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
2024-02-27
26
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] Statistics show that English has a vocabulary of about ______.
选项
A、500,000 words
B、350,000 words
C、750,000 words
D、1,000,000 words
答案
D
解析
见第三段"The compendious (简明) Oxford English Dictionary lists about 500,000 words; and a further half million technical and scientific terms remain uncatalogued."
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3488521.html
相关试题推荐
[originaltext]ManyexpressionsinEnglishusecolors.Theseexpressionssho
[originaltext]Analmost100-year-oldEnglishtextbookmightbetheearliest
[originaltext]Analmost100-year-oldEnglishtextbookmightbetheearliest
[originaltext]Analmost100-year-oldEnglishtextbookmightbetheearliest
[originaltext]Analmost100-year-oldEnglishtextbookmightbetheearliest
IwasrecentlyreadinganarticleinanEnglishnewspaperabouthowinEngla
IwasrecentlyreadinganarticleinanEnglishnewspaperabouthowinEngla
IwasrecentlyreadinganarticleinanEnglishnewspaperabouthowinEngla
IwasrecentlyreadinganarticleinanEnglishnewspaperabouthowinEngla
[originaltext]TheglobalspreadofEnglishoverthelast40yearsisremark
随机试题
Google’sPlanforWorld’sBiggestOnlineLibrary:PhilanthropyOrActof
Inpolicework,youcanneverpredictthenextcrimeorproblem.Noworking
火灾风险等级中,高风险风险等级为()级。A.I B.Ⅱ C.Ⅲ D.
交通标志产品各项试验的判定规则为()。A.每项试验至少检测3个数据(宜在不同试
下列关于商业银行内部资本充足评估报告的表述,错误的是( )。A.报告应评估银行
下列说法错误的是( )。A.公司债券是指公司依照法定程序发行、约定在一定期限内
共用题干 第一篇PlantGasScientistshavebeens
自然循环风冷变压器冷却介质最高温度40℃,顶层最高油温(____)。105℃$;
B市的张女士在H区将私家车停在马路边,到饭店吃饭,饭后发现车上有一张“停车记录告
下列不属于新的课程结构的特点的是() A、均衡性B、综合性C、单一性D
最新回复
(
0
)