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  3. India has about a billion people and a dozen major languages of its own. One language, and only one, is understood-by the elite-

India has about a billion people and a dozen major languages of its own. One language, and only one, is understood-by the elite-

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问题     India has about a billion people and a dozen major languages of its own. One language, and only one, is understood-by the elite-across the country: that of the foreigners who ruled India for less than 200 years and left 52 years ago.
    Today, India. Tomorrow, unofficially, the world. That is well under way; at first, because the British not only built global empire but also it was settled by America, and now because the world (and notably America) has acquired its first truly global—and interactive—medium, the Internet.
    It is estimated that some 350 million people speak English as their first language. Maybe 250-350 million do or can use it as a second language; in excolonial countries, notably, or in English—majority ones, like 30 million recently immigrants to the United States, or Canada’s 6 million francophone Quebeckers. And elsewhere? The guess is 100 million—1 billion depending how you define "can". Let us be hold: in all, 20-25% of earth’s 6 billion people can use English; not the English of England, let alone of Dr. Johnson, but English.
    That number is soaring as each year brings new pupils to school and carries of monolingual oldies—and now as the Internet spreads. And the process is self-reinforcing. As business spreads across frontiers, the company that wants to move its executives around, and to promote the best of them, regardless of nationality, encourages the uses of English. So the executive who wants to be in the frame, or’ to move to another employer, learns to use it. English has long dominated learned journals: German, Russian or French (depending on the field) may be useful to their expert readers, but English is essential. So, if you want your own work published—and widely read by your peers—then English is the language of choice.
    The growth of the cinema, and still more so of television, has spread the dominant language. Foreign movies or sitcoms may be dubbed into major languages, but for smaller audiences they are usually subtitled. Result: a Dutch or Danish or even Arab family has an audio-visual learning aid in its living-room, and usually the language spoken on-screen is English.
    The birth of the computer and its American operating systems gave English a nudge ahead: that of the Internet has given it a huge push. Any web-linked household today has a library of information available at the click of a mouse. And, unlike the books on its own shelves or in the public library, maybe four-fifths is written in English. That proportion may lessen, as more non-English sites spring up. But English will surely dominate.
选项 A、the backwardness of its own language
B、the importance of learning English
C、the widespread of English language
D、the great influence of the British empire
答案C
解析 本题考查对作者意图的理解，属于观点题。文章一开始提到了印度的情况，印度约有十亿人口和自己的一大打语种，而全国通用、为全国精英所掌握的语言只有一种，那就是英语。不难推断，作者用这个例子的目的绝不是表现印度自己语种的落后，也不是表现曾经统治过印度的天帝国有多么强大，而是为了显示英语在全球的广泛应用以及巨大影响。
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