The History Of The English Language 1

Front 1

A prescriptive study of language is the study of...

Back 1

the correct use of language (as opposed to how it is actually used)

Front 2

A descriptive study of language is the study of...

Back 2

the actual use of language (as opposed to its correct use)

Front 3

Why are so many English words spelled so weirdly? (Knee, enough, marriage, etc.)

Back 3

English spelling is historical; i.e. it reflects the way that words were pronounced hundreds of years ago

Front 4

When was English spelling standardized?

Back 4

In the 16th and 17th centuries

Front 5

Through what years was Old English spoken?

Back 5

Late 7th to mid 12th century

Front 6

How did the pronunciation of Old English compare to the pronunciation of other European languages?

Back 6

The vowels and consonants were pronounced the same, but Old English had distinctive consonant clusters

Front 7

What was the Great Vowel Shift?

Back 7

A complete systematic change in the pronunciation of stressed vowels in the English language

Front 8

When did the Great Vowel Shift take place?

Back 8

From the beginning of the 15th century to about the end of the 16th century

Front 9

Some dialects are mutually comprehensible, meaning...

Back 9

speakers of different dialects can all understand each other

Front 10

True or false: Virtually all American English dialects are mutually comprehensible.

Back 10

True

Front 11

True or false: Virtually all British English dialects are mutually comprehensible.

Back 11

False

Front 12

What is grammatical gender?

Back 12

The separation of nouns into masculine, feminine, and sometimes neuter categories

Front 13

What are case endings?

Back 13

Endings on words which tell the relationships among the words in the sentence, i.e. which word is the subject and which is the object

Front 14

What is an inflected language?

Back 14

A language that uses case endings

Front 15

True or false: Old English was a fully inflected language.

Back 15

True

Front 16

Is the order of words in a sentence more important in Old English or Modern English? Why?

Back 16

The order of the words in a sentence is more important in Modern English, because the same meaning in Old English was indicated through case endings

Front 17

True or false: in Old English, the subject and object were differentiated using word order.

Back 17

False; they were differentiated using case endings

Front 18

True or false: Modern English is a fully inflected language.

Back 18

False

Front 19

In what year was the King James Bible published?

Back 19

1611

Front 20

What is notable about the language used in the King James Bible?

Back 20

It was already archaic when it was published

Front 21

Which of these sentences would most likely be spoken by someone living in the early 1600s?

a ) The lady doth protest too much

b ) The lady does protest too much

Back 21

b ) The lady does protest too much

"Doth" was already archaic by the beginning of the 17th century.

Front 22

Which of these sentences would most likely be written by someone living in the early 1600s?

a ) The lady doth protest too much

b ) The lady does protest too much

Back 22

a) The lady doth protest too much

Even though the standard pronunciation of the word was "does," the archaic "doth" spelling was still used.

Front 23

When did the Anglo-Saxons come to the British Isles?

Back 23

In the 5th and 6th centuries A.D.

Front 24

When they came to the British Isles, the Anglo-Saxons displaced the native ______-speaking peoples.

Back 24

Celtic

Front 25

When did the Romans begin to colonize the British Isles?

Back 25

In the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D.

Front 26

When was Middle English spoken?

Back 26

From the mid-12th to mid-15th centuries

Front 27

Middle English was mainly a blend of _________ and _________.

Back 27

Old English and Norman French

Front 28

The Great Vowel Shift took place during the transition from ______ English to ______ English.

Back 28

Middle English to Modern English

Front 29

When was Modern English spoken?

Back 29

Mid-15th century to the present

Front 30

Who was Samuel Johnson (in relation to the study of linguistics)?

Back 30

Dictionary maker

Front 31

Who was James Murray (in relation to the study of linguistics)?

Back 31

Dictionary maker

Front 32

Who is Noam Chomsky (in relation to the study of linguistics)?

Back 32

American linguistic theorist

Front 33

What is methathesis?

Back 33

The transposition (swapping) of certain sounds in a word

Front 34

What linguistic phenomenon is represented by saying the word pisghetti instead of spaghetti?

Back 34

Metathesis