82 Unit 06 | The Empire? Strike back! All of the countries in exercise 1 were once part of the British Empire. Work in groups of four. Research some key facts about their history that explain their use of English, then present your findings to the class. 1 How did the country become part of the Empire? Was it settled or occupied by the British? 2 When and for how long was it part of the Empire? Why was it important to the Empire? 3 When and how did it become independent (again)? Read the text about influences on the English language. Some words are missing. Complete the text by writing one word for each gap (1–10) in the spaces provided. The first one (0) has been done for you. SPEAKING 8 LANGUAGE IN USE 9 Discuss in small groups: What loanwords can you think of in the languages you know? Where did they come from? Examples: interview, vis-à-vis, computer, spoiler, feedback … Some students at your English partner school are writing articles on ‘English as a World Language’ for their school magazine. They have asked you to send them an article with your ideas as a learner of English. In your article you should: describe your experience with learning English say what you think about English as a world language suggest another language which might also be important Give your article a title. Write around 250 words. See Writing coach, Article, p. 184. SPEAKING 10 WRITING 11 Can we have a word? How can English and German possibly be related? You might think that they are very (0) languages, especially when you’re trying to study grammar or vocabulary (1) a test. However, the two languages have strong connections. English is a Germanic language, and it (2) been influenced equally by German, French and Latin. As a result, English has a much larger vocabulary (3) either the Germanic languages or the Romance language family, to which French belongs. English is also very ready to take in foreign words, and as it has become (4) international language, it has absorbed vocabulary from a large number of other sources. These expressions are known as ‘loanwords’, and many of them come from German. Did you (5) that ‘worry’ is often called ‘angst’, or that British people buy their fancy (6) from a ‘delicatessen’? Young British children might go to ‘kindergarten’, and enjoying someone else’s bad (7) is ‘schadenfreude’. There have been lots of other influences on the English language. For example, the Viking invasions, which started around the (8) 800, also left their mark. Not surprisingly, the (9) ‘anger’ and ‘knife’ come from Old Norse, and ‘Thursday’ comes from ‘Thor’s Day’, Thor being the Norse god of thunder. This connects nicely to the (10) word ‘Donnerstag’, doesn’t it? It highlights the fascinating ways languages mix and change over time. 0 different 4 8 1 5 9 2 6 10 3 7 Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv
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