Quiz
This quiz just hints at some of the richness and diversity of
the English language. There are many varieties of English spoken
as a mother-tongue: British, America, Australian and South African,
etc. In addition, there are words used only in certain regions,
or by a certain age-range, or a particular class. Certain fashionable
words are in use for a short time and then become extremely out-of-date.
The English language has a remarkably large
vocabulary. The Oxford English Dictionary lists about 500,000
words. The language
contains at least a further half million technical and scientific
terms. With Germanic, Celtic and Romance roots, the language
contains many words in common with most of the languages spoken
in Europe: German, Dutch, Flemish, Danish, Swedish, French, Italian
and Spanish. There are many synonyms (for example, "pick up"="lift").
In addition, another feature of English vocabulary
is that many common words in English have been, and continue
to be, borrowed
from other languages all over the world. The Oxford English Dictionary,
for example, lists about 900 of these "loan words" coming from
India alone. You can also find borrowings from Hebrew, Arabic,
Malay, Chinese, the languages of Java, Tahiti and Polynesia.
This helps to explain why the English language has one of the
richest vocabularies in the languages of the world.
The reason for this richness is partly historical. For instance,
from 11th to 15th centuries, French and Latin were the languages
of the ruling class and the church in England. Later, in the
18th and 19th centuries, the soldiers, civil servants and other
people working for the British Empire overseas brought back many
words and expressions from the five continents.
Here are some examples of loan words and their origins:
| ballot |
Italian |
| garage |
French |
| kindergarten |
German |
| kiosk |
Turkish |
| marmalade |
Portuguese |
| ombudsman |
Swedish |
| robot |
Czech |
| slim |
Dutch |
| sofa |
Arabic |
| tycoon |
Japanese |
| verandah |
Hindi |
| window |
Icelandic |
All the above words are very commonly used. In fact, many native
speakers of English would be surprised to discover that they
were not originally English words.
The English language is far from static. It
changes as society changes; new developments and inventions
require new words, and
people travel. The English vocabulary is in a constant state
of renewal with new words and expressions entering the language
and other ones disappearing. (During the Gulf War in 1991, for
example, the phrase "friendly fire" was coined to describe the
unfortunate incidence of troops firing on their allies by mistake,
instead of the enemy). As the international language for tourism,
diplomacy, aviation, pop music, business, computers and the media
(to name but a few!), the English language is constantly evolving
new specialist words. |
