View a FREE sample

This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 2, The Mother Tongue.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. When did the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes sail from Denmark and the German Coast into Britain?
(a) 340 B.C.
(b) 100 B.C.
(c) 300 A.D.
(d) 449 A.D.

2. Robert McCrum was Editor-in-Chief of what publishing house from 1979-1996?
(a) Faber and Faber.
(b) Penguin.
(c) Simon and Schuster.
(d) Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald.

3. What is the name of the dialect generally associated with the British working class?
(a) Queen's English.
(b) RP.
(c) Cockney.
(d) Estuary.

4. Robert McCrum describes the modulation of British RP to what in the Introduction?
(a) American English.
(b) North Country English.
(c) Cockney English.
(d) Estuary English.

5. When was the original edition of The Story of English published?
(a) 1975.
(b) 1986.
(c) 1980.
(d) 1990.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common?

2. RP was spoken by how much of the British population at the origination of BBC?

3. Linguists know that languages spoken by around how much of humanity came from a common Indo-European source?

4. Who remain the most direct descendants of the Celts?

5. How many novels has Robert MacNeil written, according to the Introduction?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 193 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample