首页
登录
职称英语
The rise of English is a remarkable success story. When Julius Caesar landed
The rise of English is a remarkable success story. When Julius Caesar landed
游客
2023-07-27
68
管理
问题
The rise of English is a remarkable success story. When Julius Caesar landed in Britain nearly two thousand years ago, English did not exist. Five hundred years later, English, incomprehensible to modern ears, was probably spoken by about as few people as currently speak Cherokee (an American Indian language)-and with about as little influence. Nearly a thousand years later, at the end of sixteenth century, when William Shakespeare was in his prime, English was the native speech of between five and seven million English people and it was, in the words of a contemporary, "of small reach, it stretched no further than this island of ours, never not there over all. "
Four hundred years later, the contrast is extraordinary. Between 1600 and the present, in armies, navies, companies, and expeditions, the speakers of English-including Scots, Irish, Welsh, American, and many more-traveled into every corner of the globe, carrying their language and culture with them. Today English is used by at least 750 million people, and barely half of those speak it as a mother tongue. Some estimates have put that figure Closer to one billion. Whatever the total, English at the end of the twentieth century is more widely scattered, more widely spoken and written, than any other language has ever been. It has become the language of the planet, the first truly global language.
The statistics of English are astonishing. Of all the world’s languages, it is arguably the richest in vocabulary. The compendious (简明) Oxford English Dictionary lists about 500,000 words; and a further half million technical and scientific terms remain uncatalogued. About 350 million people use the English vocabulary as a mother tongue: about one tenth of the world’s population, scattered across every continent and surpassed, in numbers, though not in distribution, only by the speakers of the many varieties of Chinese. Three quarters of world’s mail, and its telexes and cables, are in English. So are more than half the world’s technical and scientific periodicals: it is the language of technology from Silicon Valley to Shanghai. [br] The word "contemporary"(Para.1) most likely means ______.
选项
A、person in modern time
B、a person who studies old English
C、a scholar who studies Shakespeare
D、a person in Shakespeare’s tinie
答案
D
解析
根据上下文猜测 contemporary 意为和莎士比亚同时代的人。
转载请注明原文地址:http://tihaiku.com/zcyy/2872259.html
相关试题推荐
[originaltext]TherearethreegroupsofEnglishlearners:beginners,interm
[originaltext]TherearethreegroupsofEnglishlearners:beginners,interm
[originaltext]SomepeopledividetheEnglishlearnersintothreegroups:be
[originaltext]SomepeopledividetheEnglishlearnersintothreegroups:be
[originaltext]SomepeopledividetheEnglishlearnersintothreegroups:be
[originaltext]Thequestforsuccessalwaysbeginswithatarget.AsYogiBe
[originaltext]Thequestforsuccessalwaysbeginswithatarget.AsYogiBe
[originaltext]W:Well,Charles,Imustsaythatyourshopisprettyremarkable.
[originaltext]W:Well,Charles,Imustsaythatyourshopisprettyremarkable.
[originaltext]W:Well,Charles,Imustsaythatyourshopisprettyremarkable.
随机试题
RichardSatava,programmanagerforadvancedmedicaltechnologies,hasbeen
Thegovernmentissendingadelegation_______therelationshipbetweenthetwo
WhenyoureceiveyourPC,unpackallthecomponents,includingthecomputerand
Shewaspleasedwith__________________(他接受她批评的方式).thewayinwhichhehadacce
Thereare10blanksinthepassage.Usethewords(phrases)giveninthebox
A.Y关于X的增长量 B.Y关于X的增长速度 C.Y关于X的边际倾向 D.
患者,女性,45岁,患糖尿病5年,1个月前诊断为卵巢癌。患者皮肤、黏膜干燥,皮下
再障的治疗原则最重要的是A.对症处理 B.控制感染 C.中西医结合 D.加
患者,女,13岁。进行性开口困难7年,5岁时曾发生颏部对冲性损伤。现检查面部明显
某建设项目所在地水文地质条件相对简单,K=5m/d。沿地下水流向相距500m的两
最新回复
(
0
)