Lesson
10
Your Speech Is Changing
1
If a contemporary① Rip Van Winkle had slept for forty years and awakened today, he would have to go back to school before he could understand a daily newspaper or a magazine. He would never have heard of atomic bombs, baby sitters, flying saucers or contact lenses—nor of mambo, microfilms, nylons, or smog.
2
Many new words have been added to the English language in the past forty years; and since Shakespeare’s time the number of words in the language has increased more than five times, from about 14,000 to somewhere between 700,000 and 800,000. Most of these new words have not come from borrowing, but from the natural growth of the language—adaptation of elements already in the language.
3
The language has always changed, but the rate of the change has been uneven; minor changes have slowly accumulated in every generation, but there have been periods of rapid changes as well. The most important of these periods occurred during the two hundred and fifty years after 1066, the year the Normans conquered England. Before the conquest, the inhabitants② in England spoke Anglo-Saxon, a complex Germanic language. The Normans were Norsemen who, after generation of raiding, had settled in northern France in the tenth century and by 1066 were speaking a form of French. After their conquest of England they instituted Norman French as the dominant language—the language of the upper class, of law, of government, and of such commerce as there was.
4
Nevertheless, the masses went right on speaking Anglo-Saxon. By about three hundred years after the Norman conquest, Anglo-Saxon had re-established itself as the language of the upper class, as English, and had become a flexible, exact splendid, and moving instrument of expression. Norman French, meanwhile, had become something comic, spoken by the villain③ in the old mystery plays just for a laugh.
5
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, during which printing became established, saw the stabilization of spelling and, more important, the establishment of colonies in America. Immediately, the language of the New World and that of the Old World began to draw apart.
6
In writing, too, a change has taken place. The use of the colloquial in American writing is increasing rather than diminishing. The increasing use of the colloquial in our writing is an interesting change that is bound to have far-reaching consequences.
7
The enormous enlargement of our vocabulary, the increasing use in our writing of the spoken idiom, and changes in our pronunciation are not the only changes that are taking place, however. There have also been significant grammatical alteration in our language. Such changes take place only by generations or decades at the fastest, so they pass unnoticed by all but grammarians; yet even the layman can perceive them when he is told that something that seems “quite all right” to him was regarded as erroneous④ only a few years ago.
8
Nobody knows why all these changes have been made, perhaps we are in the process of reducing our verbs to a few basic words. If this is so, it may mark a change as significant as that which took place after the Norman conquest.
9
Whatever the reasons for the changes that are taking place, the vocabulary will probably continue to expand, because the expansion of our knowledge and experience requires the invention of new words or the adaptation of old ones. Meaning will depend more and more upon word order and context, spelling will become simpler, with fewer common variants⑤. Pronunciation, because of the great mobility of our population and the spread of radio and television, will tend to become more uniform.
10
One thing by now seems certain—that the speech of the men who lost to the Norman invaders will not die; that language, preserved by the sturdy⑥, surly, freedom-loving commoners who did not attempt to ingratiate⑦ themselves with their conquerors by learning their speech, will adapt and endure.
(641 words)
①contemporary [kənˑtemprərɪ] adj. 当代的
②inhabitant [ɪnˑhæbɪtənt] n. 居民
③villain [ˑvɪlən] n. 村夫
④erroneous [ɪˑrəʊnɪəs] adj. 错误的
⑤variant adj. 不同的 n. 变量
⑥sturdy [ˑstɜ:dɪ] adj. 健壮的
⑦ingratiate [ɪnˑɡreɪʃɪeɪt] v. 使迎合，使讨好，使巴结
I. How well did you read?
1. [Note the fact] The author says that the first truly significant period of change in the English language___________.
A. has come during the past forty years
B. began in the eleventh century
C. is just beginning now.
D. started in Shakespeare
2. [Note the fact] The Normans were___________.
A. French raiders
B. raiders of unknown origin who had settled in France
C. raiders from the north who had settled in France
D. German barbarians
3. [Note the fact] Spelling became stabilized in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries because of the establishment of___________.
A. the American colonies B. an educated aristocracy
C. more schools D. printing
4. [See the result] If rigid rules are applied to a language, it will___________.
A. lose its vigor B. become corrupted
C. be improved D. reflect current usage
5. [Evaluate the information] The English language is changing, eventually, it will be___________.
A. replaced by several different languages
B. changed until it becomes an entirely new language
C. simplified and improved
D. more complex and difficult to spell
II. Read for words.
1. Choose one best paraphrase or Chinese meaning for the underlined words.
(1) The Normans were Norsemen who, after generation of raiding, had settled in northern France in the tenth century and by 1066 were speaking a form of French.
A. 侵略 B. 抗争 C. 努力
(2) The use of the colloquial in American writing is increasing rather than diminishing.
A. increasing B. vanishing C. reducing
2. Choose one best paraphrase for the underlined expressions.
(1) Most of these new words have not come from borrowing, but from the natural growth of the language—adaptation of elements already in the language.
A. changing current language
B. mixing the used languages
C. using part of the existing language
(2) Nevertheless, the masses went right on speaking Anglo-Saxon.
A. the government officials B. the public
C. the local people