English nowadays
Топик Английский язык сегодня – в интересной форме рассказывает о самом распространенном на сегодняшний день языке. Такие языки, как английский, называют “мировыми языками”. Мировой язык – это язык, использующийся в сфере официальных международных отношений. Это языки, имеющие юридически закрепленный статус официальных и рабочих языков международных организаций и конференций (ООН, ЮНЕСКО и т. п.): английский, арабский, испанский, китайский, русский, французский, включенные в программы обучения разных стран в качестве иностранных
The Introduction.
There are a lot of ways of communication. We can impart information by gestures, emotions… But the main mean of conversation is speech. You can connect with everybody you want and say what you want. But the problem appears if you don`t know the language of your partner.
1.World Languages.
There are about 6000 languages in the word. The languages spoken by 1 000 000 of people are called big word language. Millions of people speak English, Russian, Italian, French, Spanish, Chinese, German, Japanese, Hindi and others.
The languages spoken by few people are called dying languages. Most of them are spoken in Asia, Australia, Africa. The experts say that 3 000 languages will disappear in the next 100 years.
Languages are dying for many reasons. To begin with, natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods or hurricanes suddenly destroy small groups of people, speaking rare languages. Moreover, the weather changes and there isn`t enough food for small communities. One more reason is that strangers bring new diseases. But the real problem comes from the big languages such as English, French and others which put out rare languages. Of course, we can try to safe such language but it needs lots of time and money. The Government should record and write down dying languages, then they need to train teachers and write grammar books, dictionaries and books for school.
2. Interesting Facts about English.
In my opinion, English will never die because it is more multicultural than any other language. For centuries it has taken words from other languages, and today`s international communication means that new words are appearing every day. In fact English contains words from more than 350 other languages! E. g. `algebra` came from Arabic, `safari` from Swahili…
If you will try to image that English is a tasty dish, the recipe will be like this:
-50 grammes—Greek
-75 grammes—Latin
-400 grammes—Anglo Saxon
-150 grammes—Norse
-300 grammes—French
-25 grammes—other mixed languages.
Mix all the ingredients together. Cook slowly for 1000 years.
English is the main language in 30 countries, and there are about 375 million people who speak it as their first language. It`s also used as an official language in over 70 other countries such as Cameroon, Tanzania, India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Fiji, and is a second language for about 350 million people. One in two Europeans can speak quite well and can have a proper conversation, and in the future even more Europeans will be able to speak it. All in all, there are about 1000 million people who can`t speak English, but they`re learning it!
English is the top language for travel and tourism, and is used in business and science. At the moment, 80% of the world`s Internet sites are in English. Teenagers use it to write even SMS. Moreover, nowadays it`s popular to make friends with people from other countries. But to have a conversation you have to know their language.
There are some interesting facts about English language. I wondered, how many words are there in English. And it turned out, that there are about 300 000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary. However, there are many scientific and technical words that are not included in the dictionary (for example, there are over a million types of insect). But an educated English speaker only uses about 30 000 words.
What do you think, what is the most common letter in English? The letter `e` is used more than any other. Ernest Wright was very interested in this fact, and wanted to see if it was possible to communicate without using this letter at all. He wasn`t able to write very much. In the end, he wrote a 200-page novel “Gadsby” without using any words containing the letter `e`. Unfortunately, it was not a great success, but here is a bit of it:
A glorious full moon sails across a sky without a cloud.
A crisp night air has folks turning up coat collars and
Kids hopping up and down for warmth.
Furthermore, in the Britain three types of language are allocated: conservative (it`s used in the Queen`s family and Parliament), received pronunciation (it`s language of BBC, News and other TV-programs) and advanced (it`s a language of teenagers).
2.1 Comparing English and American.
I think that there is one problem in the English language: it is – American language. I have asked some people what language does the Americans speak. 97% of polled people answered, that of course they speak English. But it was the wrong answer. English and American languages have a lot of difference.
American English
Bill Bank note
Can Tin
Candy Sweets
Cookie Sweet biscuit
Drugstore Chemist`s shop
Freeway Motorway
Two weeks Fortnight
Mail Post
Movie Film
Period Full stop
Vacation Holiday
Second floor First floor
Sidewalk Pavement
Last name Surname
Let`s compare two weeks and fortnight. Their roots are different and there is no familiar construction. The American variant consists of two elementary words, while the British consists of one word with two roots of different words.
In addition, there is a distinction in way of writing some words.
English American
Apologize Apologise
Center Centre
Defense Defence
Honor Honour
Traveler Traveller
So, you can see, that instead of writing word termination – our Americans write – or. It is a merit of Noe Webster who lived in 1758 – 1843. He introduced in the American variant the practice of way of writing – er instead of – re ; – or instead of – ous. Moreover, the Americans give one name for a group of animals, for example, they nominate all predatory birds “hawks”.
What is more, there is a large odds in the English and American grammar. In lieu of using Present Perfect they can use Past Simple. The Americans refuse from Perfect Tenses so sometimes you can hear phrase “Did you see…”. For British there is a strict mistake because you must say “Have you seen…”. Another point to be made, is that the Americans never say going to because they use the modern form gonna to. Nowadays we never say `Shall you…?` But we say `Will you…?` Besides, in many countries, like India or Africa, there are hundreds of local dialects (different ways of speaking the same language). These countries often use English as a common language, and each country creates its own words. As a result new variations of English are born. In West Africa for example, traffic jams are called `go-slows`, clothes are called `wears`, and hairdresser`s are known as `barbing saloons`.
3. The Conclusion.
In my opinion, English – is a traditional majestic language. There are a lot of secrets in it. To my mind, we should try to safe all British traditions and attempt not to use American slang.
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