English: Past, Present and Future Revision Session

What are cognates?

• Loan words

• Words in different languages that descended from a common ancestor language

• Words that mean the same thing in several languages

• Regional differences

In what ways did Old English enlarge its vocabulary?

Why did the Vikings want to leave Scandinavia?

• Overpopulation and lack of natural resources

• Escaping bad reputations

• Lack of ladies to match with back home!

• Primogeniture - inheritance goes to the oldest son

What reasons did King Alfred the Great have for insisting that some Latin texts get translated into English?

What is the name for the type of English that emerged as a standard written form, based on officialese, in the early fifteenth century?

What major event in 1476 helped to make spellings more consistent?

• The birth of Shakespeare

• Publication of the first widely disseminated copy of The Canterbury Tales

• The invention of the printing press

• The War of the Roses

What social implications did the use of ye/you have in Middle English?

• Addressee is of a lower status than the speaker

• Used from an employer towards an employee

• Respect, politeness, deference towards the addressee

• Used to speak to a group of friends

What is Kachru's term for countries where English plays no historical/governmental role, but is used for international communication?

True or false, 3000 languages are expected to die out in the next 100 years?

• True

• False

Which of these pairs suggests that a global standard of English will emerge as the world lingua franca?

• Strengthen and converge

• Strengthen and diverge

• Weaken and converge

• Weaken and diverge