Five Things You Never Knew About the English Language
English is one of the most widespread languages in the world, and it is rapidly becoming a lingua franca. However, although many people speak it, there is a lot that most people don’t know about it.
- English is what is known as an intonation language. This means that the way a sentence is pronounced can have a vast effect on what it means. Questions are expressed like this – say ‘No.’ then compare that to ‘No?’ You should notice a rise in pitch at the end of the question – without this the question would not be interpreted properly.
- English has more words than any other modern day language, due to the number of different cultures that adapt it to suit them.
- Over three quarters of all words in English come from either a Latin, German or French language base.
- To a romance language speaker (French, Italian, Spanish) English sounds the same as Dutch. This is due to the fact that English and Dutch are both of Germanic origin, yet also share the same phonology.
- It is much harder to learn English from scratch than most other languages because when written, English word pronunciation varies. For example ‘tear’ can mean to rip something when said t-air but means a drop of water when pronounced t-ear. So, reading this, if you were raised speaking English then it was much easier for you to learn. The downside of this is that spelling is consequentially much harder in English.
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Post CommentJence
On October 20, 2008 at 6:43 pm
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