Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden change in pronunciation started, wit

Towards the end of Middle English, a suddenchange in pronunciation started, with vowels being pronounced shorter andshorter. From the 16^th century the British had contact with peoplefrom around the world. This means that many new words and phrases entered thelanguage. The invention of printing also meant that there was a common languagein print. Books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Spelling andgrammar became fixed and the dialect （方言）of London became the standard. In 1604, the first English dictionarywas published.

The numbers of words in Early ModernEnglish and Late Modern English differ. Late Modern English has a lot morewords because of two main factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution created aneed for new words; secondly, the British Empire covered one quarter of theearth’s surface, and the English language took in foreign words from manycountries.

From around 1600, the English colonization(殖民地化)of North America resultedin the creation of American English. Some English pronunciation and words  frozewhen they reached America. In some ways, American English is more like theEnglish of Shakespeare than modern British English. Some expressions that theBritish call “ Americanisms” are in fact original （原先的）British expressions thatwere preserved (保存)in the colonies but were lost in Britain. Spanish also had an influence onAmerican English, with words like canyon, ranch, stampede and vigilante beingexamples of Spanish words that entered English. French words and West Africanwords also influenced American English.

Today, American English is the mostinfluential(有影响力的).But there are many other kinds of English around the world, includingAustralian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, South AfricanEnglish , Indian English and Caribbean English. They have differences.

1.What can we know from Paragraph 1?

2.From Paragraph 2, we know that theIndustrial Revolution __________.

3.The underlined word “froze” in Paragraph3 shows that some English words in America___________.

4.What will the paragraph following thispassage most probably discuss?

试题答案

【答案】

1.C

2.B

3.D

4.C

【解析】

试题