Almost 75% of the modern world's population uses alphabetic writing, which now forms the four most common families of alphabets - Latin (30%), Slavic-Cyrillic (10%), Arabic (10%) and Indian (20%). The formation of modern graphic families of alphabets is the result of the historical development of peoples and their writing. Families of alphabets do not coincide with families of languages ​​in their origin. For example, Slavic languages ​​use the Cyrillic and Latin alphabet, the Arabic alphabet is used by both Semitic and other peoples, for example, Persians (Indo-Europeans) and Turks.

An alphabet is a set of letters of a phonographic script arranged in a historically established order. The word itself alphabet derived from the names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: [alpha] and [beta], or, in another pronunciation [vita]; the word is formed similarly ABC(az + beeches).

Attempts to create a letter-sound writing and alphabet were noted among many peoples, especially in the eastern Mediterranean. However, the origin of the alphabet goes back primarily to such ancient countries as Egypt, Phenicia, and Greece. Consonantal sound writing arose in the second half of the 2nd millennium, vocalized sound writing appeared at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e.

Phoenician writing and eastern alphabets. Further letter-sound writing (Egyptian and Phoenician) was consonantal. Consonantal principle ancient letters was explained by the lexical function of the consonants, which formed the skeleton of Egyptian words: p-p-x “beetle”, n-f-r “beautiful”. According to M.A. Korostovtsev, the Egyptian language had 3,300 roots, of which more than 2,200 were three-consonant, about 600 were four- and six-consonant, about 400 were two-consonant, and about 60 were monoconsonant. The ancient Egyptian language had 26 consonants, represented by hieroglyphs.

As a result of the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great and the spread of Greco-Roman culture and Christianity, Egyptian writing was replaced by Greek.

The Phoenicians lived on a narrow coastal strip bordered on the east by the Lebanon mountain range; The Phoenicians owned colonies, in particular Cyprus, where Phoenician inscriptions from the 12th-10th centuries were found. BC e. The Phoenician letter consisted of 22 characters indicating consonants and semivowels [w] and [j]. Phoenician letters had more simple form, names and order of arrangement.

Based on the Aramaic script, four main branches of the Eastern script arise - Hebrew, Syriac, Iranian and Arabic. The development of these branches is associated with the spread of four religions of the Near East - Judaism (Hebrew script), Eastern Christianity (Syrian script), Zoroastrianism (Iranian script) and Islam (Arabic script). After the conquest by the Arabs in the 7th century. n. e. In Western Asia, Arabic writing began to spread widely, displacing other types of eastern alphabets.

Arabic writing is consonantal; vowels are indicated using diacritics (dots).

The number of letters in this way was increased from 17 to 28, but the letter was filled with superscript and subscript characters. Another feature of the Arabic script is that almost every letter has four forms - depending on whether it stands alone, at the beginning, middle or end of a word, which is written from right to left.

Greekalphabet. The Greeks first used consonantal writing. In the VIII-VII centuries. BC e. vocal-sound inscriptions are found. In 403 BC. e. Under Archon Euclid, the classical Greek alphabet was introduced in Athens.

The classical Greek alphabet consisted of 24 letters; 17 letters stood for consonants and 7 for vowels. The significant contribution of the Greeks to the development of the alphabet consisted primarily in the fact that letters were introduced to represent vowels: α, ε, η, ο, υ, ω, ι. The second change concerned the direction of writing: the Greeks began to write not from right to left, as the Egyptians and Phoenicians wrote, but from left to right; Due to the change in direction of writing, the letters were also turned upside down.

Further improvement of the alphabetic composition of the Greek letter took place in the Hellenistic (IV-I centuries BC), Roman (I century BC - IV centuries AD) and Byzantine periods (IV-V centuries BC). AD), when cursive handwriting developed (which became possible thanks to the use of soft materials - papyrus and parchment. During the Byzantine period, two styles of letters took shape - uppercase (majuscule) and lowercase (minuscule). On the basis of Western Greek writing, Latin arose ( The Roman alphabet is the Latin alphabet, and based on the Eastern Greek (Byzantine) script, the Slavic Cyrillic alphabet, as well as the Armenian and Georgian alphabets.

Latin and Latin-based alphabets. The Latins, to whom the Romans also belonged, formed the city of Rome (the legendary date of its foundation is considered to be 753 BC), united the tribes into one people, headed by the people's assembly and the Senate. The development of a common economy and the state required orderly writing. The emergence of Latin-Roman writing was influenced by the writing of the northern neighbors - the Etruscans and especially the southern neighbors - the Greek colonists. The classical Latin alphabet included 23 letters; different style And And v, i and j, as well as lowercase lettering, appeared in the Middle Ages; letters k, and, z found in words of Greek origin; letter q used only with the letter And, read like kv (Quǎdrātum- square, Quālǐtās-quality).

The Latin language in which they were created great literature, scientific works, being the language of Western Christian teaching, became widespread in Western Europe. The appearance in the 14th century was decisive for the spread of a single letter. paper and the invention of printing; in 1441 I. Guttenberg printed a book from typesetting. The Latin alphabet had a huge influence on the formation of the writing of the peoples of Western Europe. The emergence of European writing on a Latin basis occurs mainly in the 8th-15th centuries, then the Spanish, Portuguese, English and French alphabets become widespread in America, Australia, as well as Asia and Africa. Now there are more than 70 alphabets based on Latin: over 30 European, 20 Asian and about 20 African.

Since there were significantly more sounds than Latin letters, there was a need to improve the Latin alphabet. It was carried out by introducing diacritics (diacritics) and l i g a t u r. Diacritics were used to clarify or change the sound meaning of Latin letters; there are especially many diacritic letters in the Czech and Portuguese alphabets. Diacriticized letters of the Czech alphabet, for example, are: č (denotes [h]); in addition, the acute sign is used to denote long vowels: á, é, í, ó, ú, ý . Unlike the Czech, the French alphabet does not have diacritics, although diacritics are used very often, for example: accent aigu is placed above the letter e to indicate [e] (é té ), grave accent is used to indicate [e] and distinguish the meanings of words (là- there, here, there; Wed la- article and pronoun), apostrophe denotes the loss of a sound in a one-syllable word (l'heure, d'une maison, c"est).

A ligature is a letter made up of two or more letters: English. kh, tch, ch (sh), (sch), German ch, tsch, sch, schtsch. Usage in various ways designation of sounds leads to a discrepancy between the letter and the sound, sometimes very significant. According to the calculations of the French linguist M. Cohen, variants of the French sounds [a], [o] and [e] are expressed in 143 spellings; Up to 658 graphic combinations are used in English writing. Of course, this complicates the writing and makes it difficult to master. Therefore, it is very difficult to abandon graphics that have been used for many centuries.

Cyrillic alphabet and alphabets based on Cyrillic. The Slavic alphabet arose at the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th century, and two alphabets were created - Glagolitic and Cyrillic. The creation of the alphabet was caused by the religious, political and educational activities of the brothers Cyril and Methodius. The brothers were Bulgarians (Macedonians), they were born in the Byzantine city of Thessaloniki (now Thessaloniki). In 862, the Moravian prince Rostislav turned to Byzantium with a request to send missionaries who could preach in an understandable Slavic language. The choice fell on Cyril and Methodius, because Cyril had experience in missionary work and spoke Slavic well. Kirill created the Slavic alphabet, together with his brother they translated liturgical books into Slavic and went to Moravia.

The composition of the letters of Glagolitic and Cyrillic almost coincided; in manuscripts of the 11th century. The Cyrillic alphabet had 43 letters; the Glagolitic alphabet lacked psi, xi and letters to denote iotated nasal vowels; in the Glagolitic alphabet there was one additional letter “tree”, denoting the soft back-lingual consonant [g"]; initially the Cyrillic alphabet had 38 letters, since there were no iotized letters and the letter uk.

The Cyrillic alphabet is a creative reworking of the Byzantine alphabet - the Greek statutory letter of the 7th-8th centuries; out of 43 letters, 19, i.e. 45%, were included in the alphabet to indicate the sounds of the Old Church Slavonic language; however, additional letters were also introduced: beeches, live, zelo, tsy, worm, sha, shta, er, ery, er, yat, yusy (two), as well as iotized a, u, uh, usy and ligature uk. The letters omega, fita, psi, xi, i-decimal and izhitsa were used as numeric signs and also in borrowed (Byzantine) words.

The Cyrillic alphabet became widespread among the southern (Bulgarians, Serbs, Macedonians) and eastern Slavs. In Russia, Russian writing underwent great changes in 1707-1710. (when the civil font was introduced and the alphabet reform was carried out by Peter I), as well as in 1917-1918; On October 17, 1918, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars was published on the introduction of a new spelling.

Inscription in ancient Slavic alphabet: a) Glagolitic, b) Cyrillic

4. Graphics and spelling. Basic principles of spelling.

The alphabet is the basis of letter-sound writing: letters represent the sounds of a language, its phonemes. However, the coincidence of sounds and letters is incomplete; There are many discrepancies between sounds and letters, which gives rise to reading rules (graphic rules) and rules for writing words (spelling rules).

In the alphabet, letters receive a sound meaning each individually, in graphics - in combinations of letters, in spelling - as part of words.

Graphic arts. In writing theory, graphics are the letters of the alphabet and diacritics in their relation to the sound structure of the language. Roughly speaking, graphics studies the relationship between letters and sounds of a language.

The connection between a letter and a sound is created historically, and the sound meaning of letters, as well as their outline, is very different in different languages ​​with different graphic systems. The simplest case is the writing of words, where the alphabetic meanings of the letters are preserved, i.e. the letter and the sound are the same, for example: house[house], mole 1mol’]. On the contrary, spellings such as water And do, do not reflect pronunciation, and there are more similar spellings than spellings that match the pronunciation.

The different designations of the same phoneme and the phonetic polysemy of many letters are explained by the syllabic principle of graphics. The syllabic (letter combination) principle of graphics is that the reading of a letter is determined by its combination with other letters. Yes, Russian letter With read differently in words son, blue, sew:[s], [s"], [sh]; French letter With it reads like [k] (carte- map), then how [s] (cercle- circle, cirque- circus, cycle- cycle).

Graphics rules do not always ensure correct reading and correct spelling. Graphically correct spelling ovation, but this word should be read [avacija]. Deviations from the syllabic principle of graphics are caused by the rules of spelling and spelling; Moreover, along with the regular spelling gypsy, short we write circus, ovation.

It follows that although the rules of graphics underlie the correct writing and reading of words, they do not yet constitute the entire set of rules for correct writing, i.e., spelling.

Spelling and its basic principles. Spelling literally means "spelling". Spelling is a collection of rules for the standard spelling of words and their parts; spelling, in addition to writing letters, also establishes the continuous, separate and semi-merged (hyphenated) spelling of words, rules for hyphenation and abbreviation of words. In a broad sense, spelling also covers the rules for using punctuation marks, i.e. punctuation.

The main part of spelling is the rules for representing speech sounds in letters as part of words and morphemes. These rules are based on the principles of spelling - phonetic, morphological, historical, ideographic and the principle of foreign words. The main principles of spelling are phonetic and morphological.

Phonetic principle writing is based on graphics and orthoepy of the language. It consists in the fact that words are written according to their pronunciation. So, on a graphical basis, according to pronunciation, we write words such as volume, steam, feast, day, family, bow, weak-willed, wingless, play, nettle, humanism and so on.

The phonetic principle is used more often in the initial period of creating letter-sound writing and its graphic basis. As the sound system changes historically and derivatives and borrowed words appear, the phonetic principle gives way to the morphological principle, which becomes the leading one in most inflected languages, including Russian.

Morphological principle spelling consists in uniform spelling of the same morpheme, no matter how its pronunciation changes. Writings such as dam, house, peace, peaceful etc., are morphological-phonetic, since they reflect both the pronunciation of the word and its morphemic composition. Most other spellings are checked indirectly, by changing the word and finding out the main variant of the phoneme. We pronounce [zup], but we write tooth because in a strong position, in the main version, the root retains [b]: teeth, dental. The morphological principle is more clearly manifested when writing prefixes, suffixes and inflections. We are writing sign because there is signature; inflection -ohm V business we write because there is a form good where the accent falls on the ending; ravine we write fluently e(cf. ravine), whereas table has no fluency e(cf. table).

The morphological principle covers not only motivated, but also unmotivated spellings characteristic of writing roots. This includes, for example, spelling words with unchecked vowels o (station, road, team, basket, November, deer, goods, lantern and etc.), a (baggage, carriage, office, carriage, laboratory, manner, chamber, asphalt and etc.), e (engineer, intelligentsia, kefir, commandant, auditor and etc.), I (comma, rebellion, month, hare), and (horizon, zigzag, institute, idea and etc.).

The historical-traditional principle of spelling is that spellings that have lost their motivation are preserved.

Historical-traditional spellings are found in many spellings, but the role of the historical principle is especially great in English spelling, where spellings from the time of Chaucer, i.e., the 14th century, are preserved, especially since the spelling of most words was fixed by printing. An example of historical writing would be words like night. In the Old English period the word night pronounced and written niht; in the Middle English period the ligature was introduced gh to indicate a consonant, the preceding vowel being lengthened, so that the spelling night pronounced ; when the early New England period has a long vowel turned into a diphthong, and the consonant stopped being pronounced (became “mute”) - an association between diphthong and ligature was established igh: night- night, right- right, etc.

Ideographic (or symbolic) principle spelling differs from others in that it is based on the semantic difference of similar spellings, for example: company And campaign, burn And burn, cry And cry, hope And Hope. The use of capital letters has a symbolic meaning. In Russian orthography, a proper name is written with a capital letter. (Love, Ivanov, Leningrad, Renaissance), the first word of the sentence and in a solemn context common nouns: Motherland, Man. In German orthography, in addition, all nouns are written with a capital letter, which distinguishes them in writing from verbs and adjectives, for example: das Gut- property, gut- good, das Sein- being, sein- be.

Also used in spelling principle of writing borrowed words, reflecting foreign language rules of graphics and spelling. So, for example, in Russian orthography there are special rules for designating iota in borrowed words: at the beginning of a word and syllable [j] before [e] and [o] is designated by the letter th and ligature yo (Yemenite, yod, New York, major, district, foyer, mayonnaise, battalion, postman and so on.). The principle of borrowed words plays a big role when writing borrowed geographical names and proper names.

Transliteration. This term called the translation of letter writing from one language to another, from one graphic to another. Transliteration is necessary when writing borrowed and calque words, when conveying a wide variety of proper names - from the surname and name of the newspaper to the name of the city and river.

An example of transliteration is the European transliteration of Greek words and roots into Latin and Cyrillic alphabet.

There are special rules for transmitting letters of different alphabets in Latin letters. These rules apply, for example, when transmitting text by telegraph or teletype from one country to another.

Transcription. This - special type letter writing; it is used to accurately convey the sounds of a particular language, dialect or individual speech.

The creation of the transcription is due to the fact that any modern alphabetic letter reflects the sound of words only in some cases when the phonetic principle of spelling is used. The rules of writing and the rules of reading are not the same. There are especially many conventional spellings in English spelling, and this makes it necessary for bilingual dictionaries to give its pronunciation after the spelling of a word. For this, the IPA (International Phonetic Association) alphabet is used, for example: beautiful["bju:tiful] - "beautiful", etc.

5. Historical changes in vocabulary.

a) Basic processes in the development of vocabulary

Vocabulary composition represents that side of the language that is more susceptible to historical changes than any other. Changes in vocabulary are observed every day: any innovation in technology, in everyday life, in public life, in the field of ideology and culture is accompanied by the appearance of new words and expressions or new meanings for old words, and vice versa, the obsolescence and passing into the past of certain tools, forms of life and social institutions inevitably entail the departure of the corresponding words from the language. It also happens that words change their meanings and even go out of use altogether without any connection with changes in the corresponding denotations, or denotations change their verbal designations, without, however, changing at all their nature or role in human life.

The most important process is the emergence of neologisms, that is, new lexical units and new meanings in connection with the emergence of something new in the life of a given language community. So, throughout the 20th century. For example, the following neologisms appeared in the Russian language: Bolshevik first in the speech of party members and in the party press, then in general popular use; words collective farm, state farm, Komsomol, socialist competition; words related to technical progress - harvester, helicopter, television, astronaut, cosmodrome, lunar landing, laser and many others.

Of course, the concept of neologism is relative. Having become familiar, a word is no longer perceived as a neologism, and in some cases it may even become outdated, as happened, for example, with the words party cell, Red Army soldier- neologisms of the first years of the revolution, which are now uncommon.

The process opposite to the emergence of neologisms is the loss of lexical units and individual meanings of words from normal, everyday use. Here we need to distinguish between two main cases. If the loss is caused by the disappearance of the corresponding objects and phenomena, we speak of the departing lexical units and meanings as historicisms. If objects and phenomena remain, and for one reason or another only the words that denoted them go away, we call such words, and sometimes individual meanings archaisms.

Historicisms, therefore, are designations of realities that have become a thing of the past, for example, the names of tools that have fallen out of use (plow), ancient weapons and equipment (quiver), means of transportation (stagecoach, horse-car), social conditions, institutions and positions of past eras (count, state councilor, leader of the nobility, policeman, master, footman V Tsarist Russia). Historicisms continue to be used when talking about the past, as well as in a specific “museum” context. Some of the above words, having become historicisms in their direct meanings (or also “exoticisms” - designations of alien reality), retain figurative meanings, often with a negative connotation (cf. words master, footman).

Examples of archaisms include: brow(forehead), cheeks(cheeks), neck(neck), ramen(shoulders), Percy(breast), finger(finger), mouth(mouth), wedges(eyelids). Archaisms are used as elements of a “high” poetic style or, on the contrary, as a means of irony. They can be stored in stable combinations (from mouth to mouth, one like a finger). Individual meanings of quite common and stylistically neutral words are also archaisms. So, among the meanings of the word stomach the meaning of “life” is archaic (cf. in the phraseological unit “not to the stomach, but to death”), among the meanings of the word language- meaning "people".

A special process is the change in the meaning of lexical units of a language. Essentially, two processes are combined here: a) the emergence of a new meaning and b) the withering away of an old meaning. So, in Russian the word sneaky back in the 18th century. meant “common, unborn, belonging to the lower class” (that is, not to the nobility or clergy). Since the ideology of the ruling classes associated with the idea of ​​​​the “common people” the idea of ​​​​low moral qualities, the word sneaky acquired negative connotations, which gradually grew into the meaning of “dishonest, morally low.” The old meaning was gradually forgotten and turned into historicism. Wed. development of word meaning tradesman. Initially it meant “citizen, resident of the city”, from the second half of the 18th century. became the official designation of one of the estates of Tsarist Russia. At the end of the 19th century. a new meaning appears: “a person with small, limited interests and a narrow outlook.” For modern language this meaning is the main one, but the original meaning has become historicism. In German, a similar development took place in the word Burger"city dweller" - "a person with a limited outlook, with a petty-bourgeois ideology."

Considering semantic evolution from the point of view of the scope of the concept expressed by a word, we talk about the narrowing and expansion of meaning. An example of a narrowing of meaning is the history of the word powder In russian language. Original meaning- not “an explosive”, but in general “a substance consisting of small particles, dust.” Example of meaning expansion - history of the word finger, originally meaning " thumb" (this meaning is retained in a number of modern Slavic languages); in Russian (also in Ukrainian, Belarusian and Polish) the meaning expanded, and the word began to mean any of the fingers and even toes.

With the processes discussed in the previous paragraph, let us compare the processes of renaming, that is, changing the verbal designation without changing the corresponding denotations.

One of the types of renaming is associated with the phenomena of the so-called tab. In its proper sense, the term “taboo” (borrowed from one of the Polynesian languages) denotes various kinds of prohibitions caused by certain religious beliefs and superstitions, in particular ideas about magical power words. This is a prohibition to touch certain objects, perform certain actions, enter certain places, a prohibition due to the fear of causing the anger and revenge of evil spirits. In speech behavior, this is a prohibition to utter certain words so as not to “cause trouble.” There is a “hunting taboo” - the fear of calling the animal being hunted by its “real” name, as this could supposedly negatively affect the course of the hunt. Along with this kind of phenomena, which dates back to ancient times, there are prohibitions imposed by considerations of generally accepted etiquette, decency, etc.

The prohibition to use certain words leads to the need to replace them with some others. This is how “softening expressions” appear - euphemisms. The more categorical the prohibition, the more situations it is observed, the greater the chance that the taboo unit will disappear altogether and be replaced by a euphemism.

The phenomena of ancient taboo explain the diversity and instability in Indo-European languages ​​of the names of some animals that are dangerous to humans or were considered harbingers of misfortune. A striking example is the name of the snake: lat. serpens(from where fr. serpent), ancient german slango(modern German) Schlange), English snake originally meant “crawling”, our snake (snake) etc.) produced from the earth, i.e. "earthly", dialect and Belarusian smoke“snake” (found with the meaning “snake”, “dragon”, etc. in other Slavic languages) - most likely from smoktat, i.e. "sucking"; all of these are obvious euphemisms, replacements for some old name, which has either been completely lost everywhere or has been preserved in a narrowed meaning and in limited use. Euphemisms are also expressions such as devilry instead of crap or demon

A taboo caused by the requirements of etiquette usually does not lead to the disappearance of a word, but only to the enrichment of the language with “softening” synonyms. Wed. next to the word old euphemistic synonyms of venerable age, middle-aged, in years.

Particular attention should be paid to conscious, officially established replacements for ideological reasons of proper names - names of cities, streets, etc. Thus, the former Tsarskoe Selo was renamed to Children's Village, and later in city ​​of Pushkin. The first change was an act of conscious rejection of the name, which was reminiscent of tsarism. The second replacement had a different reason: the desire to express respect for the memory of the poet (the renaming was made in 1937, when the centenary of the death of Pushkin was celebrated). Almost all name changes fixed by official decrees of authorities belong to one of these two types or are a combination of them.

Sometimes a change in vocabulary is associated with the “semantic wear and tear” of words, with the need for an emotionally expressive update of the vocabulary. In order for such an update next to ok, great etc. appear shine, frets, Near for sure- iron, Near fool- oak, Near toil- work hard, Near indifferent- to the light bulb etc. The literary norm these days, in most cases, successfully resists the spread of such expressive words, especially those that are perceived as rude. Many of them therefore remain only elements of youth slang, while others, having existed for a short time, fall out of use. In an era when the standardized literary language was the property of a narrow layer of society, the resistance of the literary norm to the penetration of such words could not be effective. They established themselves in the language, pushing aside their “unemotional” predecessors.

In russian language eye turned out to be relegated to the area of ​​poetic, stylistically elevated use, and relations changed: now it is eye is an emotional synonym for a word that has become neutral eye. Apparently, for a similar reason, the word became archaic mouth: take his place mouth And lips.

Sometimes emotional-expressive updating is carried out morphologically - by adding suffixes of emotional evaluation, diminutive or, on the contrary, magnifying, “coarsening”. Wed. quickly Near quickly, sleep next to the verb sleep; hot, boring Near heat, boredom. Sometimes the historically original form, not expanded by a suffix, may subsequently fall out of the language. Yes, Russian. father, sun, heart are diminutive in origin, and the original, non-diminutive forms have long been lost. Their existence in the past is indicated compassionate, mercy and so on. Bulgarian language lost the original mouse and denotes the corresponding animal with a suffixal diminutive formation in origin, namely bear.

In some cases, updating the vocabulary of a literary language can be explained by shifts in the contingent of its speakers, changes in its dialect and social base. In Russian literary language the gradual strengthening of its popular basis led to the exclusion of a number of Church Slavonicisms from everyday use and their replacement with folk Russian words. As a result, many Church Slavonic words became archaic (examples in § 225), and others even fell out of use altogether (also"if" etc.). In a number of cases, however, of the two parallel forms that existed in the monuments of ancient Russian writing, the Church Slavonic form prevailed (for example, captivity, helmet, enemy, brave), and Russian folk form(respectively full, shell, enemy, good) became an archaism of the folk poetic style, or even completely disappeared from the literary language (so there was time completely replaced by a form of Church Slavonic origin time).

b) Borrowing from other languages

Common basis for all borrowing processes is the interaction between cultures, economic, political, cultural and everyday contacts between peoples speaking different languages. These contacts can be widespread and long-term in conditions of living together in adjacent and even on the same territory, or can be carried out only through certain strata of society and even through individuals. They can be of the nature of mutual influence or unilateral influence; have a peaceful nature or act in the form of confrontation and even military clashes. It is important that no culture developed in isolation, that any national culture is the fruit of both internal development and complex interaction with the cultures of other peoples.

When talking about borrowing, a distinction is made between “material borrowing” and tracing.” In material borrowing (borrowing in the proper sense), not only the meaning (or one of the meanings) of a foreign language lexical unit (or morpheme) is adopted, but also - with varying degrees of approximation - its material exponent. Yes, word sport is a material borrowing from English in Russian: Russian word reproduces not only the meaning of English sport but also its spelling and (of course, only approximately) its sound. In contrast, when tracing, only the meaning of a foreign language unit and its structure (the principle of its organization) are adopted, but not its material exponent: it is as if a foreign language unit is being copied using one’s own, unborrowed material. Yes, Russian. skyscraper- word-formation tracing paper that reproduces the meaning and structure of English. skyscraper(cf. sky"sky", scrape"scrape, scrape" and -er- suffix actor or "acting object"). In Slovenian the verb brati Along with the common Slavic meaning “to take, collect fruits,” it also has the meaning “to read.” This second meaning is a semantic tracing paper influenced by German. lesen, which (like Lat. lego) combines the meanings of “collect” and “read”.

Sometimes one part of a word is borrowed materially, and the other is translated. An example of such a half-calculation is the word TV, in which the first part is international, Greek in origin, and the second is Russian translation of the Latin word visio"vision" (and "vision") or its reflections in modern languages(compare with the same meaning in Ukrainian. TV station, where is the second component from bachiti"to see").

Among material borrowings, it is necessary to distinguish between oral ones, occurring “by ear”, often without taking into account the written image of the word in the source language, and borrowings from written texts or, in any case, taking into account the written appearance of the word. Oral borrowings are especially characteristic of older historical eras - before the widespread use of writing. Later borrowings are usually associated with a more “skilled” mastery of a foreign culture, through a book, a newspaper, or through the conscious study of the corresponding language.

Borrowing can be direct or indirect (second, third, etc. degree), i.e. borrowing a borrowed word. So, in the Russian language there are direct borrowings from German, for example Reichstag, Bundestag etc., but there are borrowings through the Polish language, for example plaque (cf. Polish blacha with the same meaning. Blech"tin"), starch(cf. Polish) krochmal and German Kraftmehl with the same meaning) market (cf. Polish rynek"square, market" and German. Ring"ring, circle") During the Turkish yoke, many “Turcisms” entered the languages ​​of the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula, but a significant part of these words in the Turkish language itself are borrowings from Arabic or Persian. There are loanwords with a very long and complex history, so-called “wandering words”, for example varnish: it came to us from German or Dutch, to these languages ​​- from Italian, but the Italians most likely borrowed it from the Arabs, to whom it came through Iran from India (cf. in Pali, the literary language of the Indian Middle Ages, lakhd"varnish made of red paint and some kind of resin"). The history of such a “wandering word” reproduces the history of the corresponding reality.

Borrowing is an active process: the borrowing language does not passively perceive someone else’s word, but one way or another remakes it and includes it in the network of its internal systemic relationships. The activity of the borrowing language appears most clearly in the processes of tracing. But even with material borrowing, it manifests itself quite clearly.

Firstly, all phonemes in the exponent of the foreign word are replaced by their own phonemes, which are closest in auditory impression; According to the laws of the borrowing language, the syllable structure, type and place of stress, etc. change.

Secondly, the borrowed word is included in the morphological system of the borrowing language, receiving the corresponding grammatical categories. So, system, panorama in Russian the feminine gender, as it seems to us natural for nouns (not denoting persons) ending in -A, although in Greek their prototypes are neuter. If a borrowed noun ends in an atypical way for the Russian language, it falls into the category of unchangeable cases and numbers, but syntactically receives all the forms due to a noun (which is manifested in agreement: minibus, interesting interview, white cockatoo) and one or another grammatical gender (most often neuter). Borrowed adjectives, regardless of how they are formed in the source language, receive in Russian one of the adjective suffixes, usually -n-, and relying endings; verbs also receive all verbal categories up to the specifically Slavic category. Naturally, when borrowing, there is also a loss (or rather, non-perception) of grammatical categories that are alien to the borrowing language.

Thirdly, the borrowed word is included in the system of semantic connections and oppositions present in the borrowing language, it is included in one or another semantic field or, in the case of polysemy, in several fields. Usually this results in a narrowing of the scope of meaning (cf. English. dog"dog" and borrowed Russian. Great Dane"short-haired large dog with a blunt muzzle and strong jaws") or abbreviation of polysemy: a polysemantic word is most often borrowed in one of its meanings (cf. French). depot 1) “deposit, contribution”, 2) “submission, presentation”, 3) “delivery for storage”, 4) “thing given for storage”, 5) “storage, warehouse, depot”, 6) “collection point” , 7) “prisoner’s room at the police station”, 8) “sediment, sediment, soot”, etc. and borrowed Russian. depot, preserving, and then only partially, the fifth meaning of the French word.

After a borrowed word has entered the language, it begins to “live its own life,” independent, as a rule, from the life of its prototype in the source language. Its sound appearance is even closer to the structures typical of a given language.

Many borrowed words are so mastered by the language that they cease to be felt as foreign, and their foreign origin can only be revealed by etymological analysis. Thus, in the Russian language they do not feel like borrowed words at all. ship, bed, notebook, lantern, diploma(came from Greek); hearth, boar, treasury, brick, goods, iron, pencil(from Turkic languages); flattery, prince, hill, bread, hut, artist(old borrowings from Germanic languages, in the last two Russian suffixes were added).

What language elements are borrowed? The main borrowings are, of course, “nominative”, nominative units, and most of all nouns. Borrowing of function words occurs only occasionally. As part of significant words, roots are borrowed and affixes can be borrowed - word-formative and rarely formative, and under favorable conditions such borrowed affixes can become productive. Thus, many Greek and Latin word-forming affixes have become very productive in many languages. During contacts between closely related languages, formative affixes are sometimes borrowed.

Stable phrases are borrowed materially less often; Wed, however, tête-à-tête from fr. tete-a-tete"eye to eye" (lit., "head to head") or somersault from italian salto mortale"deadly jump" and some others. However, stable combinations, proverbs, etc. are often copied, literally translated “in their own words.” Wed. : German aufs Haupt Schlagen= Russian smash completely.

Among borrowed vocabulary, a special class of so-called internationalisms stands out, i.e. words and building elements of the dictionary that have become widespread (in their respective national variants) in many languages ​​of the world. Compare, for example, Russian. revolution, fr. revolution/revolysjfc/, German. Revolution, English revolution, Spanish revolution Italian rivoluzione, Polish rewolucja, Czechs, revolution, Serbian Croatian revolution, Lithuanian revoliucija, Est. revolutsion etc.

What are the sources of internationalisms?

First of all, this is the Greco-Latin fund of roots, word-forming affixes and ready-made words, borrowed in their entirety. Thus, from Greek the international vocabulary was completely included (I give Russian versions) atom, autonomy, automaton, democracy, philosophy, sophist, dialectic, heuristics, thesis, synthesis, analysis and much more, from Latin - nation, republic, matter, nature, principle, federation, individual, progress, university, faculty, subject, object, liberal, radical etc. Next we will name the Greek building elements of international vocabulary: bio-"life-", geo-"earth-", hydro-"water-", demo"people-", anthropo-"human-", television"far-", pyro-A"fire-", stomato- "orto- chrono-"time-", psycho-"soul-", mempa-"four-", micro-"small-", macro-"large-", neo-"new-", paleo-"ancient-", poly-"a lot of-", mono-"one-", auto-"self-", dia-"through, through" pan-"All-", A-"without, not" pseudo-"false" -graphy"description, science of...", -logy"-word, the science of...", -metry"-measurement, measurement" -Phil"-love", -phob"hater" -oid"like", -ism, -ist etc. (cf. biology, biography, autobiography, geology, geography, geometry, hydrography, demography and etc.). Here are the building elements Latin origin: socio-"society-", aqua-"water-", ferro-"iron-", inter-"between", sub-"under", super-"above", ultra-"over, too" quasi-"as if", -al-, -ar-(in Russian always with increments: -aln-, -arn-)- adjective suffixes. Often Latin and Greek elements are combined with each other, for example sociology, socialism, TV(V last word the second part is from Latin). In principle, any element of the ancient Greek and Latin vocabulary can be used to create a new term. This also includes Greek and Latin “winged words” and proverbs translated into national languages.

The second source of internationalisms are national languages. In different historical eras, the most significant contribution to the fund of international vocabulary was made by different peoples. One of the first countries to embark on the path of capitalist development was Italy, and it was also the first center from which internationalism began to spread to other European languages. In particular, these were (I quote Italian and Russian forms) words related to the field of finance: bapsa(originally “money changer’s bench”, an old borrowing from Germanic languages, cf. German. Bank"bench") -> bank, credito -> credit, bilancia(originally "equilibrium") ->balance, soldo -balance; related to construction, architecture: faciata-> facade, galleria -> gallery, balcone -> balcony, salone -> salon; to painting and music: fresca("fresh") - fresco, sonata-> sonata, cantata-» cantata, solo -> solo, names of notes and musical notes; some military terms: battaglione -> battalion and etc.

In the XV1I-XVIII centuries. France is moving to the center of the cultural and political life of Europe, and now the French language is adding to the composition of internationalisms with numerous words related to the field of fashion, social life, home furnishings, clothing, cooking (I quote French and Russian forms): mode -> fashion, dame-> lady, etiquette-» etiquette, compliment-> compliment, boudoire -> boudoir, paletot - coat, bouillon -> broth, omelette -> omelette; adjectives like elegant -> elegant, galant-> gallant, delicat-> delicate, frivol -> frivolous. At the end of the 18th century. These words are supplemented by socio-political terms, largely of Greek-Latin origin, but filled with new content on the basis of the French language in the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary era: revolution-> revolution, constitution -> constitution, patriotisme-> patriotism, reaction-» reaction, terreur-> terror, ideology-> ideologist.

From the end of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. A stream of English words is joining the international vocabulary, in particular (I give English and Russian forms) terms related to socio-political life and economics: meeting-» rally, club-> club, leader-> leader, interview-» interview, reporter -^reporter, import-» import, export-» export, dumping-> dumping, trust-> trust, check-> check; sports terms: sport-» sports, box-> boxing, match-> match, trainer-> coach, record-> record, start-> start, finish-» finish; words related to everyday life: comfort-> comfort, sendee-> service, toast-> toast, flirt-> flirting, jumper-> jumper, jeans-> jeans, bar -> bar their. d.

The contribution of other national languages ​​to international vocabulary was quantitatively smaller for a number of reasons. Some German terms entered it in the form of cripples. This applies to philosophical terms such as Ding an sich-> thing in itself, Weltanschauung -> worldview;

From the Russian language before the October Revolution, only a few words entered the international vocabulary, mainly denoting specifically Russian realities, elements of the Russian landscape, etc.: steppe(-" German steppe, English steppe/step/, fr. steppe), samovar, troika, but also words intelligentsia(-> English intelligentsia/mtelig"entsis/, Swedish. intelligentia Polish inteligencja, Bulgarian intelligentsia), nihilist And nihilism(-> English nihilism/riaiilizm/, German. Nihilismus), although built from Latin and partly Greek (Suf. -ism, -ist) elements, but arose on the basis of Russian culture and Russian history of the 19th century. After the October Revolution, new internationalisms appeared - the so-called “Sovietisms”. The same can be said about words Bolshevik, Bolshevism, Leninism, satellite. In addition, a number of Russian words and expressions from the Soviet era are translated into other languages. Wed: self-criticism->German Selbstkritik, fr. autocritique English self criticism. In some languages ​​the word is also translated advice in its new meaning and the word Soviet: Wed Ukrainian glad, radyansky, Polish rada, radziecki, Estonian noukogu, ndukogude.

Among internationalisms there are words that came from other languages, in particular from Czech (robot), Polish (mazurka), Finnish (sauna), Arabic (algebra, algorithm, alcohol, admiral, harem, zenith, coffee, tariff, figure), from the languages ​​of India (veranda, jungle, pajamas, punch), Chinese (ginseng, tea), Japanese (jiu-jitsu, soy), Persian (jasmine, caravan), Malay (orangutan), African (chimpanzee) etc.

The concept of “lexical internationalism” is, of course, relative. So, the Arabic word kitab"book" did not enter the languages ​​of Europe, but it entered (together with a large number of other Arabic words) into the languages ​​of almost all peoples whose culture was associated with Islam. Word kitab is thus a zonal internationalism represented over a vast territory.

Many of the above internationalisms also remain only zonal, but belong to a different area (European-American).

There are languages ​​that, for one reason or another, have absorbed few borrowed words at all, including few internationalisms. A striking example is Chinese(which, however, itself served as the source of a number of zonal internationalisms of the Far Eastern area). The proportion of international elements in the vocabulary of Icelandic, Finnish, and Hungarian is low. Some internationalisms are traced in them with the help of their formations. So, in modern Icelandic “revolution” - bylting(lit., "coup" or "turning over" - from bylta“turn over”), which is a word-formation tracing paper of the international term (lat. revolutio after all, it literally means “turning in the opposite direction, turning”).

Finally, the differences between national variants of internationalisms concern not only their sound and morphological design (and spelling), the degree of their use in the language, etc., but often also their meaning. Here are some examples: fr. ambition English ambition mean “ambition” (without a negative connotation), “striving for some goal,” and Russian. ambition means “conceit, arrogance, vanity” and is used with condemnation or irony. Fr. partisan, mm.partisan etc. - this is not only a “partisan”, but above all a “supporter, adherent”. Fr. Famille, English family, German Family etc. - this is “family, family”, and for the Russian word surname this meaning is now obsolete. Fr. medecine, German Medizin In addition to the meaning of “medicine”, they also have the meaning of “medicine”, and the English. medicine also “witchcraft”, as well as “talisman, amulet”. Thus, international words, becoming familiar and commonly used, acquire new, often non-international meanings, and sometimes (as happened with the word surname in Russian) lose their international meanings. A layer of “pseudo-internationalisms” is formed - “false friends of the translator”.

At the same time, intensive international communication also leads to the opposite results - to the leveling of partially divergent meanings in internationalisms, to the semantic convergence of national variants of international vocabulary. So, in recent years Russian. alternative, In addition to the old meaning of “the need to choose one of two possible solutions,” it is increasingly used in the meaning of “(opposite) option, another way out,” typical of this word in a number of other languages.

Creation of European writing

In 1904–1906, the so-called Sinai inscriptions dating back to the 13th–14th centuries BC (Fig. 1.8). The signs of these inscriptions were in many ways reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs, but their system represented a complete alphabet.

The creators of this most ancient alphabet were Hyksos- semi-nomadic proto-Semitic people. The Hyksos conquered Egypt and dominated there for several centuries until they were expelled by the strengthened Egyptians. The Hyksos adopted the high Egyptian culture and, on the basis of Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were already sufficiently prepared for this, created their own writing, the basis of which was the alphabet.

Rice. 1.8. Sinai letter, XIII–XIV centuries. BC.

Phoenicians, who carried out extensive trade with many countries, significantly improved the ancient Semitic writing, making it exclusively phonetic.

Greeks became acquainted with Semitic writing back in the second millennium BC and around the 10th century BC they created their own alphabet based on the Phoenician. They introduced designations for vowel sounds that were absent in the Phoenician alphabet.

The origin of the Greek alphabet from the ancient Semitic is confirmed by the surviving names of many letters. For example, the Greek letter "alpha" (α) in the Semitic alphabet corresponds to the letter "aleph"; letter “beta” (β) – “bet”, “gamma” ( γ ) – “gimel”, etc.

Greek writing was at first left-handed, as is the case in Semitic writing. The Greek colonies in Italy transferred their writing there, on the basis of which they were created various options Latin alphabet.

Latin letter- an alphabetic letter used by the ancient Romans. It was preserved by most peoples of Western Europe and formed the basis of the writing systems of many languages ​​of the world. Latin writing goes back to Greek writing.

Actually the Latin alphabet (Latin) developed in the 4th–5th centuries. BC e., the direction of writing is from left to right from the 2nd century. BC.

After the unification of Italy by Rome in the first century BC, a single Latin alphabet was introduced, which has survived without much change to this day. The new alphabet eliminated the additional symbols found in early Latin alphabets, which complicated writing and made reading difficult. The Latin alphabet began to spread in Western Europe and soon became the main alphabet there.

Glagolitic. As has been convincingly proven by recent research by historians, writing among the Eastern Slavs appeared no later than the middle of the 9th century, that is, long before the adoption of Christianity.

Rice. 1.9. Glagolitic letter

Cyrillic. Following the Glagolitic alphabet, a new alphabet began to spread in Rus' - the Cyrillic alphabet. The most ancient monument of the Slavic Kirillovsky The letter is the “inscription of King Samuel” (Fig. 1.10), made on the tombstone. The creators of the new alphabet - Cyrillic - are Greek monks Cyril and Methodius. Initially, this alphabet was compiled for the Moravans, one of the West Slavic peoples, but quickly became almost universally widespread in Slavic countries and replaced the less convenient Glagolitic alphabet.

Cyril and Methodius , brothers from Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki), Slavic educators, creators of the Slavic alphabet, preachers of Christianity. Cyril (c. 827–869 before accepting monasticism in 869 - Constantine the Philosopher), and Methodius (c. 815–885) in 863 were invited from Byzantium by Prince Rostislav to the Great Moravian Empire to introduce worship in the Slavic language. Grafting a new one Slavic alphabet, translated the main liturgical books from Greek into Old Church Slavonic.

Rice. 1.10. "Inscription of King Samuel" written on a tombstone

After the death of Methodius, his disciples, who defended the Slavic Liturgy, were expelled from Moravia and found refuge in Bulgaria. Here a new Slavic alphabet was created based on Greek; to convey the phonetic features of the Slavic language, it was supplemented with letters borrowed from the Glagolitic alphabet. This alphabet, widespread among the eastern and southern Slavs (Fig. 1.11), was later called "Cyrillic"– in honor of Cyril (Constantine).

Rice. 1.11. New alphabet - Cyrillic

Russian alphabet. Like any alphabet, it is a sequential series of letters that convey the sound composition of Russian speech and create the written and printed form of the Russian language). The Russian alphabet dates back to the Cyrillic alphabet and has existed in its modern form since 1918.

The Russian alphabet contains 33 letters, 20 of which represent consonants ( b, p, c, f, d, t, h, s, g, w, h, c, w, g, k, x, m, n, l, r), and 10 – vowel sounds (a, uh, o, s, and, y) or (in certain positions) combinations j+ vowel ( I, e, y, e); letter " th" conveys "and non-syllabic" or j; “ъ” and “ь” do not denote separate sounds.

The Russian alphabet serves as the basis for the alphabets of some other languages.

The national scripts of the various peoples of Europe appeared, with few exceptions, as a result of the adaptation of the Latin alphabet to the Germanic, Romance, Slavic and Finno-Ugric languages? The modern Greek alphabet is the result of the development of the ancient Greek alphabet, which was influenced by the Latin alphabet.

In the history of the alphabet, it is necessary to take into account the fact that the Latin language and Latin writing in ancient times were brought by Roman legionaries and imperial officials to all parts of the vast empire and primarily to those areas that were not Hellenized. In some countries (Gaul, Spain and Romania) Latin supplanted native languages ​​and became the ancestor of modern Romance languages, the most important of which are Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Romanian - all of which adopted the Latin alphabet.

At a later stage, churchmen and missionaries brought the Latin language and Latin script to even more distant places. Catholic Rome was then the beacon of the Western world, the center from which science and religion spread to all parts of western, central and northern Europe. The pope's emissaries, legates or missionaries, traveled throughout Europe, bringing with them the knowledge of their time. Abbeys were something like large seminaries or colleges that continued to carry out the work of education; The monastic system contributed to this to an even greater extent. In times when, for example, Saxon or Norman nobles could not write their names, but used instead the Christian sign of the cross (which is still used by illiterate people) as a symbol of their honesty and evidence of agreement and approval, monasteries were the only centers for the spread of literacy.

Education was in some periods almost exclusively monastic, at most it was led by teachers trained in monasteries. The earliest scribes in the British Isles, for example, were either monks from Ireland or the Continent ( for the most part Italians), or people educated under the guidance of foreign monks. Cathedral schools were also important centers of education.

As a result of all this, the language of the Roman church - the Latin language (using, of course, the Latin alphabet) - remained for many centuries international language European cultural world. At the present time the Latin language is still widely used in scientific writings, as well as in the theological treatises of the Roman Catholic Church, although it has lost its dominant position as a result of the natural development of the last three or four centuries. The favorable conditions in which the Latin alphabet found itself led to the fact that it was adopted by the overwhelming majority of European peoples and adapted to the languages ​​of a wide variety of linguistic groups.

In later times, the main factor expressed by the formula “the alphabet follows religion” gradually gave way to others: “the alphabet follows the flag” and “the alphabet follows trade.” 1 The formula “the alphabet follows religion” is applicable only to the era of feudal formation with its characteristic dominance of dogmatic religious systems: given the natural nature of the economy and the weakness of ethnic ties, it was precisely belonging to one religious denomination that was the main connecting factor in the field of culture, which was also entirely in the hands of the clergy. To the previous era of slavery, when religious beliefs were not dogmatically binding, the formula “the alphabet follows religion” is not applicable. In the era of capitalism, with the growth of the national bourgeoisie of individual countries, the main function of writing becomes to serve the trade and other business interests of the bourgeoisie, as a result of which alphabets acquire a national character and “follow the flag” or the trade interests of a given national bourgeoisie. - Approx. ed..

Adapting any written language to a new language is not an easy task, especially if the new language contains sounds that are not characteristic of the language whose alphabet is borrowed. Due to the need to convey these new sounds, significant difficulties arose that were resolved in a variety of ways.

1) New sounds were transmitted by such signs of borrowed writing, for which there was no application in the new language; for example, the Latin letter c, which turned out to be superfluous, since the letter k was used in all cases to convey the sound k, was introduced into some Slavic alphabets (Polish, Czech, Croatian, etc.) to reflect the sound c, which in Germany and Central Europe is rendered with the Latin letter c if it appears before e or i.

2) Sometimes a combination of two or more letters was used to convey one sound in a new language. An interesting example of this kind can be the methods of transmission in various languages sounds shch and h. In the Russian Cyrillic alphabet there is a special sign for the combination ь; another Slavic language - Czech - uses the combination šč to display this sound; Polish, also a Slavic language, renders this sound with four consonants szcz; German is forced to use seven consonants to transliterate this combination - schtsch. English also has several combinations of two characters, each of which conveys one sound: ch, sh, th, ph.

3) New language, trying to avoid increasing the number of letters, prefers in some cases to use letters that have two or more sound meanings; so, for example, in English the letter c is used for two different sounds (for the sound k in cap, color, cursive and for the sound s in cell, cereal, cider); in addition, this letter is included in the combination ch and replaces k in the combination ck (kk).

4) Some languages ​​use signs taken from other scripts to convey sounds in writing that cannot be expressed in letters of a borrowed alphabet. So, for example, the Anglo-Saxon, which adopted the Latin alphabet, added three new letters to it, one of which (for the sound θ) was borrowed from runic writing 2 In Icelandic this letter is still used today. - Approx. ed..

5) In some cases new signs were invented; for example, additional letters of the early Greek alphabet arose, which appeared in the process of adapting the Semitic alphabet to the Greek language.

6) At a later time, the most common way of conveying sounds that could not be expressed by letters of the borrowed alphabet was the addition of diacritics or other marks placed above or below the letter, to the right or left of the letter or inside it; This group includes the German vowels ü (ue), ä (ae) and ö (oe), cedilla in ç in French, n with tilde (ñ) in Spanish, accents in Italian (e o i) and a large number of signs in Latin-Slavic scripts (Polish, Czech, Croatian, etc.): s, c, e, r, z, and many others. The Latin-Turkish alphabet, introduced into Turkey by a law passed in November 1928 by the Grand National Assembly, and which came into general use throughout Turkey in 1930, contains 29 letters, of which two are vowels (o and u) and three are consonants (c, g and s) are equipped with diacritics, and in one case a reverse distinctive feature is used: the new sound is conveyed by the absence of a dot over the letter i. A whole apparatus of diacritics is used in scientific phonetic alphabets, which accurately take into account all the numerous differences between sounds.

7) In some cases, new letters were invented to represent long vowels (for example, in some African languages); sometimes this was done by placing a colon after the vowel. Letters turned horizontally or vertically were also used for this purpose.

An ideal phonographic alphabet should consist of as many letters as there are phonemes in a given language.
But since writing developed historically and much of the writing reflected outdated traditions, there are no ideal alphabets, but there are more or less rational ones. Among the existing alphabets, two are the most common and graphically convenient: Latin and Russian.
The culture of the young Romano-Germanic barbarians arose from the ruins of the Roman Empire; Latin came to them as the language of the church, science and literature and the Latin alphabet, which corresponded well to the phonetic structure of the Latin language, but did not at all correspond to the phonetics of the Romance and Germanic languages. 24 Latin letters could not graphically display 36-40 phonemes of new European languages. Thus, in the area of ​​consonants, most European languages ​​needed signs for sibilant fricatives and affricates, which were not present in the Latin language. Five Latin vowels (A,e, o, i, i and later at ) did not correspond in any way to the vocalism system of French, English, Danish and other European languages.

Attempts to invent new letters (for example, signs for interdental consonants proposed by the Frankish king Chilperic I) were not successful. Tradition turned out to be stronger than need. Minor alphabetic innovations (such as the French "se cedille" ҫ, German "eszet" β or Danish ø ) didn't save the situation. The Czechs did the most radical and correct thing, without resorting to multi-letter combinations like the Polish ones sz = [w], cz = [h], szcz = [ш], but using superscript diacritics, when they got regular rows of sibilants s, s, z and hissing Š,Č, Ž

Thus, to replenish the alphabet you can:

1. or provide the letters with additional symbols: lower ones, such as cedilla, for example Romanian ţ, Ş, or cross, for example Danish ø, Polish t , or upper, for example Czech Š,Č, Ž .
2. or use ligatures, for example German β (“esset”);
3. or use combinations of several letters to convey one sound, for example German ch = [X], sch = [w].

As an illustration of the difficulties and methods of making up for the deficiency of the Latin alphabet for the peoples who use it, the following table can serve, which shows how the same phoneme is conveyed by different letters.

In addition, thanks to the same Latin tradition, the same letter in languages ​​using the Latin alphabet is used to designate different phonemes, for example:

The Russian alphabet does not have these shortcomings. He was “lucky” in history: the inventors of the Slavic alphabets not only applied the Greek alphabet to the Slavic languages, but radically reworked it, and not only in the style of letters, but also in relation to the phonemic composition of the Slavic languages; aspirated consonants, unusual for Slavic languages, were excluded, but consonant letters were created for affricates ts, s, h and for vowels b, ъ, A, and, ђ , s. The adaptation of this alphabet to the Russian language proceeded gradually and received its legal form in two legislative acts: in the personal proofreading of Peter the Great (1710) and in the decree of Soviet power (1917). Letter ratio good alphabet and the composition of the phonemes of a language can be shown using the example of the Russian alphabet.

Reformatsky A.A. Introduction to Linguistics / Ed. V.A. Vinogradova. - M., 1996.