Many people think the English do not like to speak other languages. In fact, the English vocabulary is a mixture (混合体) of words from many different languages. Because of this, the vocabulary of the English language is very large. It is much larger than that of almost every other language in the world.

Many English words come from Latin, the old language of Rome, and also from ancient Greek (希腊语). From Latin we get words like “wine”, “use” and “day”. From ancient Greek we have words such as “ink”. Because these two languages are dead languages the words have most often come through other languages such as French, or the old German languages. There are also many modern words made up from both Greek and Latin roots – “television”, for example. The word is made up of “tele”, Greek for “far”, and “vision”, a word from Latin meaning “seeing”.

Many common English words come from very strange places. “Tea”, for example, comes from China, and “banana” comes from West Africa. “Potato” came into English language from the island of Haiti, in the West Indies, and “tomato” first came from Mexico.

One reason why the English language has so many words from other languages is that people from many different countries have come to live in Britain. Two thousand years ago the Romans came from Italy, and stayed for over four hundred years. After they left, the Anglo  Saxons and Jutes came from the northern part of modern Germany. In the ninth and tenth centuries Scandinavians came into the northern and eastern parts of the country. Finally, in the eleventh century William of Normandy came from France, and became King of England. With him came the French language.

In modern Britain there are four separate languages: English, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic. And the English itself borrowed many words from the other three languages.       

    The English language continues to grow and borrow words from other languages. It is not only the language of Britain, but also of Canada, the U.S.A., Australia and New Zealand. It is used by millions of people in Africa and Asia.

进入考试题库