【正文】 s abl e to make use of a wider vocabulary than ever before. In 1620 som e Bri ti sh setlers m oved to Am eri can. Later in the 18th century som e Bri ti sh peopl e were taken to Australi a too. Engl ish began to be spoken i n both countri es. Fi nal ly by the 19th century the l anguage was settl ed. At that tim e two bi g changes i n Engli sh spel li ng happened: fi rst Sam uel Johnson wrote hi s di cti onary and later Noah Webster wrote The Am erican Di cti onary of the Engli sh Language. The l ater gave a separate i dentity to Ameri can Engli sh spel li ng. Engli sh now i s al so spoken as a forei gn or second language i n South Asia. For exam pl e, Indi a has a very l arge number of fl uent Engli sh speakers because Bri tain ruled Indi a from 1765 to 1947. duri ng that tim e Engli sh became the language for government and educati on. Engli sh i s also spoken i n Singapore and Malaysi a and countri es i n Afri ca such as South Afri ca. Today the number of peopl e learni ng Engl ish in Chi na i s i ncreasi ng rapi dl y. In fact, China may have the l argest num ber of Engl ish l earners. Wil l Chi nese Engli sh devel op its own i dentity? O nl y tim e wil tel l. STAN DARD EN GLISH AN D DIALECTS What is standard Engl ish? Is i t spoken i n Bri tai n, the US, Canada, Austral ia, India and N ew Zeal and? Bel i eve it or not, there i s no such thi ng as standard Engl ish. Many people beli eve the Engli sh spoken on TV and the radi o i s standard Engli sh. This i s because i n the earl y days of radi o, those who reported the news were expected to speak excel lent Engli sh. H owever, on TV and the radi o you wil hear di fferences i n the way people speak. When people use words and expressions different from the “standard language”, it is cal led a dial ect. American Engl ish has many dial ects, especi al ly the Mi dwestern, southern, Afri can Ameri can and Spanish dial ects. Even i n som e parts of the USA, two peopl e from nei ghbouri ng towns speak a li ttl e di fferently. Am erican Engli sh has so m any dial ects because people have e from al over the worl d. Geography also plays a part i n maki ng di al ects. Som e people who li ve in the m ountai ns of the eastern USA speak with an ol der kind of Engli sh di al ect. When Am eri cans m oved from one pl ace to another, they tok thei r di al ects with them. So people from the mountai ns in the southeastern USA speak wi th alm ost the sam e di al ects as peopl e in the northwestern USA. The USA i s a l arge country i n whi ch m any different di al ects are spoken. Although many Am ericans m ove a lot, they stil recogni ze and understand each other’s dial ects. TH E O XFO RD ENGLISH DICTIO NARY You m ay think that Engl ish dicti onari es have been used for m any, m any centuri es. The spel li ng of Engl ish has al ways been a probl em but it was more of a probl em i n the days before a di cti onary. Then people coul d spel word i n different ways whi ch you m i ght fi nd it i nteresti ng. But i t m ade readi ng Engl ish m uch m ore diffi cul t. So dicti onari es were i nvented to encourage everybody to spel l the sam e. In fact, an Engli sh di cti onary l ike the ki nd you use today wasn’t made until the time of the l ate Qing Dynasty. There men did most of the important earl y work on dicti onari es: Sam uel Johnson, N oah Webster, and Jam es Murray. These men spent nearl y al of their lives trying to col lect words for their dictionaries. For them, it wasn’t onl y a job。 it was a wonderful journey of discovery. The largest di ctionary in the worl d is the Oxford Engl ish Dicti onary, or OED for short. The i dea for this di ctionary came from an important meeting in Britai n in 1857. Twentytwo years later, O xford Uni versi ty asked James Muray to be the edi tor of its new di ctionary. Muray had never been to col ege. At the age of fourten, he l eft his vil lage school in Scotl and and taught hi mself whil e working in a bank. Later he became a great teacher. After Oxford gave him the job, Muray had a place bui lt i n the garden behind hi s house to do his work. Part of it was one meter underground. In winter i t felt like a barn, he had to wear a heavy coat and put hi s feet 必修一 Uni t 1 ANNE’S BEST FRIEND Do you want a fri end whom you coul d tel l everythi ng to, li ke your deepest feli ngs and thoughts? Or are you afrai d that your fri end woul d laugh at you, or woul d not understand what you are goi ng through? Anne Frank wanted the fi rst kind, so she m ade her best fri end. Anne l ived in Amsterdam in N etherlands duri ng Woul d WarⅡ .H er fami ly was Jewi sh so they had to hide or they woul d be caught by the Germ an N azi . She and her fami ly hi d away for nearl y twentyfive months before they were discovered. During that time the onl y true friend was her diary. She said ,”I don’t want to set down a seri es of facts in a di ary as m ost peopl e do ,but I want this diary itsel f to be my friend, and I shal cal l my friend Kitty . ”Now read how she fel t after being i n the hiding place si nce July 1942. Thursday 15th June 1944 Dear Kitty, I wonder if it’s because I haven’t been abl e to be outdoors for so l ong that I’ve grown so crazy about everything to do with nature. I can wel remember that there was a time when a dep blue sky, the song of the birds, moonlight and fl owers could never have kept me spel bound. That’s changed since I was here. …For example, one eveni ng when it was so warm , I stayed awake on purpose unti l half past el even in order to have a good l ook at the mon by myself. But as the mon gave far too much l ight, I didn’t dare open a window. Another time five months ago, I happened to be upstairs at dusk when the window was open. I didn’t go downstairs until the window had to be shut. The dark, rainy evening, the wind, the thundering cl ouds hel d me entirel y in their power。 it was the first time in a year and a hal f that I’d seen the night fac