The History of English
It is only during the last hundred years that English has become one of the world important languages. In Shakespeare time English as well as Russian was a “provincial” language, a language of secondary importance. People spoke mostly French, Italian, German and some other languages.
Today English has become one of the world most important languages in politics and economy, science and technology, trade, tourism and cultural relations. A lot of articles about different scientific discoveries and achievements is published in English. Great deal of information for computers ( over 80 % ) is written in English. It is also the workable language of most international congresses and conferences, symposiums and seminars.
In number of speakers English is second only to Chinese. It is the native language for more than 400 mln people from 12 countries. English is the official language of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the United States of America, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and several states of South Africa.
All English-speaking nations have one common language, English, but it is not the same with all of them. Languages are always changing and English is no exception. National features, historic and cultural changes of different countries brought changes into the language too. In some countries old English words got new meanings while in others new terms were needed because there appeared new and un-English things. In addition, a lot of new words was borrowed from other languages: Indian, Eskimo, Gaelic and others, to say nothing of Danish, French, German, Latin, Greek, Italian and Spanish.
Nowadays there exist several variants of English on the Globe: British, American, Canadian, Australian, Irish, etc. There are numerous differences between them in pronunciation, grammatical constructions and intonation. Among all variants of English today two ones occupy special places: British English ( as the standard literary language ) and American English ( due to the USA great influence in the world).
Задание 2. Найдите в тексте и выпишите английские эквиваленты следующих речевых отрезков:
1) язык второстепенного значения; 2) большой объем информации; 3) научные достижения и открытия; 4) родной/общий язык; 5) множество статей; 6) вносить изменения; 7) не исключение; 8) приобретать новое значение; 9) были заимствованы; 10) не говоря о …; 11) различия в произношении; 12) занимать особое место