背誦為王第二冊第41課
- 聽力原文
- 參考譯文
口語
人的嘴有三種主要功能。其中的兩項(xiàng)——吃和呼吸，和動(dòng)物王國的成員一樣。第三項(xiàng)——說話，這是人類區(qū)別于其他生物的主要特征。
雖然原始人一定有口頭語言，但是社會科學(xué)家沒有證據(jù)證明在5到6千年前古美索不達(dá)米亞和埃及出現(xiàn)文字記錄前人類就有文字了。如今的語言學(xué)家可以辨認(rèn)1
500多種口語。中文是最大的語言，有10億多人說中文。緊隨之后的是英語，它是使用最廣泛的第一語言，也已經(jīng)成為了國際交流中人們選擇的語言。
英語并不一直是國際語言。兩百年前法語是占統(tǒng)治地位的語言。在古代，阿拉伯語、希臘語和拉丁語是不同時(shí)期的國際語言。
歷史上有許多人試圖為世界各地的民族創(chuàng)造一種普遍通用的語言。迄今為止，此類努力中最成功的是世界語，在20世紀(jì)中葉曾一度有大約75萬人使用它，但是這樣的通用語言因?yàn)槿狈ξ幕A(chǔ)，最終都以失敗告終
Lesson41 Spoken Languages
The human mouth has three major functions． Two of them —eating and breathing — are shared by members of the animal kingdom． The third function — speaking — is one of the principal features which distinguish human beings from the rest of living creatures．
Although primitive man must have had a spoken language， social scientists have no evidence of written language before the appearance of written records in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt 5-6 thousand years ago． Present-day linguists can identify over 1500 spoken languages．Chinese is the biggest language， spoken by more than a billion people． After Chinese， English is the most widely spoken first language， and has become the language of choice in international communication．
English has not always been the international language． Two hundred years ago French was the dominant language．In ancient times， Arabic，Greek and Latin were international languages at different points in time．
Many people in history tried to create a common universal language for all peoples of the world． The most successful of such effort to date was Esperanto which was spoken by about 750，000 people at one time in the mid-20th century． However， such universal languages always fail in the end because of lack of a cultural foundation．
principal 主要的
distinguish 區(qū)分
primitive 原始的
Mesopotamia 美索不達(dá)米亞
linguist 語言學(xué)家
identify 認(rèn)清，辨認(rèn)
dominant 占統(tǒng)治地位的，占優(yōu)勢的
universal 通用的
foundation 基礎(chǔ)
The human mouth has three major functions． Two of them —eating and breathing — are shared by members of the animal kingdom． The third function — speaking — is one of the principal features which distinguish human beings from the rest of living creatures．
Although primitive man must have had a spoken language， social scientists have no evidence of written language before the appearance of written records in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt 5-6 thousand years ago． Present-day linguists can identify over 1500 spoken languages．Chinese is the biggest language， spoken by more than a billion people． After Chinese， English is the most widely spoken first language， and has become the language of choice in international communication．
English has not always been the international language． Two hundred years ago French was the dominant language．In ancient times， Arabic，Greek and Latin were international languages at different points in time．
Many people in history tried to create a common universal language for all peoples of the world． The most successful of such effort to date was Esperanto which was spoken by about 750，000 people at one time in the mid-20th century． However， such universal languages always fail in the end because of lack of a cultural foundation．
principal 主要的
distinguish 區(qū)分
primitive 原始的
Mesopotamia 美索不達(dá)米亞
linguist 語言學(xué)家
identify 認(rèn)清，辨認(rèn)
dominant 占統(tǒng)治地位的，占優(yōu)勢的
universal 通用的
foundation 基礎(chǔ)
