copula are interchangeable, and the use of one form or another is determined by pragmatic factors. However, only the short form is used as an auxiliary verb in analytical forms.

Early New Persian inherited from Pahlavi the opposition of ONV (present tense) forms and OPV (past tense) forms. They were supplemented by innovative perfect forms formed using participles like karda(“made”) and the verb connective. In addition, Middle Persian verbal aspectual prefixes were generalized:

A special form of the future tense, formed using conjugated forms of the verb, has also become widespread x w āstan and an unchangeable participle equal to OPV: x w āhad kard“will do”, “will do”. At the same time, in general, prefixed and neutral forms were not of a formalized nature and were used quite freely.

Around the 15th century, this system underwent further changes, expressed in increased formalization and an increase in the number of analytical forms. Neutral forms coincided with perfect ones, becoming opposed to long forms on me->mi-.

Present-future tense with a formalized prefix mi- widely covered the designation of the future tense and required the development of a special form to express the action performed at the moment of speech. In Iranian Farsi it was developed by using conjugated forms of the verb dâštan: dâram miravam“I (now) go”, lit. "I have going." In the eastern versions of Farsi (Tajik and Dari), their own forms of the Present definite tense have been developed, which do not coincide with the forms of Iranian Farsi. In Iran, this form is still considered colloquial and for a long time was not included in the grammar.

Past tenses have become widely used to convey unreal conditions ("if only...").

The modern system of verbal tense and modal forms has the following form:

Passive forms (mostly 3rd person) are formed from transitive verbs using the past participle of -te/-de and a verb inflected by aspectual and tense forms and conjugated by numbers and persons šodan"become": karde mi-šav-ad"is being done" karde šod"has been done" karde šode ast“(already) done”, etc.

The paradigm of basic species-temporal forms, which are also the most common:

Negative forms are formed using a stressed prefix na- (ne- before -mi-), always attached to the first (lexical) part of the verb and before the prefix mi-. For example, nemiravàd"he won't go" nágoft"he didn't say" nákarde bâšám"(if) I (and) did." The exception is compound verbs ( jodấ nákardè ast“he (hasn’t) divided yet”) and passive forms ( gofte nášod"wasn't said") In the aorist and imperative forms, the negative prefix always replaces the prefix be-: nákon"don't do it" naravàd“let him not walk.”

Subsequently, with the development of Arabic-Persian bilingualism and the Persian perception of the social functions of the Arabic language, Arabisms flow into the vocabulary of the Persian language in a wide stream. According to rough estimates, Arabisms make up 14% in the vocabulary of material culture, 24% in the intellectual sphere, and 40% in ordinary literary text. Most Persian Arabisms can potentially be replaced by native equivalents, and often are. On the other hand, many ordinary native words have "high" Arabic equivalents.

Another significant component of the Persian vocabulary is Turkisms, which penetrated primarily into the vocabulary associated with the army, everyday life, cattle breeding, and geographical objects and actively penetrated Mohammad Reza Shah in the 1970s. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the process of “cleansing” the language stopped, and Arabisms and Western borrowings are again widely used. In 1990, a new Academy of Persian Language and Literature was created, which has so far published 6 collections of neologisms, as well as the etymological dictionary of the Persian language by M. Hasandust (2014).

There are no academic grammars or dictionaries of the Persian language. Persian grammars created in Iran are divided into two directions: a description of the language of classical poets that continues medieval traditions (with examples almost exclusively from them) and a description of the modern language based on European models. In Russia, grammarians of the Persian language (classical and modern) were compiled by Zaleman and Zhukovsky, Bertels, Zhirkov L.I., Yu. A. Rubinchik and others. Of the Western European Persian grammars, one of the most outstanding is considered to be that compiled by the French Iranian scholar Gilbert Lazare. The largest dictionary of the Persian language was compiled by Dehkhoda (in Iran it is still considered standard, although its vocabulary is partially outdated).

An excerpt from the song “متاسفم” (Motasefam), performed by the famous Iranian singer and composer Mohsen Chavoshi. Author - Hossein Safa.

(all other languages). The number of Chinese language speakers exceeds 1 billion people.

One controversial theory suggests that the Sino-Tibetan languages ​​belong to the hypothetical Sino-Caucasian macrofamily.

Genetic community of Sino-Tibetan languages

Given the large typological differences in the Sinitic and Tibeto-Burman branches, as well as in the subgroups of the Tibeto-Burman languages, do the Sino-Tibetan languages ​​represent a genetic community, that is, do they descend from a single Proto-Sino-Tibetan language? All modern scientists professionally studying Sino-Tibetan languages, in their works (Benedict 1972, Hale 1982, van Driem 2001, Matisoff 2003, Thurgood 2003) unanimously confirm: Sino-Tibetan languages ​​represent a genetic community. Many Sino-Tibetan protoforms are amenable to reconstruction. The general lexical material is extremely rich and is increasingly refined through research into an increasing number of languages ​​(see table of lexical correspondences). In addition to lexical material, these languages ​​have many similarities in phonology and grammar, confirming their relatedness. Detailed review comparative material(both lexical and phonological) see Matisoff 2003.

Below are the common phonological, grammatical and lexical features of Sino-Tibetan languages.

Syllable and phoneme structure

Proto-Sino-Tibetan was a monosyllabic language. The reconstruction of its syllabic structure looks like this:

According to Benedict 1972 and Matisoff 2003, the consonant set of Proto-Sino-Tibetan—which was used in its entirety primarily for root initial consonants—consisted of the following phonemes:

/p, t, k; b, d, g; ts, dz; s, z, h; m, n, ŋ; l, r, w, y/.

In different language groups as the initial consonants of the word root, these phonemes have the following sound correspondences:

Exceptions to these correspondences are usually minor; aspiration appears only under certain conditions and is not phonemically significant. This table compiled from Benedict 1972, where lexical comparisons are also given for these sound correspondences.

Sino-Tibetan vowel system reconstructed as /a, o, u, i, e/. Vowels can be in the middle or at the end of a syllable, but not at the beginning. It should be noted that in the protolanguage all vowels, except /a/, can rarely be found at the end of a syllable. And endings with /-Vw/ und /-Vy/ (where V is a vowel), on the contrary, are most common.

Morphology of word formation

According to the general opinion of protolanguage researchers, there was no classical syntactic morphology (as well as systemic morphological changes in nouns and verbs in categories such as case, number, tense, person, voice, etc.). The syntactic morphology of nouns and verbs traced in modern Tibeto-Burman languages ​​should be understood as an innovation, which they owe to the local influence of neighboring languages, as well as substrate languages. Due to the wide variety of such influences, completely different morphological types could be formed.

However, we can speak with confidence about elements of word-formation morphology common to many Sino-Tibetan languages. Among them, consonantal prefixes and suffixes should be highlighted, as well as changes in anlaut that change the meaning of verbs and nouns. The existence of common derivational affixes and alternations in anlaut, having the same or similar semantic effect in almost all groups of Sino-Tibetan languages, is a strong indication of their genetic commonality. (Examples taken from Benedict 1972, Matisoff 2003, and Thurgood 2003; transcriptions from German-language sources use /y/ instead of /j/.)

Prefix s-

Almost all Sino-Tibetan languages ​​have pairs of semantically related words that differ from each other in their sound only sonority or deafness initial consonant. The voiced version usually has transitional meaning, and deaf - intransitive. There is a theory according to which changes in unlaut are due to the once existing prefix *h, a non-syllabic pharyngeal transitional sound (Edwin G. Pulleyblank 2000).