![]() Главная страница Случайная страница КАТЕГОРИИ: АвтомобилиАстрономияБиологияГеографияДом и садДругие языкиДругоеИнформатикаИсторияКультураЛитератураЛогикаМатематикаМедицинаМеталлургияМеханикаОбразованиеОхрана трудаПедагогикаПолитикаПравоПсихологияРелигияРиторикаСоциологияСпортСтроительствоТехнологияТуризмФизикаФилософияФинансыХимияЧерчениеЭкологияЭкономикаЭлектроника |
UNIT TEN. England and America are two countries separated by a common language
England and America are two countries separated by a common language. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish dramatist, essayist and critic Discuss this before you read the text. 1. How do you understand the epigraph to this unit? Is it just another one 2. Do you think British and American English differ greatly? Which variant, 3. When you are reading a book in English and you do not know exactly PART1
TRANSATLANTIC CONNECTIONS* Do the Americans and the British really speak the same language? The question is only seemingly easy to answer. The birthplace of the English language is most certainly not North America, but England. The language was exported to the New World by the first British settlers. This is what Bill Bryson, the renowned American author writes in his book The Mother Tongue, the subtitle of which is English and How It Got That Way. " The first American pilgrims happened to live in the midst of perhaps the most exciting period in the history of the English language - a time when 12, 000 words were being added to the language, and revolutionary activities were taking place in almost every realm of human endeavor. It was also a time of con-
Parti
The new settlers in America obviously had to come up with new words to describe their New World, and this necessity naturally increased as they moved inland. Partly this was achieved by borrowing from others who inhabited or explored the untamed continent. From the Dutch we took 'landscape', 'cookie' and quite a few other words. Often the new immigrants borrowed Indian terms. Despite the difficulties of rendering them into English, Indian names were borrowed for the names of more than half our states and for countless thousands of rivers, lakes, and towns. Yet we borrowed no more than three or four dozen Indian words for everyday objects - among them 'canoe', 'raccoon', 'hammock' and 'tobacco'. From the early Spanish settlers, by contrast, we took more than 500 words - though many of these, it must be said, were Indian terms adopted by the Spaniards. Among them: 'rodeo', 'buffalo', 'avocado', 'mustang' and 'canyon'. Many borrowings are more accurately described as Mexican than Spanish since they did not exist in Spain, among them 'stampede' and 'cafeteria'. From the French, too, we borrowed liberally, taking the names for Indian tribes, territories, rivers and other geographical features, sometimes preserving the pronunciation and sometimes not. We took other words from the French, but often knocked them about in a way that made them look distinctively American. Sometimes words reach us by the most improbable routes. The word for the American currency, 'dollar', is a corruption of Uoachimsthaler', named for a sixteenth-century silver mine in Joachimsthal, Germany. The first recorded use of the word in English was in 1553, spelt 'daler', and for the next two centuries it was applied by the English to various continental currencies. Its first use in America was not recorded until 1782, when Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the US, in Notes on a Money Unit for the United States, chose dollar as the name of the national currency on the ground that " the [Spanish] dollar is a known coin and the most familiar of all to the mind of the people." That may be its first appearance, but clearly if it was known to the people, the term had already been in use for some time. At all events, Jefferson had his way: in 1785 the dollar was adopted as America's currency, though it was not until 1794 that the first dollars rolled off the presses. That much we know, but what we don't know is where the dollar sign ($) comes from. (to be continued) Unit ten
Joachimsthaler Joachimsthal Thomas Jefferson ['tomgs 'djefgsn] New Words renowned [n'naund] ad/известный, знаменитый syn. famous realm [relm] л зд. сфера, область endeavor (Am.), endeavour (Br.) [m'deva] л зд. деятельность syn. effort, activities hath [hssQ] устар. форма 3 лица ед. числа (совр. - has) runneth [типев] устар. форма 3 лица ед. числа (совр. - runs) thee [di: ] устар., поэт, ты thou [dau] устар., поэт, тебя, тебе и т. д. preserve [pn'z3: v] v сохранять archaism ['cukeiizm] л архаизм, архаичное слово или выражение obviously ['obviasli] adv очевидно, ясно, явно untamed [ym'teimd] ad] неприрученный, дикий landscape ['lasndskeipj л ландшафт, пейзаж cookie ['kuki] л печенье render [tendg] v передать смысл, зд. перевести canoe [кэ'пш] л каноэ raccoon [гэ'кшп] л енот hammock [Ъазтэк] л гамак adopt [a'dopt] v принимать, перенимать, усыновить, удочерить, зд. заимствовать rodeo [тэшйэи] л загон для клеймения скота, родео buffalo ['bAfalgu] л буйвол avocado [.aeva'kaidsu] л авокадо mustang ['nustaen] л мустанг canyon ['kaenjan] л каньон stampede [stsem'pi: d] л паническое стадное бегство животных cafeteria [.kaefa'tisns] л кафе-закусочная, кафетерий liberally ['libarsh] adi/зд. обильно, свободно, неограниченно feature ['fbtfs] л зд. особенность, характерная черта knock smth/smb about (phrasal verb) зд. гонять, крутить distinctively [dis'tirjktivh] adv3fl. определенно, несомненно corruption [кэ'глр/эп] п зд. изменение, искажение Parti Questions for discussion. 1. Why does Bill Bryson say " the first American pilgrims happened to live 2. Why did the first settlers have to " come up with new words"? 3. What languages did the settlers borrow from? Give some examples. 4. What is the origin of the word 'dollar'? Who was the first to introduce EXERCISES • • Find English equivalents in the text for the following (you may think of better Russian translations!) 1. Этот вопрос только кажется легким. 2. Новым поселенцам, безусловно, пришлось придумывать новые 3. Многие заимствования точнее назвать мексиканскими, чем испан 4. У французов мы также заимствовали (слова) обильно, взяв фран 5. Мы взяли у французов и другие слова, но часто крутили и вертели 6. Порою слова приходят к нам совершенно невероятными путями. 7....«доллар» - это искажение слова (денежной единицы) «иоахим- 8. Его первое использование в Америке было отмечено только в 9....на том основании, что...
10. Во всяком случае, Джефферсон добился своего... 11. Это все, что нам доподлинно известно... Unit ten
|