【正文】 t speak the same ki nd of Engli sh. Look at thi s kind of exam pl e: Bri ti sh Betty: Woul d you l i ke to see m y fl at? Am erican Am y: Yes. I’d li ke to e up to your apartment. So why has Engli sh changed over tim e? Actual ly al languages change and devel op when cul tures m eet and muni cate with each other. At fi rst the Engl ish spoken in Engl and betwen about AD 450 and 1150 was very different the Engli sh spoken today. It was based m ore on German than the Engli sh we speak at present. Then gradual y between about AD800 to 1150, Engl i sh became l ess li ke germ en because those who ruled Engl and spoke fi rst Dani sh and l ater French. These new settl ers enriched the Engl ish l anguage and especial y its vocabulary. So by the 1600’s Shakespeare was 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。 it was a wonderful journey of discovery. The largest dictionary 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 太陽能自動定向跟蹤節(jié)能裝置 （節(jié)能試太陽能路燈） 產(chǎn) 業(yè) 化 項 目 可 行 性 研 究 報 告 項目單位 ： 遼寧百通藥業(yè)股份有限公司 項目負責(zé)人：劉國志 聯(lián) 系 人 ：趙麗梅 聯(lián)系電話 ： 0292191071 13897801479 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 diary as most 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