Learning foreign languages
Somebody said: "English is a language that came from nowhere to conquer the world…" These words are really true and I will prove it.
Firstly I would like to talk to you where English comes from. English is a member of the West Germanic subgroup of the Germanic branch of Indo-European language family.
Secondly I would like to dwell on some of the chief literary works written in English language in different periods. "Beowulf" is the most important poem in old English. It is remarkable for its sustained grandeur of tone and for the brilliance of its style. The Canterbury Tales were written by Geoffrey Chaucer, "the father of English literature". He added tremendously to the prestige of English language by using it instead of more fashionable French spoken at that time. The third is the King James Bible. It exercised enormous influence on the development of the English language. It remains a classic of English history. But the most important contribution was made by William Shakespeare. Shakespeare's influence on everyday English speech is great, people all over the world quote Shakespeare. The English language arrived in Britain on the point of a sword. That is why there are so many loans in English language.
In 1940 Winston Churchill wished to appeal to the hearts and minds of English-speaking people. It was the time of Patriotic war and that it why he used the plain bareness for which Old English is noted. His purpose was to show the independence of English language and English people. It was his celebrated passage which helped people to fight.
Now I would like to tell you about Standard English and Regional accents. Received pronunciation is the form of British English pronunciation used by many educated people in every part of Britain. It is thought of a standard form and is often used by the BBC. It is also used in teaching English in many parts of the world. The King's of the Queen's English is a good correct English as it should be spoken. Accent is the sound of a person's pronunciation of the language. It shows where a person comes from and what class he or she belongs to. Cockney is the way of speaking English and it is known as the London dialect. Rhyming slang is a way of speaking, ordinarily popular among cockneys in which a rhyming phrase, or a part of it, is substituted for a standard word.
There is a standard form of the language and some dialects in our country too. To my mind, every country needs a standard form of the language because of the contact between people of this country. But there are a lot of loanwords in every language nowadays. Every day for example in advertisements we can hear and see new, incomprehensible, bad words, and they become widespread among the population.
In conclusion I would like to say that now there are more than 60 countries that speak English as the dominant or official language. My purpose is to show you why the English is a world language. The present day world status of English is the result of two factors: the expansion of British colonial power, which peaked towards the end of the 19th
century, and the emergence of the US as the leading economic power of the 20th
century. English is the chief language of international business and academic conferences, and the leading language of international tourism. English is the main language of popular music, advertising, home computers and video games. Most of the scientific, technological and academic information in the world is expressed in English.
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