Unit 9 – Language and Linguistics

1. _________ is the first choice of foreign language in most other countries of the world, and it is that status
that has given it the position of a global lingua franca.

a) English b)Latin

c)French d)Spanish

2. Largest spoken language in the world is _________

a) English b)Mandarin

c)French d)Spanish

3. What does RP stands for in Phonology?

a) Revised Pronunciation b)Returnable Pronunciation

c) Received Pronunciation d)Rated Pronunciation

4. How many consonant sounds are there?

a)25 b)37

c)28 d)57

5. Ingvaeonic is a postulated grouping of the northern West Germanic languages that consists of Old Frisian,
__________, and Old Saxon, and their descendants.

a) Old Gemrnaic b) Old English

c) Rumanian d) Sanskrit

6. Varieties of Upper German, like Alemannic and__________, also share features with North Sea Germanic
languages.

a) Swabian b)Ingvaeonic

c) Polish d)Baverian

7. As Normans are descendants of Vikings who invaded France, Norman French was influenced by
_______________.

a) Old Saxon b) Old Norse

c) Celtic d)Rumanian

8. Significant pronunciation changes in this period included the Great Vowel Shift, which affected the qualities of
most_________.

a) Verbs b)Nouns

c) Short Vowel d) Long Vowel

9. The languages spoken by the Germanic peoples who initially settled in Britain were part of the West Germanic
branch of the Germanic language family. They consisted of dialects from the Ingvaeonic grouping, spoken mainly
around the region of _______________.

a) Austria b) Germany

c) Mediterranean Sea d) North Sea

10. The grammar of Old English was much more inflected than modern English, combined with freer word order,
and was grammatically quite similar in some respects to ___________.

a) Anglo Saxon b) Norman

c) Modern German d) Modern Dutch

11. Who wrote the encyclopedic named Naturalis Historia (Natural History), which became an editorial model
for encyclopedias?

a) Euripides b) Pliny the Elder

c) Plato d) Francis Bacon

12. Where do Dutch people come from?

a) Norway b) Netherland

c) Denmark d) Serbia

13. Gothic is an extinct ________ that was spoken by the Goths.

a) East Germanic b) West Germanic

c) Burgundian d) Vandalic

14. A language known as Crimean Gothic survived in the lower Danube area and in isolated mountain regions in
________.

a) Czech b) Prague

c) Crimea d) Budapest

15. _____________ was the dialect of the Lombards who invaded Northern Italy in the 6th century, and little
evidence of it remains apart from names and individual words in Latin texts, and a few runic inscriptions.

a) Sankt Gallen b) Langobardic

c) Armenia d)Strasbourg

16. The acute accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, where it indicated a syllable
with a ___________.

a) High Pitch b) Low Pitch

c) Short Vowel d)Long Vowel

17. ___________ and _____ together form the predicate in a sentence.

a) Subject and Indirect Object b) Verb and Direct Object

c) Complement and Adjunct d) Verb and Complement

18. The spread of ____________ in English is another grammatical development to which Norse may have
contributed.

a) Idioms b) Metaphor

c) Phrasal Verbs d) Conceits

Answer Key

1. English

2. Mandarin

3. Received Pronunciation

4. 25

5. Old English

6. Swabian

7. Old Norse

8. Long Vowle

9. Nort Sea

10. Modern German

11. Pliny the Elder

12. Netherland

13. East Germanic

14. Crimea

15. Langobardic

16. High Pitch

17. Verb and Complement

18. Phrasal Verb