Firstly, we know that all human beings have a language of some kind. 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. In historical times, there has never been a race of men without a language.

 

Secondly, there is no such thing as a primitive language. There are many people whose cultures are underdeveloped, 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 guessed 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. This means each one is a perfect means of expressing the culture of the people who speak the language.

 

Finally, we know that language changes. It’s 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.

 

59. In the 2nd paragraph the author thinks that________.

 

A．some backward races don’t have a language of their own

 

B．some races in history didn’t possess a language of their own

 

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

 

D．some races on earth can communicate without a language

 

60. As the author says, people of underdeveloped cultures can have________languages.

 

A．complicated   B．uncivilized C．primitive   D．well­known

 

61. American Indian languages are mentioned to prove that they are________．

 

A．as fully developed as some well­known languages

 

B．more primitive than some well­known languages

 

C．more complex than some well­known languages

 

D．just as primitive as some well­known languages

 

62. According to the author, language changes are most likely to appear in________．

 

A．grammar   B．vocabulary C．intonation   D．pronunciation

 

 

 

英语阅读答案

 

59-62 CAAB

 

    据说，很多语言是神秘的，很多人会永远是这样的。但是我们也知道一些事情。

    首先，我们知道所有人都有某种语言。没有人类在地球上任何地方很落后，没有语言，没有一套语音的人们互相沟通。在历史上，从来没有一个种族的人没有语言。

    其次，有没有这样的东西作为一个原始的语言。许多人的文化不发达，是谁，我们说，不文明的，但是他们说的语言是不是原始的。在所有已知的语言，我们可以看到其复杂性一定是成千上万年的发展。

    这并不总是很清楚；事实上，完全相反的观点经常说的。对美印第安人语言的流行观念将说明。许多人猜测，印第安人用非常原始的声音系统连通。研究已经证明了这是废话。有，或是，有数以百计的美洲印第安人的语言，他们都是很复杂和老。他们当然是不同的，我们大多数人所熟悉的语言，但是他们没有英语和希腊语原始。

    三分之一件我们知道语言是，所有的语言都是充足的。这意味着每一个是一个完美的表达的人说这种语言的人们的文化意味。

    最后，我们知道，语言的变化。语言变化是自然和正常的；不改变的唯一语言是死的。这是很容易理解的：如果我们及时向后看。变化发生在语言的各个方面。语法特征变化做语音和词汇的变化有时是非常广泛的和可能发生的非常快。词汇是语言中最稳定的部分。