时间:2018-12-08 作者:英语课 分类:背诵为王第二册


英语课

Lesson41 Spoken Languages

The human mouth has three major functions. Two of them —eating andbreathing — are shared by members of the animal kingdom. The thirdfunction — speaking — is one of the principal features which distinguishhuman beings from the rest of living creatures.Although primitive 1 man must have had a spoken language, social scientistshave no evidence of written language before the appearance of writtenrecords in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt 5-6 thousand years ago. Present-day linguists 3 can identify over 1500 spoken languages.Chinese is thebiggest language, spoken by more than a billion people. After Chinese,English is the most widely spoken first language, and has become thelanguage of choice in international communication.English has not always been the international language. Two hundred yearsago French was the dominant 4 language.In ancient times, Arabic,Greek andLatin were international languages at different points in time.Many people in history tried to create a common universal language for allpeoples of the world. The most successful of such effort to date wasEsperanto which was spoken by about 750,000 people at one time in the mid-20th century. However, such universal languages always fail in the endbecause of lack of a cultural foundation.


principal 主要的

distinguish ? 区分

primitive ? 原始的

Mesopotamia 美索不达米亚

linguist 2 语言学家

identify ? 认清,辨认

dominant 占统治地位的,占优势的

universal 通用的

foundation ? 基础


口语

人的嘴有三种主要功能。其中的两项——吃和呼吸,和动物王国的成员一样。第三项——说话,这是人类区别于其他生物的主要特征。

虽然原始人一定有口头语言,但是社会科学家没有证据证明在5到6千年前古美索不达米亚和埃及出现文字记录前人类就有文字了。如今的语言学家可以辨认1500多种口语。中文是最大的语言,有10亿多人说中文。紧随之后的是英语,它是使用最广泛的第一语言,也已经成为了国际交流中人们选择的语言。

英语并不一直是国际语言。两百年前法语是占统治地位的语言。在古代,阿拉伯语、希腊语和拉丁语是不同时期的国际语言。

历史上有许多人试图为世界各地的民族创造一种普遍通用的语言。迄今为止,此类努力中最成功的是世界语,在20世纪中叶曾一度有大约75万人使用它,但是这样的通用语言因为缺乏文化基础,最终都以失败告终。



1 primitive
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物
  • It is a primitive instinct to flee a place of danger.逃离危险的地方是一种原始本能。
  • His book describes the march of the civilization of a primitive society.他的著作描述了一个原始社会的开化过程。
2 linguist
n.语言学家;精通数种外国语言者
  • I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家,后来成了作家。
  • Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。
3 linguists
n.通晓数国语言的人( linguist的名词复数 );语言学家
  • The linguists went to study tribal languages in the field. 语言学家们去实地研究部落语言了。 来自辞典例句
  • The linguists' main interest has been to analyze and describe languages. 语言学家的主要兴趣一直在于分析并描述语言。 来自辞典例句
4 dominant
adj.支配的,统治的;占优势的;显性的;n.主因,要素,主要的人(或物);显性基因
  • The British were formerly dominant in India.英国人从前统治印度。
  • She was a dominant figure in the French film industry.她在法国电影界是个举足轻重的人物。
学英语单词
a bottomless pit
Ahiam
ama(automatic message accounting)
anemometrically
aquilegia buergeriana s. et z.
Asian tigers
atroha
barometer
benzyloxycarbonylchloride
ByGeorge
caelums
calcia
camber of a leaf
carbamyl phosphate synthetase deficiency
China oak silk worm
coarse tooth cutter
conductivity detector
core damage
cullet hopper
day plan
delegationists
dinette
dirt-box
discount houses
double action hammer
double wish-bone arm type
eckhard
edge warping
ellipsoid location
EMFBI
enfevers
engaged switch
equatorial atmospheric dynamics
esophagostomy
expiry month
fibre silk
fileshare
financing market
full tear
grave-stone
Guangfu Township
habitual
host-parasite interaction
hydrokinetor
ice-patterned glass
Ioverol
isoflavine
katheryn
kolkatas
Kryptopterus
Le Nobel's tests
listening devices
Lord of the Manor
m.t
main shock-after shock type
matter of factness
maximum allowable error
meat markets
mechanical foam nozzle
Mediplast
micromanufacturing
MSMOS
Mycoptes
nonacosanoic acid
nonanalog monte carlo method
only accredited agent
palpometers
pipebox
place brick
polanisia graveolenss
post-conversion bandwidth
preliminary cast
pseudo normal
pseudoscientifically
reaction of recombination
recapitulationism
received image
Romanche Gap
Salt L.
sculpins
self-expanding
shell fluid catalytic cracking
shf radio link
smoke-boxes
sociology of international relation
spawny
switch cycle
sylvaticum
symmetrical effect
textual matter
topographic quadrangle
torridly
trace contamination
trans-Andean
trivium
true-believing
UAGA
unlawful means
up-with
white scour of chicken
yevpatoriya (eupatoria)