魔幻塔羅占卜 《DIY隨身BLOG》

 


  Many people think the English do not like to speak other languages. In fact, English is a mixture of words from many different languages. Because of this, the vocabulary of the English language is very large. It is much larger than almost every other language in the world.
         Many English words come from Latin, the old language of Rome, and also from Greek. From Latin we get words like "wine" and "day". From Greek we have words such as "photograph", "Bible" and "ink". Because these two languages are dead, the words have most often come through other languages such as French, or the old German language. There are also many words from both Greek and Latin together, "television", for example. Here "tele" is the Greek for "far" and "vision" comes from Latin and means "seeing".
         Many common English words come from very strange places. "Tea" is from China and "banana" from West Africa. "Potato" came into the English language from the island of Haiti, and "tomato" first came from Maxico. One reason why the English language has so many words from other languages is that people from many different countries have come to live in Britain. Two thousand years ago Romans came from Italy, and stayed for over four hundred years. After they left, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes came from the northern part of modern Germany. In the ninth and tenth centuries Scandinavians came into the northern and eastern part of the country. Finally, in the eleventh century William of Normandy came from France, and became King of  England. With him came French civilization and the French language.
         In modern Britain there are four separate languages: English, Welsh (about one third of the population of Wales speak Welsh), Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic. And the English language itself is very different from one place to another. There are also many differences in spelling, vocabulary and pronunciation between American and British English.
         The English language continues to grow. It is not only the language of Britain, but also of North America, Australia and New Zealand, and millions of people in Africa and Asia. Today, it is the international language of trade, and maybe most important of all, the language of science and technology., 



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