【Kings and Generals】印歐語系的演變-古代文明紀錄片

Languages constantly change and adapt, but in the case of Portuguese, Hindi, Farsi, Latin, Greek, English, Polish and many others, there is only one common ancestor which binds them all into a single family. Welcome to the first video on the evolution of Indo-European languages. Languages to this day remain an essential part of our everyday life, as they help us communicate, express ourselves and define our identity. Over the years, thousands of languages have gone extinct, and yet there are still over 7,100 of them divided into 442 families. The largest among them, spoken by 3.2 billion people, or 46% of the world's population, is the Indo-European language family. The story begins with the incredibly influential Yamnaya culture at around 4000 BC in the Pontic steppe of modern-day Ukraine. Its people were semi-nomadic pastoralists who domesticated cattle, dogs and, above all, horses. This is where the oldest discovered wheels were uncovered, as well as burial sites that show one of the earliest forms of ownership. Compared to the widespread communal tombs we find in most societies, the Yamnaya burial pits belonged to clans, families or even individuals, sometimes buried with entire wagons. Combined with the fact that they were one of the first Bronze Age cultures, this allowed the Yamnaya to spread across Eurasia on their horses. This expansion was swift and aggressive. Rather than developing their own colonies, they interbred with the local Neolithic cultures, spreading their genes, as well as their proto-Indo-European language. In time, the speakers of this language became isolated from each other, and regional dialects developed into their own daughter languages, a process that continues to this day. Using the comparative method, linguists and archaeologists were able to reconstruct the original ancestor vocabulary, despite the fact that it was never written down. In fact, the words for writing, sea and iron are vastly different across the many Indo-European languages, since those concepts arose after the original migration. However, the words that were commonly used by the Yamnaya people were nearly identical across Latin, Germanic, Ancient Greek, Hittite, Slavonic, Avestan and Sanskrit. On your screen, you can see how the cognate words for family remained mostly the same across Indo-European sister languages, including words for family members – mother, father, brother, sister. This is also the case for various verbs describing actions that were fundamental to the lifestyle of the Yamnaya people, like sew, cloth, eat, drink, carry, give, die. The same can be said about various objects, animals and particularly the word wine, among them tooth, bone, eye, night, god, water, fire, tree, new, young, pig, sheep, beaver, honey, brew, wine. One of the very first things we learn in a new language are the pronouns and basic numbers, and yet again we see that both are shared throughout the various different cultures – I, you, we, as well as the numbers from 1 to 10. Languages and pronunciations changed as they grew apart and interacted with each other, as well as other languages outside the Indo-European family, adding and exporting loan words, but the writing that these various cultures developed hints at their shared origin. The comparisons between the Greek god Zeus and Roman god Jupiter are often discussed, but in reality, both of these gods are adaptions of the original Yamnaya god Paquunos, the striker, a concept also shared in Hittite culture as Tahuna, in the Thracian tribes as Xipothiridos, while Dacian tribes knew him as Gebelaisis, Albanian culture groups knew him as Perendi, Baltic mythology has Paquunus, Slavic people know him as Perun, Celtic tribes as Taranis, while the Norse people split the singular concept into Thor and Odin. Anglo-Saxon mythology knew him as Thunor, and Hindu people initially believed that Indra was the king of heaven and thunder. Additionally, the very concept of an overarching conflict between rain and the sun, water and fire, man versus beast, most likely arose from the Proto-Indo-European legends. While it is easier to imagine the various subgroups of the Proto-Indo-Europeans as separate branches, it is more accurate to view them as waves that constantly moved and interacted with each other and others. That being said, the first major branch we will look at is Italic, a language that spread alongside Celtic until the Alps split the two around 1500 BC. By 300 BC, the language was fighting for its survival against its Celtic, Illyrian and Greek neighbors, who dominated the north and even eliminated the Sicil branch in Sicily, with only Facilian, Umbrian, Oscan and Venetic remaining. And then suddenly the Roman Republic rose from obscurity and spread the Latin language across the Mediterranean and Western Europe like wildfire, obliterating all other Italic and most of the Celtic languages in the process. The Latin language itself had two variants, Classical Latin, which was the formal language, and Vulgar Latin, which Cicero describes as the speech of the masses. A standardized and universal language in the empire, one that brought status and economic opportunity, was one of the tools that allowed the Romans to establish themselves as a military and cultural powerhouse. However, due to the size of the empire, many regions began developing a distinct dialect, unique to the province, and when Rome fell, those dialects evolved into their own languages, ushering in the dawn of the Romance languages. To simplify what could be its own video, each of these languages underwent significant changes throughout the Middle Ages, as various feudal states and dynasties struggled for power internally and externally. This resulted in dozens of dialects within each language, but if we draw a line between any two points between these countries, the further you go, the harder it is to understand the local language. But as the Middle Ages came to a close and states became more centralised, rulers selected the dialect of their hometown and emphasised its use, a process mirrored in every other branch. The Castilian kings chose Castilian as the foundation for Spanish, discouraging the use of Galician, Leonese, Basque and Catalan, and eliminating Mesoarabic. This process was finalised by the so-called Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, who understood the efficiency of using just one language to rule their realm. The unification of Italy occurred much later, but a similar process ensued after the Tuscan dialect was chosen as the foundation of Italian. Modern-day Italy could give us a glimpse of what other countries looked like, as there are numerous local dialects with varying degrees of differences between them. For example, an Italian from Florence is more likely to understand a person speaking in Spanish rather than another Italian from Sicily. Nationalism, education and literature are always major drivers of standardisation and helped shape languages within a certain state, but given enough time and isolation, speech can alter dramatically, even if the writing system remains the same. That is exactly what we see in the colonies of the Romance languages, Mexico, Quebec and Brazil all share the languages of their founders, but they also developed their own unique features. 我們將評估下一個主要領域的主要領域是葡萄牙語,它在三世紀三十年代到達了北方的俄羅斯。 它的發展的第一階段看到了葡萄牙語作為本土語言的主要語言,並且擁有了自己的寫法,我們現在稱之為Linear B. 但在三世紀二十年代中,葡萄牙文化的崩塌並無人能阻止。 同樣的時間,葡萄牙文化的創造者創立了一個基於菲尼西亞文化的文字,並且添加了幾個字。 該文字深深影響了拉丁語、希臘語、葡萄牙語和葡萄牙文化的文字。 擁有了第一種寫法的系統,葡萄牙人佔領了法國、意大利、亞利桑那和整個黑海的海岸。 但儘管使用了文字,競爭語言競爭為主導。 如同您所猜測,這場競爭主要是在葡萄牙和斯巴特的城市地區之間發生的。 儘管斯巴特和土耳其語言在大陸、克里特和希臘的受歡迎,並且在亞太地區獲得軍事勝利, 但伊朗語語言獲得了文化戰爭,多虧了彭博、佩託、索克提斯、亞利桑那和其他人的作品。 因此,經典語言成為了德國文化的標誌,並且會繼續貢獻許多孤獨的語言在今天許多其他語言中存在。 這個故事中的下一個重要人物是偉大的亞歷山多, 他將普遍的普通語言叫做科威尼和他的獲得,並且堅定地在俄羅斯、亞利桑那、埃及和印度建立了。 這是新基督教所寫的第一種語言。 儘管歷代受到羅馬的管治,語言的榮譽和深刻的寫法讓它避免了克里特的命運, 但當西方崩潰時,科威尼語變成了中古語言,是在東方的羅馬帝國中說的語言。 此時,語言的經典和說法之間有著巨大的差異, 其前面主要是在法庭和寫作中使用。 共產主義的崩潰引起了許多事件,其中之一是這兩種語言的變化。 說成的中古語言變成了民族語言,也就是說成的科威尼語, 並且加入了一些說成語言的元素,但主要與傳統語言相似。 這兩種語言之間的巨大差異使日常交易非常混亂, 這個問題持續了幾十年,直到1976年它終於解決了, 當時的民族語言成為了今天仍然使用的官方語言。 對於土耳其語言而言,它是由僅僅幾百名長者所說的, 並預期將在未來幾年間消滅。 它花了非常長的時間讓普魯多德語語語言在北歐小地區延伸, 此時它已經分成了三種獨特的語言,東,西,和北。 我們很少知道這個區域的最初階段, 因為它使用了一種儒家的書寫系統,通常是在樹上描繪的。 但是在羅馬帝國倒塌後,東方語言的最著名語言在歐洲各地都散播了。 古董是非常有影響力的,並且在島嶼上留下了持續的印象, 儘管事實上它將會被消滅。 我們現在稱之為古董語言,也是由於歐洲時代而產生的。 它會創造西和東的其他種族, 從此以現代的伊斯蘭文,俄語,然後丹麥和瑞典語語言下降。 要注意的是伊斯蘭文是一個非常保守的語言, 它與古董語言的相似之處更多, 再次提到地緣的重要角色。 在第一世紀以來, 基督教語言是西和中東歐洲的主流語言, 主要是由於埃爾茨基督教文化而產生的。 當埃爾茨基督教文化散播後,它被分成了各種其他形式, 例如勒潘帝,基督派語言,高爾什語言,格拉西語言和其他。 然而,羅馬帝國的崛起將會導致所有基督教語言的消滅。 幾個存活的語言者移民到英國島嶼, 形成了所謂的島嶼聯邦語言, 並且分成了高爾什語言, 包含了伊拉克語言,西班牙語言和孟加拉語言, 以及波多默語語言,包含了英國語言,康奈爾語言和俄語語言。 儘管兩者相互相互連接, 兩個群體並不相互理解。 每一個語言都試圖承受 許多國家的敏感刑罰和壓迫。 總共有接近一億個基督語語言的語言者, 其中有一半是俄語語言。 在19世紀, 康奈爾很接近與匹克帝國和克林頓帝國的滅亡, 但自此而來, 現在擁有幾百個語言者。 基督語語語群 是一個明顯的例子, 如何政治可以在非常有影響力的方式下影響文化。 最後我們有西班牙語語語言, 它是以森林,山,廣泛的河流和英文頻道 與彼此之間的分隔範圍向地區相互連接。 自然而然,這將會分成四個著名的範疇, Old High German, Old Low German, Old Low Franconian, and Anglo-Frisian, which will inevitably form German, Dutch, and English. The evolution, development, and spread of these languages are very interesting, but extends far beyond the scope of this video, so we'll just share one interesting fact about each of them. The Gutenberg printing press and the Luther Bible set the foundation of a standardized German language, which was essential in the later unification process. When we look at places like Iceland, Albania, or Sardinia, it is easy to understand why those languages are conservative. Yet, despite having few natural defenses and being surrounded by more powerful states, the Dutch language is incredibly conservative. English is a member of the Germanic language family, yet only 26% of its vocabulary is Germanic, 29% of it is French, and 29% is Latin. Alongside these four major branches, there are several others, which we would love to cover in future videos, including Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Albanian, not to mention the now extinct Anatolian, Phrygian, Dacian, and Tocharian. Each of these language groups has a fascinating story as it changed throughout the years and under different regimes. The languages spread around the world, while other language groups left a lasting impact on them, particularly Arabic, Turkic, and Hungarian. Like this video and share it with your friends if you want us to delve deeper into the field of historical linguistics, and tell us which branch or language family deserves an entire video with more details. Our videos would be impossible without our kind patrons and youtube channel members, whose ranks you can join via the links in the description to know our schedule, get early access to our videos, access our discord, and much more. This is the Kings and Generals channel, and we will catch you on the next one.