1) Установите соответствие между заголовками 1 — 8 и текстами A — G. Используйте каждую цифру только один раз. В задании один заголовок лишний. 1. Hard to get the meaning
2. Amazing fact
3. How it all began
4. Foreign influence
5. Strange but helpful
6. Lazy pupils
7. Vocabulary widening
8. A global language
A. In Shakespeare’s time only a few million people spoke English. All of them lived in what is now Great Britain. Through the centuries, as a result of different historical events, English spread throughout the world. Five hundred years ago they didn’t speak English in North America: the American Indians had their own languages. So did the Eskimos in Canada, the aborigines in Australia and the Maoris in New Zealand. The English arrived and set up their colonies. Today, English is represented in every continent.
B. People have long been interested in having one language that could be spoken throughout the world. Such a language would help to increase cultural and economic ties and make communication between people simpler. Through the years, at least 600 universal languages have been proposed, including Esperanto. About 10 million people have learnt Esperanto since 1887. But, according to specialists, English has better chances to realize this task.
C. When William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, French became the official language of the court. The English looked after the animals and cooked their meat, still calling the animals pig, sheep and cow. The Normans, when they saw cooked meat on their table, used French words — pork, mutton and beef. It’s amazing but during this period 10,000 words entered English, including such words as table, chair, carpet, country, state, nation, law, army, battle, peace, beauty, etc.
D. Geographically, English is the most widespread language on earth and it is second only to Chinese in the number of people who speak it. According to recent study 90% of British teens aren’t going to learn any foreign language. Maybe because they don’t have to, who knows?
E. English has become so popular that more and more people in China have tongue operations because they want to improve their English. Plastic surgeons say that the operation is quite simple and after it the pronunciation will be as good as the pronunciation of native speakers.
F. Other languages absorb English words, often giving them new forms and new meanings. So many Japanese, French, Spanish and Germans mix English words with their mother tongues that resulting hybrids are called Japlish, Franglais, and Spanglish.
G. For a Londoner it’s easier to understandan American than a Cockney. Cockney has a pronunciation, accent and vocabulary unlike any other dialect. Cockney speech is famous for its rhyming slang. A word is replaced by a phrase or a person’s name which rhymes with it.