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  3. Many things about language are a mystery, and many will always remain so. But some things we do know. First, we know that al

Many things about language are a mystery, and many will always remain so. But some things we do know. First, we know that al

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问题     Many things about language are a mystery, and many will always remain so. But some things we do know.
    First, we know that all men in the world have a language of some sort. There is no race of men anywhere on earth so backward that it has no language. And, in historical times, there has never been a race of men without a language.
    Second, there is no such thing as a primitive language. There are many peoples whose cultures are undeveloped, who are, as we say, uncivilized, but the languages they speak are not primitive. In all known languages we can see complexities that must have been tens of thousands of years in developing. This has not always been well understood: indeed, the direct contrary (反面) has often been stated. Popular ideas of the language of the American Indians will illustrate. Many people have supposed that the Indians communicated in a very primitive way. Study has proved this to be nonsense. There are, or were, hundreds of American Indian languages, and all of them turn out to be very complicated and very old. They are certainly different from the languages that most of us are familiar with, but they are no more primitive than English and Greek.
    A third thing we know about language is that all languages are perfectly adequate. That is, each one is a perfect means of expressing the culture of the people who speak the language.
    Finally, we know that language changes. It is natural and normal for language to change: the only languages which do not change are the dead ones. This is easy to understand if we look backward in time. Change goes on in all aspects of language. Grammatical features change as do speech sounds, and changes in vocabulary are sometimes very extensive and may occur very rapidly.
    Vocabulary is the least stable part of any language.
What kind of language can peoples of undeveloped cultures have?
选项 A、Complicated.
B、Uncivilized.
C、Primitive.
D、Well-known.
答案A
解析 推理判断题。根据文章第三段第二、三句可知，有许多文化不发达的民族，也就是我们所说的不文明民族，他们的语言并不简单。在所有的已知语言中，我们可以看出其复杂性一定是经过了成千上万年的发展。故A为正确答案。
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