Some Things We Know about Language

　　Many things about language are a mystery, and many will always remain so. But some things we do know.

　　First, we know that all human beings have a language of some sort. There is no race of men anywhere on earth so backward that it has no language, no set of speech sounds by which the people communicate with one another. Furthermore, in historical times, there has never been a race of men without a language.

　　Second, there is no such thing as a primitive language. There are many people whose cultures are undeveloped, who are, as we say, uncivilized, but the languages they speak are not primitive. In all known languages we can see complexities that must have been tens of thousands of years in developing.

　　This has not always been well understood; indeed, the direct contrary has often been stated. Popular ideas of the language of the American Indians will illustrate. Many people have supposed that the Indians communicated in a very primitive system of noises. Study has proved this to be nonsense. There are, or were, hundreds of American Indian languages, and all of them turn out to be very complicated and very old. They are certainly different from the languages that most of us are familiar with, but they are no more primitive than English and Greek.

　　A third thing we know about language is that all languages are perfectly adequate. That is, each one is a perfect means of expressing the culture of the people who speak the language.

　　Finally, we know that language changes. It is natural and normal for language to change; the only languages which do not change are the dead ones. This is easy to understand if we look backward in time. Change goes on in all aspects of language. Grammatical features change as do speech sounds, and changes in vocabulary are sometimes very extensive and may occur very rapidly. Vocabulary is the least stable part of any language.

　　1.In the second paragraph the author thinks that ( ).

　　A) some backward race doesn't have a language of its own .

　　B) some race in history didn't possess a language of its own.

　　C) any human race, whether backward or not, has a language.

　　D) some races on earth can communicate without language.

　　2. According to the author, people of underdeveloped cultures can have ____ language.

　　A) complicated.

　　B) uncivilized.

　　C) primitive.

　　D) well-known.

　　3. The author has used American Indian language as an example to show that they are ( ).

　　( )

　　A) just as old as some well-known languages.

　　B) just as advanced as some well-known languages.

　　C) more developed than some well-known language.

　　D) more complex than some well-known language.

　　4. Which of the following statement is incorrect? ( )

　　A) Language is a means of expressing a particular culture.

　　B) All languages can well express their respective cultures.

　　C) Some primitive languages can also express their cultures.

　　D) Some primitive languages are better than other languages.

　　5. According to the author language changes are most likely to occur in ( ).

　　A) grammar.

　　B) pronunciation.

　　C) vocabulary

　　D) intonation.

　　參考答案:

　　1. 答案選C。作者在第2段中認為，任何人種不管落后與否都有語言。

　　2. 答案選A。該題的答案依據在第3段的最后一句： 在所有以知的語言中，我們都發現了經過了數萬年發展起來的語言的復雜特性。

　　3. 答案選B。作者例舉美國印第安人的語言的目的是證明這些語言和一些著名的語言一樣先進。

　　4. 答案選D。從上一題可見，作者的觀點是各種語言沒有好與壞的差別。

　　5. 答案選C。文章中“Vocabulary is the best stable part of any language/詞匯是任何語言中最不穩定的部分”結識答案為C。

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