1. HISTORY OF ENGLISH
TEST REVIEW

2. How many language (dialects) are spoken in the world?
about 7,000

3. Languages are classified into many language ___.
families

4. Languages are classified into how many language families?
100

5. English belongs to the ____ family of languages.
Indo-European

6. Which of the following languages is NOT included in the Indo-European family: Latin, Arabic, Spanish, German, or Greek?
Arabic

7. English is included in the _____ branch of the Indo-European family.
Germanic

8. Spanish (Italic branch)
All of the following languages are included in the Germanic branch except: Swedish, Norwegian, Spanish, Dutch, or Danish.
Spanish (Italic branch)

9. English is the world’s first ____ language spoken by more people around the world than any other language.
global

10. What language has the most native speakers (meaning it is their first language learned)?
Mandarin Chinese (over one billion speakers)

11. English has about how many native speakers?
370 million

12. English has about how many TOTAL speakers?
1.5 billion

13. From 8,000 to 4,000 BC, what preliterate (without a written language) group of people lived in Europe?
Indo-Europeans

14. The Indo-European people spoke _______. (which language?)
Proto-Indo-European

15. _____ are words from different languages that come from the same ancestral root.
Cognates

16. Which group invaded England in 55 BC?
Romans

17. This group of invaders was led by _____.
Julius Caesar

18. Which language did the Romans speak?
Latin

19. About ___% of Modern English comes from Latin.
60% (many of these come indirectly from French words that were based on Latin words)

20. Besides the Frisians and Jutes, what other invaders entered England in 450?
Angles and Saxons

21. The Angles and Saxons were _____ tribes (country of origin?)
Germanic

22. The Germanic tribes were descended from a group of people known as the _____.
Teutons

23. What did most of the Anglo-Saxon invaders do for a living?
They were farmers

24. What language did the Germanic invaders speak?
Anglo-Saxon

25. From which group of people came words for war (battle), building (road), household items (table), and (butter)?
Romans (these Latin words were already included in the Anglo-Saxon language when they arrived in England)

26. From 597, which language was spoken in intellectual matters and the church?
Latin

27. Who converted King Ethelbert to Christianity in 597?
St. Augustine

28. Which group invaded England in 787?
Scandinavian Vikings

29. The Vikings spoke the language of _____.
Old Norse

30. All of the following countries are in Scandinavia except: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Italy, or Denmark

31. How many words did the Vikings add to the English language?
1,000

32. In 878, who won a decisive victory, expelling the Vikings?
Alfred the Great

33. The language developed between the years 450 to 1100 is known as _____.
Old English

34. What work of literature was written in Old English?
Epic poem Beowulf

35. Beowulf defeated the monster _____ and his mama.
Grendel

36. Which group gave a name to England and English?
Angles (Angle-land)

37. Approximately _____ words were in the Old English vocabulary.
24,000

38. Of the 1,000 most common Modern English words, what percent are from Old English?
80% (4/5)

39. Which group added the following words to English: Thursday, leg, odd, husband, sky, skin, scrape, they, their, and them?
Vikings

40. Which group founded a colony named “Britannia” in the British Isles?
Romans

41. In 1066, Edward the Confessor supposedly promised the English throne to _____.
William of Normandy

42. Normandy is in which country?
France

43. A council of elders appointed _____ as the King of England after Edward the Confessor’s death.
Harold Godwin

44. William the Conqueror defeated Harold in the Battle of _____.
Hastings

45. Which economic system did the Normans bring to England?
feudalism

46. During the 1100’s and 1200’s, which language was spoken by the lower classes?
English (Start of Middle English period)

47. While English words were more commonly used, ___ words were more literary, and Latin words were more scholarly.
French

48. What major event spurred the English government to declare English as the official language in the 1300’s?
Hundred Years’ War

49. About _____ French words entered the English language after the Norman invasion.
10,000

50. What percent of Modern English comes from French?
28%

51. Which language gave us words for administration, law, fashion, leisure, and science?
French

52. After the French invasion, plural nouns were formed by adding –s or -es instead of ____ to words.
-en (Anglo-Saxon housen became French houses)

53. The English said chicken and cow; the French dishes from them were ____ and ____.
poultry and beef

54. During the 1400’s, what phenomenon happened that changed the way Englishmen pronounced their words?
Great Vowel Shift

55. A. Sounds like the vowels in French and Spanish
Which group of words best represent how the vowels were pronounced PRIOR to the Great Vowel Shift?
A. ta, tay, tea, toe, two
B. may, me, my, moe, moo
A. Sounds like the vowels in French and Spanish

56. After the Great Vowel Shift, the pronunciation of words changed, but _____ stayed the same.
spellings

57. The English spoken from about 1100 to 1500 is known as _____.
Middle English

58. During the Middle English period, verb endings were changed to break out the _____ from the base verb.
pronoun (Spanish verbs contain the pronouns also: estoy, estas, esta, estamos, estan)

59. Who is deemed to be the greatest author of medieval England?
Geoffrey Chaucer

60. Which book did Geoffrey Chaucer write?
The Canterbury Tales

61. Which language added the qu (as in queen), the ch (as in church), the gh (as in night), and the ou (as in tour)?
French

62. Who revived education and translated Latin documents into Old English?
Alfred the Great

63. The Normans were descended from which group of people?
The Vikings

64. Which group of people created the Robin Hood stories?
Anglo-Saxons (to get the French out!)

65. What invention in the 1400’s spread literacy among common people?
printing press

66. Who brought the printing press to England and published 20,000 books?
William Caxton

67. Which book published in 1611 preserved traditional phrasings like spake and taketh?
King James Bible

68. Bibles of the day contained many ____, which are phrases that have their own meaning apart from the literal.
idioms

69. Which “rebirth” in art, literature, and fashion occurred during the 16th and 17th centuries?
English Renaissance

70. How many words entered the English language during the Renaissance?
12,000

71. During the Renaissance, many scientific, medical, and _____ words came from Latin and Greek.
mathematical

72. The words panic, music, hypnosis, mercury, and titanium come from _____.
Greek mythology

73. During the Age of Discovery, colonies were formed in Jamestown and ____, giving the start to American English.
Plymouth

74. The English spoken from 1500 to 1800 is known as _____.
Early Modern English

75. Which author’s work is representative of Early Modern English?
William Shakespeare

76. In 1755, who published the first well-known English dictionary?
Samuel Johnson

77. Johnson’s dictionary contained each word’s ____, which is its origin and historical development over time.
etymology

78. The English spoken from 1800 to the present is known as _____.
Modern English

79. Which author’s work is representative of Modern English?
Jane Austen

80. A _____ is a speech pattern in a particular geographical area or in a certain ethnic or social group.
dialect

81. The three main dialects in the United States today are the Northern, ____, and the Midland/Western.
Southern

82. Thomas Jefferson was instructed to write which document in the “language of the United States”?
Declaration of Independence

83. In 1828, who published the first American English dictionary?
Noah Webster

84. A ____ is a word or phrase that has been recently created or “coined.”
neologism

85. Which of the following is a “clipped” word: flu, advertisement, or pen?
flu, from influenza

86. Which of these is a blended word?
NASA
photo op
brunch
C (breakfast & lunch)

87. An ____ is a word created from the first letters of several words.
acronym (MADD=Mothers Against Drunk Driving)

88. A _______ is a word that begins to be used as a different part of speech.
conversion (Happy to meet you = verb. Go to the track meet = noun.)

89. Words “borrowed” from other cultures from immigration, trade, and travel are _____ words.
loan

90. _____ are words that have similar meanings.
synonyms

91. Peter Mark Roget wrote the first ____, which recorded synonyms.
thesaurus

92. More new words entered our language between the years _____ and 1899 than during any prior period.
1850

93. How many new words entered our language during the last half of the 1800’s?
25,000

94. In the late 1800’s, what created the need to name many things that did not exist before?
Industrial Revolution

95. brand (Kleenex, aspirin)
During the Industrial Revolution, words entered our language from inventions and ____ products.
brand (Kleenex, aspirin)

96. An ____ is a person’s name that is used to name a product, such Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization.
eponym

97. What text was published in 1928, updated in 1989, and is currently being updated online?
Oxford English Dictionary

98. An Internet group claims that English now has about ____ (number of) words.
one million

99. The newest words being added to English come from trends, fashions, pop culture, literature, and this big one-- ____.
technology

100. Only about ____ words are in common use.
200,000

101. Only about ___ words are used on a weekly basis.
2,000

102. What language is considered the world’s most influential language?
English