The “genetic traits” that language relatives share
“Genetic relationships between languages” series: Part 3
Previously in this series, we saw that languages are genetically related to each other when they share common ancestors and belong to the same language families.
We also discussed the concept that, among language “relatives,” we can distinguish between “close relatives” and “distant relatives” by considering how recently in history these languages shared a common ancestor.
This is just like how, among biological relatives, cousins who share the same grandparents are genetically closer to each other than cousins who share the same great-great-grandparents.
Language relatives that are genetically closer to each other share more “genetic traits” than language relatives that are more genetically distant from each other.
When we talk about genetic traits shared by human relatives, we are mostly talking about physical features, like height or face shape.
When it comes to genetic traits shared by language relatives, we are talking about traits of grammar, vocabulary, and sounds.
Let’s look at the modern language relatives English, German, and Swedish again.
As we saw previously, these languages are close relatives within the big “Indo-European Language Family” because they share a relatively recent common ancestor within a branch of the family called “Germanic Languages.”
These “modern language close relatives” share many inherited traits from their common ancestor in terms of their vocabulary, grammar, and sounds.
Even though these modern languages have developed separately within the “Germanic” branch since their common ancestor and are now different languages, many of the common genetic traits they share are still easily identifiable.
This is like how cousins with the same grandparents often still look alike in some ways.
We can look at specific examples of the common inherited traits among the close relatives English, German, and Swedish to see their relationship more clearly.
For example, the word for “house” in these three languages—“house” in English, “Haus” in German, and “hus” in Swedish—comes from the same word in their common ancestor language. They all inherited their word for “house” from their common ancestor.
Even though this common inherited word has undergone separate development in each modern language to become “house,” “Haus,” and “hus” respectively, we can still see clearly that these words came from the same word in the ancestor language. We see, for instance, that these words all start with the /h/ sound and end in the /s/.
This shows a “genetic trait” of vocabulary among modern language relatives.
An example of a “genetic trait” of grammar that English, German, and Swedish inherited from their common ancestor is a special word order called the “V2” (“verb second”) word order.
If a language has “V2” word order, the finite verb (or the auxiliary verb of a finite verb group) is always in the second position of a finite clause.
For example, these are all possible word orders for a finite clause in modern German and Swedish, which have the “V2” word order: (The examples are shown in English.)
(1) I (2) saw a movie today.
(1) Today (2) saw I a movie.
(1) A movie (2) saw I today.
As long as the finite verb of this clause, “saw,” is in the second position (*not the position of the second word but rather that of the second phrase), the clause conforms to the grammatical restrictions to “V2” word order and is correct.
This is a common inherited trait of modern descendant languages in the Germanic branch of the Indo-European Language Family.
(Note: English, being a member of the “Germanic” branch, also inherited this trait from the common Germanic ancestor it shares with German and Swedish, but because of other factors during the later development of English within this branch, word order became fixed in English and the “V2” restriction is only kept in certain fossilized examples, such as the common fixed expression “there are…”, e.g. “there are two men.” In this clause, “there” is an adverb that has been moved to the front. This triggers the subject, “two men,” and the finite verb, “are,” to switch places, leaving "are” in the “V2” position.)
Now let’s consider the genetic traits shared by “distant language relatives.”
In contrast to “close language relatives,” “distant language relatives” share fewer traits of vocabulary, grammar, and sounds because their common ancestors are further back in history, and they have developed separately for a much longer time.
To use our example from Part 2 again, English, French, and Russian are in different branches of the Indo-European Language Family. This means that they shared a much older common ancestor than the close relatives English, German, and Swedish.
Because of the old common ancestor in the Indo-European family that English, French, and Russian share, these languages still share certain traits, but these shared traits have gone through a long period of separate change and development.
Since English, French, and Russian have grown very different and drifted apart after going through a long period of separate development, their shared traits in their modern forms are harder to recognize.
These traits still exist, and linguists can uncover them with scientific methods.
For example, English, French, and Russian all have some form of vowel change when their verbs change forms. This vowel change, which linguists call “Ablaut,” is an Indo-European trait that is found in all the modern descendants of the family, even though it can look very different in each modern language.
(Note: Sometimes, modern languages show similarities not because of shared genetic traits but because of “language borrowing.” For example, many vocabulary words in modern Japanese were borrowed from Chinese. This means that the similarities in modern Chinese and Japanese vocabulary is due to language borrowing rather than genetic closeness. Chinese and Japanese are actually not related at all.)
In short, “closely related” languages in a language family share more inherited traits than “distantly related” languages, but whether “closely” or “distantly” related, all the modern descendant languages in a language family are separate languages with their own unique sets of grammar, vocabulary, and sounds. There can be a high level of linguistic variety even among related languages in one language family.
Just like how each living offspring in a biological family would have his/her own characteristics despite sharing certain genetic traits with his/her relatives, the uniqueness of each modern language in a family is the result of its unique development trajectory in history.
Each language underwent a unique set of developments and changes—such as sound changes, grammatical shifts, and vocabulary borrowings—before arriving at its modern form.
Now that we have a basic understanding of the genetic relationship between languages, we can think about how such an understanding can help us learn foreign languages more systematically and scientifically.
語言親戚的「家族遺傳基因」
語言之間的「遺傳關係」系列：第 3 篇
在之前的篇章中我們看到，如果語言是源自同一個祖先語言，並屬於同一個語言家族，它們便是有「親戚關係」的語言。
我們也討論過，視乎這些語言「親戚」在家族中的共同祖先是多久之前的，它們會有「近親」和「遠親」之分。這就如同人類的親戚，擁有相同祖父母的表親，會比只擁有相同曾曾祖父母的表親的關係更親密。
語言的近親也跟人類的近親一樣，彼此之間會比遠親擁有更多的共同「遺傳基因」，從而擁有更多共同特徵。
當我們談及人類親戚共有的遺傳特徵，所說的主要是指身體特徵，例如身高等。
而談到語言親戚共有的遺傳特徵時，所指的是文法、詞彙和發音的特徵。
讓我們再來看看英文、德文和瑞典文這幾個現代語言的近親。
如前文所述，這些語言都屬於「印歐語言家族」(Indo-European Language Family) 中的近親，因為它們都位處一個稱為「日耳曼語系」（Germanic Languages）的分枝上，並有一個比較近期的共同祖先。
這些「現代語言近親」在詞彙、文法和發音方面都有著很多繼承自共同祖先的特徵。
即使這些現代語言自它們共同祖先的時期開始，便在「日耳曼語系」的分支上單獨發展成現在不同的語言，但我們仍不難識別出它們所共享的許多共同遺傳特徵。
就像擁有同一對祖父母的表兄弟，總會有某些地方仍然十分相似。
想要更清楚了解英文、德文和瑞典文這幾個語言近親的關係，我們可以看看以下有關它們的共同遺傳特徵的具體例子。
我以這三種語言表達「房子」的名詞單字舉個例 － 英文是「house」、德文是「Haus」、瑞典文是「hus」。它們其實都源自共同祖先語言中的同一個單字，並繼承和洐生出自己一個表達「房子」的單字。
雖然這個共同繼承的單字在不同的現代語言中已分別發展成「house」、「Haus」和「hus」，但仍然明顯能看出它們是來自祖先語言中的同一個單字。我們會即時看到，它們都發音都是以 /h/ 開始，並以 /s/結束。
這顯示了現代語言親戚的「詞彙遺傳特徵」。
我再以另一個稱為「V2」詞序（動詞第二）的特定詞序作例子，解釋英文、德文和瑞典文繼承自共同祖先的「文法遺傳特徵」。
如果某種語言具有「V2」詞序，其限定動詞（或限定動詞組中的輔助動詞）總會在限定子句中的第二位置出現。
以下便是在現代德文和瑞典文限定子句中，「V2」詞序的可能性：（例子均用英文顯示）
(1) I (2) saw a movie today.
(1) Today (2) saw I a movie.
(1) A movie (2) saw I today.
德文和瑞典文中，只要子句的限定動詞「saw」是在第二的位置（*不是指第二個單字的位置，而是第二個詞組的位置），該子句就符合了「V2」詞序的文法限制，是個正確的子句。
這是印歐語言家族中，日耳曼分支上的現代語言後代其中一個共同「文法遺傳特徵」。
（留意：英文作為「日耳曼語系」分支的成員，也繼承了這個與德文及瑞典文的共同日耳曼語祖先的文法特徵。但由於英文在分支中的後期發展受到其他因素影響，其詞序變得很固定，「V2」的詞序限制僅保留於某些因為變為常用語而「頑固」地反映以前的文法特徵的例子中。例如，在常見的「There are (two cars)」中，「there」是搬到句頭的副詞，而「two cars」才是主語；但因為英文遺留下的「V2」詞序，限定動詞「are」會跟主語「two cars」調位，令「are」在子句第二位置出現。）
現在我們看看「語言遠親」的共同遺傳特徵。
相比起「語言近親」，「語言遠親」在詞彙、文法、發音等方面的共同點會較少，因為他們的共同祖先在歷史上更為遠古，而且它們分開發展的時間也長很多。
再次使用我們在第二篇中的所舉的例子，英文、法文和俄文屬於印歐語言家族中的不同分支。也就是說老它們擁有比英文、德文和瑞典文這些近親更古老的共同祖先。
由於英文、法文和俄文在印歐家族中擁有古老的共同祖先，這些語言仍然共享著某些特徵，只是這些特徵已經歷了很長時間的獨立演變和發展。
英文、法文和俄文在經歷了長時間的獨立發展後，彼此已逐漸疏遠而且演變得十分不同，因此我們更難從它們現代的字形中識別出那些共同的特徵。
當然這些特徵是仍然存在的，語言學家可以透過科學性方法來發現它們。
例如，英文、法文和俄文的動詞在轉變字形時，都有某種形式的元音（vowel）變化。這種元音變化，語言學家稱為「Ablaut」，是印歐語言家族中的所有現代語言後代都擁有的特徵，儘管它可能在各種現代語言中看起來不太相似。
（留意：有時，不同現代語言之間表現出的相似性，不是因為擁有共同的遺傳特徵，而是因為其他原因，如「語言借用」（language borrowing）。例如，在現代日文中的很多詞彙都是從中文借來的，即現代中文和日文詞彙的相似性全因語言借用而非基因相近。中文和日文根本沒有「親戚關係」。）
總之，同一個語言家族中的「近親」語言比「遠親」語言擁有更多共同的遺傳特徵。但無論是「近親」還是「遠親」，一個語言家族中的所有現代語言後代皆為獨立的語言，圴有自己一套獨特的文法、詞彙和發音。即使是同一個家族的語言親戚，當中也可能存在著高度的語言多樣性。
正如人類家族中的每一個後代，雖然也會與他們的親戚共享某些遺傳特徵，但仍然會擁有只屬於自己的特徵。而語言家族中每一種現代語言的獨特性，都來自其獨有的歷史發展軌蹟。
在形成現代的形式以前，每種語言都經歷了一系列獨特的發展和演化，例如發音變化、文法變化和詞彙借用等。
現在，我們對語言之間的親戚關係有了基本認識，便可以思考一下這些認識如何幫助我們更有系統和更具科學性地學習外語。