Article Russian national language. Russian language is the national language of the Russian people

National language- a means of written and oral communication of the nation. Along with the integrity of the territory, economic life and mental make-up language is a leading indicator of the historical community of people, which is usually called the term “nation”. National language- a historical category, it is formed during the formation of a nation, its development from a nationality.

Russian National language By family ties, which arose and was formed in the process historical development, belongs to the Slavic group of the Indo-European family of languages. In this group stand out three subgroups:

- East Slavic(Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian),

- West Slavic(Czech, Slovak, Polish, Kashubian, Serbo-Sorbian and dead Polabian languages),

- South Slavic(Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Slovenian, Ruthenian and dead Old Church Slavonic languages).

In terms of prevalence, Slavic languages ​​rank fifth in the world (after Chinese, Indian, Germanic and Romance languages). Today they are spoken by 280 million people. Russian literary language in terms of the number of speakers it dominates among others Slavic languages. Along with English, French, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic languages it is recognized as the official and working language of the United Nations. More than 250 million people study the modern Russian literary language in almost 100 countries of the world.

Slavic languages ​​come from a single proto-Slavic language, separated from the base Indo-European language long before our era. During the period of the existence of a single Proto-Slavic language, the main features inherent in all Slavic languages ​​developed. Around the VI-VII centuries. n. e. Proto-Slavic unity disintegrated, and East Slavs began to use a relatively unified East Slavic (Old Russian or language Kievan Rus) tongue. As feudal fragmentation intensified and the overthrow Tatar-Mongol yoke Great Russian, Little Russian and Belarusian nationalities were formed, and by the 14th-15th centuries the language of the Great Russian nationality was formed with the Rostov-Suzdal and Vladimir dialects at its core.

The Russian national language begins to take shape in the 17th century. century in connection with the development of capitalist relations and the development of the Russian people into a nation. phonetic system, grammatical structure and the basic vocabulary of the Russian national language is inherited from the language of the Great Russian people, which was formed as a result of the interaction of the Northern Great Russian and Southern Great Russian dialects. Moscow, located at the junction of the south and north of the European part of Russia, has become the center of this interaction. It was the Moscow business vernacular that had a significant influence on the development of the national language. During the period of its formation, firstly, the development of new dialectal features in dialects stops, although the old dialectal features turn out to be very stable. Secondly, the influence is weakened Church Slavonic language. Thirdly, a literary language of a democratic type is developing, based on the traditions of the language of business Moscow.

An important stage in the development of the Russian national language was XVIII century . The Slavic-Russian language - the Russian language with a large share of Old Church Slavonic and Church Slavonic elements - was then used in fiction, official business documents, and scientific treatises. Required democratization of language, introducing living elements into its structure colloquial speech merchants, service people, clergy and literate peasants. In society there is an understanding of the role of the Russian language as distinctive feature people, the desire to support their authority, to prove their worth as a means of communication, education, science and art. Played a significant role in this M. V. Lomonosov. He creates a “Russian Grammar”, which has theoretical (organization of the literary language) and practical (development of rules for the use of its elements) significance. “All sciences,” he explains, “have a need for grammar. Oratorio is stupid, poetry is tongue-tied, philosophy is unfounded, history is incomprehensible, jurisprudence without grammar is dubious.”

Lomonosov pointed out two features of the Russian language that made it one of the most important world languages ​​- “the vastness of the places where it dominates” and “its own space and contentment.” Echoes him and VC. Trediakovsky, calling his article on eloquence “A Word about rich, varied, skillful and dissimilar orbit.” In the era of Peter the Great, due to the appearance in Russia of many new objects and phenomena, the vocabulary of the Russian language was updated and enriched. This flow was so huge that even a decree was needed Peter I, normalizing the use of borrowings. By the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century. preferable use of native Russian elements in oral and writing becomes a sign of respect for the Russian nation, and L.N.’s favorite heroes. Tolstoy, those living at this time (“War and Peace”) mostly speak their native language. The Karamzin period in the development of the Russian national language is characterized by the struggle for the establishment of a single language norm in it. At the same time N.M. Karamzin and its supporters believed that it was necessary to focus on European languages ​​(French), free the Russian language from the influence of Church Slavonic speech, create new words, expand the semantics of already used words in order to denote new objects, phenomena, processes appearing in the life of society (mainly secular) . Opponent N.M. Karamzin became the Slavophile A.S. Shishkov, who believed that the Old Church Slavonic language should become the basis of the Russian national language.

Dispute about language between Slavophiles and Westerners was brilliantly resolved in the works of great Russian writers early XIX centuries. A.S. Griboyedov and I.A. Krylov showed the inexhaustible possibilities of lively spoken language, the originality and richness of Russian folklore.

The creator of the national Russian language was A.S. Pushkin. In poetry and prose, the main thing, in his opinion, is “a sense of proportionality and conformity” - any element will be appropriate if it accurately conveys a thought or feeling. By the first decades of the 19th century. the formation of the Russian national language was completed. However, the process of processing the national language continues in order to create unified grammatical, lexical, spelling and spelling standards, numerous dictionaries are published, the largest of which is a four-volume “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” by V.I. Dalia.

After October revolution Important changes are taking place in the Russian language. Firstly, a huge layer of secular and religious vocabulary that was very relevant before the revolution is “dying out.” New power destroys objects, phenomena, processes, and at the same time the words that designate them disappear: monarch, gendarme, policeman, privat-docent, lackey, heir to the throne, seminary, sexton, eucharist, etc. Millions of believing Russians cannot use Christian terminology without fear (Ascension, Mother of God, Savior, Dormition, etc.), and these words live among the people secretly, latently, awaiting the hour of their rebirth.

On the other hand, a huge number of new words appear (often these are complex abbreviations) reflecting changes in politics and economics: food tax, cultural education, educational program, Soviets, Kolchakite, security officer, party contributions, collective farm, Council of People's Commissars, commander, food appropriation system, etc.

Researchers note that one of the most striking distinctive features of the Russian language of the Soviet period is interference of the opposed, renaming of the denotation(Latin denotare - to mark, designate) - an object or phenomenon. The essence of the interference of the opposed is that two opposed lexical systems are formed, positively and negatively characterizing the same phenomena that exist on opposite sides of the barricades, in the world of capitalism and in the world of socialism: scouts and spies, liberation soldiers and occupiers, partisans and terrorists.

Among the features of the language post-Soviet period the most important are: replenishment of the vocabulary with new elements (borrowed vocabulary); the return to use of words that seemed to have lost such an opportunity forever (religious vocabulary); the emergence of new meanings for well-known words; the disappearance, along with objects and phenomena, of words that characterize Soviet reality; destruction of the system formed as a result of the interference of the opposite.

Language is created by the people and serves them from generation to generation. In its development, a language goes through several stages and depends on the degree of development of the ethnos (Greek ethnos - people). At an early stage, a tribal language is formed, then a national language and, finally, a national one.

The national language is formed on the basis of the national language, which ensures its relative stability. It is the result of the process of formation of a nation and at the same time a prerequisite and condition for its formation.

By its nature, the national language is heterogeneous. This is explained by the heterogeneity of the ethnic group itself as a community of people. Firstly, people unite based on territoriality and place of residence. As a means of communication, rural residents use a dialect, one of the varieties of the national language. A dialect, as a rule, is a collection of smaller units - dialects, which have common linguistic features and serve as a means of communication for residents of nearby villages and hamlets. Territorial dialects have their own characteristics, which are found at all levels of the language: in sound structure, vocabulary, morphology, syntax, word formation. The dialect exists only in oral form.

The presence of dialects is the result of feudal fragmentation during the formation of Ancient Rus', then the Russian state. In the era of capitalism, despite the expansion of contacts between speakers of different dialects and the formation of a national language, territorial dialects are preserved, although they undergo some changes. In the 20th century, especially in the second half, in connection with the development of the media (print, radio, cinema, television, intervision), there is a process of degradation of dialects, their disappearance. The study of dialects is of interest:

– from a historical point of view: dialects retain archaic features that are not reflected in the literary language;

– from the point of view of the formation of a literary language: on the basis of which main dialect and then the national language was the literary language formed; what features of other dialects does it borrow; how the literary language subsequently influences dialects and how dialects influence the literary language.

Secondly, The unification of people is facilitated by social reasons: common profession, occupation, interests, social status. For such societies, the means of communication is the social dialect. Since the social dialect has many varieties, in scientific literature the terms are also used to name them jargon, argot.

Jargon is the speech of social and professional groups of people. It is used by sailors, electronics engineers, computer scientists, athletes, actors, and students. Unlike territorial dialects, jargon does not have phonetic and grammatical features unique to it. Jargon is characterized by the presence of specific vocabulary and phraseology.

Slang vocabulary is rethought, abbreviated, phonetically modified words of the Russian language and borrowed from other languages, especially English. For example: storehouse -"shop", cigarette butt -"electric train" pricha –"hairstyle", deflection –"sycophancy" abita –"enrollee", aiz –"eye", alconaut –"alcoholic", Amerisa –"America".

Some slang words and set expressions are becoming widespread and are used to make speech expressive. For example: homeless person, homeless person, breaker, green, money, biker, party, chaos, reach the handle, take it to the gun. Individual words and phrases are currently not perceived as slang, since they have long been included in the literary language and are colloquial or neutral. For example: cheat sheet, mood, rocker, snickers, be on fire.

Sometimes as a synonym for the word jargon the word is used Argo. So, for example, they talk about student, school slang, meaning jargon.

The main purpose of argot is to make speech incomprehensible to strangers. The lower classes of society are primarily interested in this: thieves, swindlers, cheaters. There was also professional argot. It helped artisans (tailors, tinsmiths, saddlers...), as well as merchants (peddlers who sold small goods by peddling and peddling in small towns, villages, villages) when talking with their own people, to hide the secrets of their craft and the secrets of their business from outsiders.

IN AND. Dahl in the first volume " Explanatory dictionary» in an article with the title word Afenya, Ofenya gives a sample of the argot speech of traders: The dust will drip, the dim light will begin to fade, the rustlings will start smoking loosely. This means: It's time to sleep, it's midnight, the roosters will start crowing soon.

In addition to territorial and social dialects, the national language includes vernacular.

Vernacular speech is one of the forms of the national Russian language, which does not have its own signs of systemic organization and is characterized by a set of linguistic forms that violate the norms of the literary language. Speakers of the vernacular (city dwellers with a low level of education) are not aware of such a violation of norms; they do not grasp or understand the difference between non-literary and literary forms.

The following are considered colloquial:

– in phonetics: driver, put, sentence; ridiculitis, colidor, rezetka, colander;

– in morphology: my callus, with jam, doing, on the beach, driver, without a coat, running, lying down, lying down;

– in vocabulary: plinth instead of pedestal, semi-clinic instead of clinic.

Vernacular speech, like territorial and social dialects, has only an oral form.

Language - the most important means human communication, cognition and creative exploration of the surrounding reality.

Russian language is the national language of the Russian people. The Russian national language developed in the 16th-17th centuries. in connection with the formation of the Moscow State. It was based on Moscow and adjacent local dialects. The further development of the Russian national language is associated with its normalization and formation in the 18th-19th centuries. literary language. The literary language combined the features of northern and southern dialects: in the phonetic system, the consonants corresponded to the consonants of the northern dialects, and the vowels were closer to the pronunciation in the southern dialects; the vocabulary has more overlaps with northern dialects (for example, rooster, but not roars, wolf, but not Biryuk).

Old Church Slavonic had a significant influence on the formation of the Russian national language. His influence on the Russian language was undoubtedly beneficial: this is how borrowings entered the Russian literary language temper, drag out, ignoramus, head, etc., Russian participles with suffixes -ach (-yach) were replaced by Old Slavonic participles with suffixes -ash (-box) (burning instead of hot).

In the course of its formation and development, the Russian national language borrowed and continues to borrow elements from other, unrelated languages, such as, for example, French, German, English, etc.

The national Russian language is a complex phenomenon, heterogeneous in its composition. And this is understandable: after all, it is used by people who differ in their social status, occupation, place of birth and residence, age, gender, level of culture, etc. All these differences between people are reflected in language. Therefore, language exists in several varieties:

· Territorial dialects, as a local variety of language, exist in oral form and serve mainly for everyday communication (for example, bustle, instead of drizzle, rukoternik, instead of towel and etc.).

· Vernacular- a variety of language used in the speech of poorly educated native speakers (for example, TV set, instead of TV, play instead of play, you bake, instead of you bake and etc.).

· Professional jargons is a type of language that is used in the speech of people of the same profession (for example, spark, instead of spark from the drivers, batten down the hatches, instead of close the sailors say, training aircraft called ladybug pilots, etc.).

· Social jargons use socially isolated groups of people in their speech (for example, spur, stepyokha- from student jargon, ancestors, horse racing- from youth slang, etc.).

· Territorial dialects, professional and social jargons, colloquialisms are included as component into the national Russian language, but the basis, the highest form of existence of the national language is literary language. He serves various areas human activity: politics, legislation, culture, art, office work, everyday communication.

One of the main signs of literary language - normalization. The standardization of the literary language lies in the fact that the meaning and use of words, pronunciation, spelling and education grammatical forms obey the generally accepted pattern - the norm. Along with normalization, the literary language has the following characteristics:

Resilience (stability);

Mandatory for all native speakers;

Processing;

Availability of functional styles;

Availability of oral and written form.

In accordance with the “Law on the Languages ​​of the Peoples of Russia”, the Russian language is the main means of interethnic communication between peoples Russian Federation, in accordance with established historical and cultural traditions, has the status state language throughout Russia.

Functions of the Russian language as the state language:

1. Russian is the language in which the highest legislative bodies of the Russian Federation work.

2. The texts of laws and other legal acts are published in Russian.

3. Russian as a state language is studied in secondary, secondary vocational and higher educational institutions.

4. Russian is the language of the media.

5. Russian is the language of communication in the fields of industry, transport, communications, services and commercial activities.

On the territory of Russia with its multinational population, the “Law on the Languages ​​of the Peoples of Russia” guarantees and ensures, along with the functioning of the Russian language as the state language, the creation of conditions for the development of the state languages ​​of the republics of the Russian Federation, for the preservation and development of the languages ​​of small peoples and ethnic groups.

The Russian language is not only the language of interethnic communication between the peoples of Russia, but also the peoples of the former CIS.

The functions of the Russian language are not limited to life within the nation and Russian state, but also cover international spheres of communication, since Russian is one of the world languages. World languages ​​are those that are means of interstate and international communication.

The Russian language has become one of the world languages ​​since the middle of the 20th century. The number of people who speak Russian to one degree or another now exceeds half a billion people. The Russian language meets all the requirements for world languages:

• The Russian language is a means of communication among scientists, one of the languages ​​of science.
• Russian is studied as a foreign language in many countries around the world.
• Russian is the working language of such international organizations as the UN, UNESCO, etc.

Russian language is the language of the richest fiction, whose global significance is exceptionally great.

Its sound means of expression and artistic possibilities were sung by many famous people. It was spoken by Pushkin, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dobrolyubov, Chernyshevsky... and more than 260 million people continue to speak it. It arose not so long ago as the rest of its “brothers”, but has already rich history. We are talking, of course, about the Russian language, the history of the emergence and development of which we will tell today.

Origin: versions of several scientists

According to a legend that exists in India, seven white teachers can be considered the “fathers” of the Russian language. In ancient times, they came from the cold North (the Himalaya region) and gave people Sanskrit, an ancient literary language that became widespread in India from the 1st century. BC - thereby laying the foundation of Brahmanism, from which Buddhism was later born. Many believe that this North at that time was one of the regions of Russia, which is why modern Hindus often go there as pilgrims .

However, what does Sanskrit have to do with the Russian language?

According to the theory of ethnographer Natalya Guseva, who wrote more than 150 scientific works According to the history and religion of India, many Sanskrit words completely coincide with Russian ones. But why did she even come to this conclusion? Once, on a tourist trip along the northern rivers of Russia, Guseva accompanied a respected scientist from India. While communicating with residents of local villages, the Indian suddenly burst into tears and refused the services of an interpreter. Seeing the puzzled looks, he replied that he was very happy to hear his native Sanskrit. Natalya Guseva was very interested in this case, so she decided to devote her whole life to studying the Russian language and Sanskrit.

By the way, the famous philologist Alexander Dragunkin fully supports his colleague and claims that great language The Russian people actually come from a simpler one - Sanskrit, which has fewer word-formation forms, and its writing is nothing more than Slavic runes slightly modified by the Hindus.

Text in Sanskrit.
Source: Wikimedia.org

According to another version, which is approved and accepted by most philologists, people about 2.6 million years ago (the time of the appearance of the first man) were simply forced to learn to communicate with each other in the course of collective work. However, in those days the population was extremely small, so individuals spoke the same language. Thousands of years later, a migration of peoples occurred: the DNA got mixed up and changed, and the tribes became isolated from each other, and so many appeared different languages, which differed from each other in form and word formation. Later, there was a need for science that described new achievements and things invented by man.

As a result of this evolution, so-called matrices - linguistic pictures of the world - arose in people's heads. The linguist Georgy Gachev studied these matrices; at one time he studied more than 30 of them. According to his theory, the Germans were very attached to their home, and this is how the image of a typical German-speaking person was formed - organized and thrifty. And the mentality of the Russian speaker came from the image of the road and the path, because In ancient times, Russian-speaking people traveled a lot.

The birth and development of the Russian language

Let's bring a little specificity to our article and talk in more detail about the birth and formation of our native and great Russian language. To do this, let's go back to India of the 3rd millennium BC. At that time, among the Indo-European languages, the Proto-Slavic dialect stood out, which a thousand years later became the Proto-Slavic language. In the VI-VII centuries. already n. e. it was divided into several groups: eastern, western and southern (the Russian language is usually classified as eastern). In the 9th century. (moment of formation of Kievan Rus) Old Russian language reached its maximum development. At the same time, two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, invented the first Slavic alphabet and alphabet based on the Greek letter.

However, the creators Slavic writing they did not limit themselves only to the alphabet: they translated and wrote down gospel sermons, parables, liturgical texts and apostolic epistles; and also spent about three and a half years educating the Slavs in Moravia (the historical region of the Czech Republic).

Thanks to the work and knowledge of the enlightenment brothers, the Slavic language began to develop rapidly. By that time, in terms of popularity, it could already be compared with Greek and Latin, which, by the way, also belong to the Indo-European language family.

Division of language and normalization of writing

Then came the era of feudalism, and the Polish-Lithuanian conquests in the XIII-XIV centuries. divided the language into three groups: Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, as well as some intermediate dialects. By the way, until the 16th century. Russian was greatly influenced by the other two – Belarusian and Ukrainian and was called “prosta mova”.

In the 16th century Muscovite Rus' decided to normalize the written language of the Russian language, and it was then that they introduced the predominance of coordinating connections in sentences and the frequent use of conjunctions “yes”, “and”, “a”. Also, the declension of nouns became similar to the modern one, and the basis of the literary language became the features characteristic of modern Moscow speech: “akanie”, the consonant “g”, the endings “ovo” and “evo”.

Russian language in the 18th century.

The Petrine era greatly influenced Russian speech. It was at this time that our language freed itself from the tutelage of the church, and in 1708 the alphabet was reformed and made similar to the European one.

“Geometry Slavonic Land Measurement” is the first secular publication printed after the reform of the Russian alphabet in 1708.

Russian language is the largest language in the world. In terms of the number of people speaking it, it ranks 5th after Chinese, English, Hindi and Spanish.

Origin

Slavic languages, to which Russian belongs, belong to the Indo-European language branch.

At the end of the 3rd – beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. The Proto-Slavic language, which is the basis for the Slavic languages, separated from the Indo-European family. In the X – XI centuries. The Proto-Slavic language was divided into 3 groups of languages: West Slavic (Czech, Slovak arose from it), South Slavic (developed into Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian) and East Slavic.

During the period of feudal fragmentation, which contributed to the formation of regional dialects, and the Tatar-Mongol yoke, three emerged from the East Slavic independent language: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian. Thus, the Russian language belongs to the East Slavic (Old Russian) subgroup of the Slavic group of the Indo-European language branch.

History of development

During the era of Muscovite Rus', the Middle Russian dialect arose, the main role in the formation of which belonged to Moscow, which introduced the characteristic “akan”, and the reduction of unstressed vowels, and a number of other metamorphoses. The Moscow dialect becomes the basis of the Russian national language. However, a unified literary language had not yet emerged at that time.

In the XVIII–XIX centuries. Special scientific, military, and naval vocabulary received rapid development, which was the reason for the appearance of borrowed words, which often clogged and burdened native language. There was a growing need to develop a unified Russian language, which took place in the struggle of literary and political movements. The great genius M.V. Lomonosov in his theory of “three” established a connection between the subject of presentation and the genre. Thus, odes should be written in a “high” style, plays and prose works in a “medium” style, and comedies in a “low” style. A.S. Pushkin in his reform expanded the possibilities of using the “middle” style, which now became suitable for ode, tragedy, and elegy. It is with language reform The history of the great poet dates back to the modern Russian literary language.

The emergence of Sovietism and various abbreviations (prodrazverstka, people's commissar) are associated with the structure of socialism.

The modern Russian language is characterized by an increase in the number of special vocabulary, which was a consequence of scientific and technological progress. At the end of XX - beginning of XXI centuries The lion's share of foreign words enters our language from English.

The complex relationships between the various layers of the Russian language, as well as the influence of borrowings and new words on it, have led to the development of synonymy, which makes our language truly rich.