Wiederholungsfragen Synchronic

When did writing develop first?

• 20,000 - 40,000 BC
• 15,000 - 20,000 BC
• 3,000 - 4,000 BC
• 2,000 - 3,000 BC

Which of the following theories is considered the most plausible?

• natural-sound theory
• onomatopoeia
• gestural communication theory
• Tower of Bable

Mandarin Chinese is a _______________ language

• isolating
• inflecting
• agglutinating
• mixing

How many languages are there approximately in the world?

• ~ 3,500
• ~ 5,000
• ~ 7,000
• > 7,000

Who is said to have invented language families?

• August von Schlegel
• Sir William Jones
• Jakob Grimm
• St. Augustine

German and English are _________ languages.

• VOS
• SOV
• VSO
• SVO

What was the earliest differentiation in languages?

• phonemic classification
• genetic classification
• typological classification
• homographic classification

Which one of the following languages does not belong to Indo-European?

• Germanic
• Celtic
• Slavic
• Basque

What is the oldest written germanic language?

• Flemish
• Gothic
• Frisian
• Yiddish

Speakers of two (not so) different languages can understand each other without much effort, because the languages don't differ that much.

Which of the following languages are mutually intelligable?

• English - Welsh
• Scottish - Irish
• Frisian - Yiddish
• Dutch - Swedish

Which German words do these English words relate to?

• door - Tor
• ripe - reif
• post - Pfosten
• shower - Schauer

What was the original population of Britain?

• Angles
• Celts
• Jutes
• Saxons

Which of the following regions are not considered celtic strongholds?

• Wales
• Scotland
• Ireland
• Cornwall

Who did introduce the latin alphabet in Britain?

• King James
• St. Augustine
• Sir William Jones
• Geoffrey Chaucer

The first written records of Old English reach back to _____ ?

• around 500
• around 600
• around 700
• around 800

What does Danelaw refer to?

• A policy regulating areas of settlement
• A Danish town in Great Britain
• A law regulating Danish taxes
• The area of settlement of the Vikings
• The Viking invasion

English used to have ___________ ?

• 2 cases
• 5 cases
• 3 cases
• 4 cases

The so called ablaut denotes a ____________ ?

• vowel change within a word
• vowel change at the end of a word
• consonant change in the middle of a word
• consonant change at the beginning of a word

Which of the following English words are not derived from Danish?

• awkward
• aardvark
• reindeer
• them

Old English used to be a ____________ ?

• highly conservative language
• highly inflecting language
• highly isolating language
• highly agglutinating language

Who arrived in England in the 8th century?

• The Angles
• The Saxons
• The Normans
• The Vikings

abbot, candle, plante and verse are derived from?

• Latin
• Greek
• Danish
• Yiddish

Beowolf was written by ____________ ?

• Geoffrey Chaucer
• Jonathan Swift
• an unknown author
• Washington Irving

What was the written standard before the standardization of English by the introduction of the printing press?

• East-Celtic
• Old Norse
• Kentish
• West-Saxon

Which of the following areas was not under French influence post to the Battle of Hastings?

• government
• court
• literature
• fashion

When did English regain prestige after the Battle of Hastings?

• In the 10th century
• In the 12th century
• In the 14th century
• In the 15th century

Who was the first english speaking King?

• Henry VIII
• Henry IV
• Henry V
• Henry IX

man, fight, sleep, at are ____________ words?

• Old English
• Middle English
• Early Modern English
• Modern English

The Canterbury Tales is a _____________ ?

• collection of poems
• collection of stories
• collection of riddles
• collection of dramas

hadde maked, shal be are typical ___________ constructions?

• Old English
• Middle English
• Early Modern English
• Modern English

Who translated the bible in the year 1384?

• John Gower
• William Langlang
• King Ethelbert
• John Wycliffe

When did the plural ending en- disappear?

• during Old English times
• during Middle English times
• during Early Modern English times
• during Modern English times

How many French loanwords existed during Middle English times?

• approximately 500
• approximately 3,000
• approximately 7,000
• approximately 10,000

Which of the following words are not derived from French?

• solitude
• immortality
• robe
• freedom

infancy, ulcer, substitute and adjacent are __________ words?

• Greek
• French
• Latin
• Danish

What is the most prominent dialect area of Britain?

• Southern
• West Midland
• East Midland
• East Anglian

baptism, ambush, indictment and treaty are ________ words?

• Latin
• French
• Danish
• Norse

alligator, banana, hurricane and tobacco are derived from?

• French
• Italian
• Hindi
• Spanish/Portuguese

dollar, dumb, waltz and noodle are __________ words?

• German
• Hindi
• Italian
• Turkish

Which of the following words are not derived from Hindi?

• shampoo
• bamboo
• guru
• chutney

The word chocolate originally comes from?

• Malay
• Maori
• Nahuatl
• Inka

carnival, solo, lottery and volcano are _________ words?

• Spanish/Portuguese
• Italian
• Polynesian
• Chinese

Which of the following words is not derived from Chinese?

• ketchup
• tea
• typhoon
• easel

Shakespeare is said to have had a vocabulary of ____________ ?

• ~ 10,000 words
• ~ 16,000 words
• ~ 21,000 words
• ~ 34,000 words

The Great Vowel Shift affected __________ ?

• long vowels
• short vowels
• both

The King James Bible is known as ____________ ?

• The authoritative version
• The authorized version
• The conservative version
• The sacred version

Who published the first English dictionary?

• Robert Cawdrey
• Robert Lowth
• Samuel Johnson
• Lindley Murray

Which of the following words was not invented during the Industrial Revolution?

• oxygen
• ethnology
• advertise
• morphology

Which of the following words was not coined in the United States?

• steamboat
• stagecoach
• bootleg
• alcohol

mensch, smuck and nosh are ___________ words?

• German
• Spanish
• Dutch
• Yiddish

OK comes from which language?

• German
• unknown
• English
• Greek

General American is associated with which dialect area?

• Pacific Northwest
• Rocky Mountain
• Midwestern
• Coastal Southern

Noah Webster wrote:

• Letters of an American Farmer
• An American Dictionary of the English Language
• Collegiate Dictionary
• Declaration of Independence

A pidgin is a reduced language between people from different linguistic backgrounds who don't have any language in common.

A creole is a further developed pidgin - when a pidgin becomes a mother tongue we speak of creoles.

The words beat, jazz, chick and groovy are associated with _______ ?

• Carribean/West Indies tribes
• Cockney rhyming slang
• Black music/culture
• Aboriginies

Name the British equivalents to the following words:

• cookie - biscuit
• elavator - lift
• pacifier - dummy
• sidewalk - pavement

Name the American equivalents to the following words:

• tap - faucet
• tin - can
• garbage - trash
• boot - trunk

Which island did John Cabot explore?

• Newfoundland
• Australia
• Greenland
• Tierra del Fuego

Australia used to be a/an __________ ?

• infertile land
• official colony of Denmark
• slave trading country
• penal colony

Which of the following words is not derived from Afrikaans?

• apartheid
• aardvark
• haka
• reebok

How many official languages does South Africa have?

• 9 languages
• 11 languages
• 13 languages
• 17 languages

Which of the following words is derived from aboriginal languages?

• glen
• bonny
• kiwi
• boomerang

Which creole is widely spoken in Sierra Leone?

• Bajan Creole
• Krio
• Manglish
• Bislama

Which of the following countries is not a british crown colony?

• Ghana
• Cameroon
• Liberia
• Gambia

khaki, nirvana, pyjamas and chutney are words derived from _________ ?

• Hindi
• Welsh
• Aboriginal languages
• Krio

loch is a typical _________ word.

• Gaelic
• Scottish
• Welsh
• Old Norse

How many native speakers does English have?

• approximately 230 - 280 million
• approximately 280 - 350 million
• approximately 350 - 400 million
• approximately 400 - 430 million

The outer circle involves second-language speakers and official language countries.

Who did discover Australia?

• John Cook
• John Doe
• John Cabot
• John Rae

What are the English equivalents of the following derivations?

• seksapil - sex appeal
• herkot - haircut
• nekutai - neck-tie
• shusi - shoes

How many words are there in the English language?

• approximately 267,000 words
• approximately 300,000 words
• approximately 475,000 words (according to Oxford, 1989)
• approximately 615,000 words (according to Webster, 1961)

How many languages are said to have influenced English?

• 30 languages
• 44 languages
• 70 languages
• 120 languages

Old English used to be 90% phonemic, modern English is said to be ________ phonemic.

• 75% phonemic
• 65% phonemic
• 50% phonemic
• 40% phonemic

How many of the letters of the alphabet are never silent in English?

• 10 letters
• 8 letters
• 5 letters (namely F, J, Q, V and X)
• 3 letters

Name the British equivalent of the following words:

• hood - bonnet
• fries - chips
• pitcher - jug
• corn - maize

Which of the following words are spelled in a British manner?

• defense
• catalogue
• jewellery
• apologize

RP is a ____________ ?

• dialect
• ecolect
• style
• sociolect

R1 (informal) - R2 (educated) - R3 (very formal)

Which of the following languages are not mutually intelligable?

• Serbian - Croatian
• Danish - Swedish
• English - Welsh
• Hindi - Urdu

An accent is only concerned with pronunciation whereas a dialect comprises also vocabulary and grammatical structures.

frozen - formal - consultative - casual - intimate

An ecolect is unique to ___________ ?

• a company
• an individual
• a group of friends/family
• a subculture

Register is determined by ______________ ?

• status of the speakers
• subject matter/topic
• culture/social class
• dialect

Standard English is ______________ ?

• a dialect among others
• a sociolect
• an accent of English
• a specialized register

RP is also known as ___________ ?

• General American
• BBC English
• broad Australian
• AAVE

What is a typical feature of the New England variety?

• dropping of the postvocalic -r
• -r pronunciation is less stigmatized
• habitual be
• tendency to stress the first syllable in each word

Midwest American speakers ______________ ?

• drop the postvocalic -r
• merge vowels before liquids
• introduced the 2nd person plural pronoun y'all
• use the structure fixing to

They all or most of them could be a typical expression for ___________ ?

• Chicano English
• AAVE
• Eskimo English
• American Indian English