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nSport’sn Edition!
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nDidnyou know that English is the most widely spoken language in thenworld?
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| Sign in English, in Namibia |
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nThat’snbecause it is the third largest “first” language (in other words,nthe language learned by people as babies as their first, nativenlanguage), after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish – AND it is “thenlanguage of science” (in most fields, almost every scientific papernis published in English) – AND it is the leading language ofninternational political and trade negotiations. It is widely learnednas a second language, so when people from Israel, Germany, and Italynmeet in a little B&B in Austria, as I once experienced, they cannspeak to each other through the only language they all knew –nEnglish. Lucky for me, right?
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| Sign in Hindi and English, in India |
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nEnglishnis also a huge language. There are more than 250,000 words in annOxford Dictionary—and that doesn’t even count a lot of technical,nscientific, and slang words! English has a lot of words that arensynonyms—words that mean roughly the same thing; partly this isnbecause there are root words from Old English, Dutch, and othernGermanic languages; root words from French and Latin and othern“Romance” languages; root words from Greek; and words adoptednfrom elsewhere, such as native Caribbean and African cultures.nEnglish seems to eagerly adopt and adapt words and phrases from othernlanguages in a way that is very different from other languages, suchnas French.
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nBynthe way, French has about 43,000 words – FAR fewer! (Again, wordncount is hard to do – because there are archaic words, scientificnterms, slang words. A more liberal way of counting French words mightncome up with around 500,000 words – but then, the same way ofncounting English words would put it at more than one million words!)
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nHerenare some examples of English words from different roots:
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n fromnGermanic language: from Latin or French:
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n come arrive
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n sight vision
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n freedom liberty
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n cow beefn(boeuf)
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n pig porkn(porque)
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| Sign in French and English, in Israel |
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nEnglishnincludes acronyms such as snafu (Situation Normal—All FoulednUp); words from Africa such as jazz and yam;nwords from the Caribbean such as canoenand papaya; words fromnvarious groups of Native Americans such as igloo,ntobacco, tomato,nand moose; words fromnAboriginal Australians such as kangaroonand koala; and wordsnfrom Asian languages such as shampoo,njungle, and bamboo.
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nThe English Project has declarednOctober 13 to be English Language Day – a day on which to honornEnglish – because on this day in 1362, the Chancellor of Englandnfor the first time opened Parliament with a speech in English. Atntimes in England’s past, the language of power was Latin or French,nso this is seen as a turning point.
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| Sign on bus, in Czech and English, in Czech Republic |
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nNow,nwhat’s this about sports?
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nThisnyear’s English Language Day theme is sports. We are encouraged tonnotice all the sports phrases that are used outside of sports. Herenare some examples. Do you know what they mean?
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- Theynwent down to the wire to make a deal. (phrase from horsenracing)
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- Whonin the world is calling the shots? (phrase from billiards)
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- Inhope you let her off the hook! (fishing)
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- Karanwas exhausted as she ran the last lap, but then she got a secondnwind. (sailing)
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- Pleasendon’t throw in the towel on this project! (boxing)
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- Theynstarted to argue but then called a time out sonthey’d calm down. (many sports)
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