UFN - LANGUAGE COURSE - ENGLISH LANGUAGE: IDENTITY AND CULTURE

1 English Present and Future

Book: ‘A history of the English Language’ pages 1 to 12.

English Present and Future

1)      Who should study the aspects that form languages? Pg.01
Every user of a natural language should know something of:
a)
b)
c)
d)

2)      What forces shape languages? Pg.01

Forces: a) b) d)
In what sense?: a) b) c) d)

3)      In what ways does a living language change through time? Pg.02
Languages are either or . When is it dead?:
Vocabulary: a)words are b)new words are c)existing words . Example: Nice in
Shakespeare’s day meant foolish. d)Pronunciation e)

4)      What makes a language more important than others? Pg.03

It is not because of advantages but because of advantages.
A balance of power: a) b) c) d)
Adjacent powers: a) b)
The example of the Greek language: a)Classical-
b)current- not used for

5) A world of languages (See Map) Approximate number of languages in the world now:
Languages with most native speakers: Chinese 1.2B English Spanish 400M Hindi 260M
Arabic 242M Portuguese Bengali 189M Russian 166M Japanese 128M Lahnda 89M
Javanese 84M German Korean 77M French Italian 64M

5B)      Since the number of native speakers of English is not growing much, as opposed to the
population of India, for example, is English going to be a leading language in the future? Why? Pg.05
That will depend on: the capacity of English native speakers to

6)      Why have the attempts for the establishment of an international artificial language failed: ex.
Esperanto? Pg.06
No interest: a)more profitable for
b)a language of a country symbolizes

7)      How does English incorporate new words? Pg.10

Method for English:
Method for German:
English is a language. Also belong to this group: a) b) c)Flemish
d) e) f)Norwegian
However, more than half of its vocabulary comes from:

8)      How has the English language structure become simpler in comparison to its parent and current
languages? Pg.11
Old languages a) b) c) inflected their noun, adjective and verb.
In current languages these are much less inflected, ex. Russian, French, German.
But English is the least inflected of all European languages.
Noun: inflects only for a) b)
Adjective: inflects only for a) b)
Verb: a)loss of almost all b)loss of almost all c)loss of

9)      How is the gender of nouns different from other languages? Pg.11, 12
English differs from all other major European languages in having adopted a gender, not a
gender.
There are three genders: masculine, feminine, and neutral. In German ‘weib’ (wife) is neutral.
English is determined by . All nouns naming living creatures are either or
according to the sex of the individual, and all other nouns are .

10)   Why are idioms and spelling difficult in English? Pg.12

Idioms are: in any language. The idiom is an: way to say something.
Writing is the mechanical means for . So, in the ideal alphabetic writing each sound is
represented by a distinctive . __________ European languages fully attain this ideal. The
languages that come nearer to it are
English is far from this ideal: The words believe, receive, leave, machine, be, see have the same vowel
sound.
The words shoe, sugar, issue, nation, ocean, nauseous, conscious, schist, pshaw have the same
consonant sound.