2. 外语
  3. Many things about language are a mystery, and many will always remain so. But some things we do know. First, we know that a

Many things about language are a mystery, and many will always remain so. But some things we do know. First, we know that a

admin2010-11-02  57
问题      Many things about language are a mystery, and many will always remain so. But some things we do know.
     First, we know that all human beings have a language of some sort. There is no race of men anywhere on earth so backward that it has no language, no set of speech sounds by which the people communicate with one another. Furthermore, in historical times, there has never been a race of men without a language.
     Second, there is no such thing as a primitive language. There are many people whose cultures are undeveloped, who are, as we say, uncivilized, but the languages they speak are not primitive. In all known languages we can see complexities that must have been tens of thousands of years in developing. This has not always been well understood; indeed, the direct contrary has often been stated. Popular ideas of the language of the American Indians will illustrate. Many people have supposed that the Indians communicated in a very primitive system of noises. Study has proved this to be nonsense. There are, or were, hundreds of American Indian languages, and all of them turn out to be very complicated and very old. They are certainly different from the languages that most of us are familiar with, but they are no more primitive than English and Greek.
     A third thing we know about language is that all languages are perfectly adequate. That is, each one is a perfect means of expressing the culture of the people who speak the language.
     Finally, we know that language changes. It is natural and normal for language to change; the only languages that do not change are the dead ones. This is easy to understand if we look backward in time. Change goes on in all aspects of language. Grammatical features change as do speech sounds, and changes in vocabulary are sometimes very extensive and may occur very rapidly. Vocabulary is the least stable part of any language.  
In the second paragraph the author thinks that______.
选项 A、some backward race doesn’t have a language of its own
B、some race in history didn’t possess a language of its own
C、any human race, whether backward or not, has a language
D、some races on earth can communicate without language
答案C
解析 同义转述题。作者在第二段中认为，任何人种不管落后与否都有自己的语言。文中的原句是 Furthermore, in historical times, there has never been a race of men without a language.(此外，在历史上还从来没有过没有语言的民族。)这句话的意思和选项C一致，答案是C。
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