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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who published the Dictionary of the English Language in 1755?

2. The first Dictionary of the English Language contained over how many definitions?

3. When did the Romans withdraw from Britain?

4. In Chapter 2, The Mother Tongue, the authors claim that the horse and the what spread the English language and caused its divergence?

5. After World War II, which national economy sent multinational corporations across the world and into NATO and the UN?

Short Essay Questions

1. What managed to diminish the number of dialects in Great Britain?

2. Which group of Scots first spoke English? Where did it arrive from?

3. What examples do the authors give in Chapter 1, An English-Speaking World for the history of success of the English language?

4. What do the authors write of the advances from broadcasting on English in Chapter 1, An English-Speaking World?

5. What do the authors assert about the state of flux of the English language in the Introduction?

6. Who was William Shakespeare and what impact did he have on the English language?

7. What do the authors assert is the common ancestry of all languages? What happened to most of them?

8. What myths do the authors dispel about the English language in Chapter 1, An English-Speaking World?

9. What time frame is embodied by the Elizabethan period? What advances took place in English during this time?

10. How do we know how the English language sounded hundreds of years ago? What do the authors relate about grammatical shifts in the Introduction?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe the Act of Union of 1803 in Great Britain and its effects on the Irish language and culture. What remains of the Irish language today?

Essay Topic 2

Describe the origins of the English language. When do linguists believe the first traces of what we know as English today appear in history? Where?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss how dialects reflect human culture and class station, specifically in Great Britain. What do the authors write regarding the fluidity of accents and culture in Chapter 1, An English-Speaking World?

(see the answer keys)

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