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
of George Bernard Shaw's jokes or do you think that 'many a true word
is spoken in jest'?

2. Do you think British and American English differ greatly? Which variant,
do you think, should foreign learners of English be taught? Give your
reasons.

3. When you are reading a book in English and you do not know exactly
whether the author is British or American can you guess the origin of
the writer? What helps you do that (lexis, grammar or spelling)?

PART1

Read the text and make sure that you understand it. The list of new words on p. 244 will help you.

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-

* Based on " The Mother Tongue" by Bill Bryson. Bard, 1990.

Parti

siderable change in the structure of the language. The 104 pilgrims, who sailed from Plymouth in 1620, were among the first generation of people to use the 's' form on verbs, saying 'has' rather than 'hath', 'runs' rather than 'runneth'. Similarly, 'thee' and 'thou' pronoun forms were dying out. Had the pilgrims come a quarter of a century earlier, we might well have preserved those forms, as we preserved other archaisms such as 'gotten'.

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

Names

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
in the midst of perhaps the most exciting period in the history of the
English language"? What was happening to the English language at
that time?

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
dollar as the name of the American currency? How did he explain his
choice?

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
слова, чтобы описать свой Новый Свет, и эта необходимость,
естественно, возрастала по мере того, как они продвигались в
глубь страны.

3. Многие заимствования точнее назвать мексиканскими, чем испан­
скими.

4. У французов мы также заимствовали (слова) обильно, взяв фран­
цузские названия индейских племен, иногда сохраняя (француз­
ское) произношение, а иногда и нет.

5. Мы взяли у французов и другие слова, но часто крутили и вертели
их так, что они стали выглядеть определенно американскими.

6. Порою слова приходят к нам совершенно невероятными путями.

7....«доллар» - это искажение слова (денежной единицы) «иоахим-
талер», названной так по имени места, где в Германии добывали
серебро. Впервые употребление этого слова в английском языке
было отмечено в 1553 году. Оно писалось 'daler' и в течение по­
следующих двух столетий употреблялось англичанами как назва­
ние различных европейских валют.

8. Его первое использование в Америке было отмечено только в
1782 году...

9....на том основании, что...

10. Во всяком случае, Джефферсон добился своего...

11. Это все, что нам доподлинно известно...

Unit ten