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  3. Some Things We Know About Language Many things about language are a mystery, and many will always remain so. But some things

Some Things We Know About Language Many things about language are a mystery, and many will always remain so. But some things

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问题                     Some Things We Know About Language
    Many things about language are a mystery, and many will always remain so. But some things we do know.
    First, we know that all human beings have a language of some sort. There is no race(种族)of men anywhere on earth so backward that it has no language, no set of speech sounds by which the people communicate with one another. Furthermore, in historical times, there has never been a race of men without a language.
    Second, there is no such thing as a primitive(原始的)language.There are many people 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 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 system of noises. 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.
The author has used American Indian language to illustrate______.
选项 A、it hasn’ t been well understood that there is no primitive language
B、the Indians communicated in a very primitive system of noises
C、English and Greek are less primitive than American Indian languages
D、hundreds of American Indian languages are easy and young
答案A
解析 第四段第一句中的“This”指的就是第三段所诠释的内容，再结合第三段第一句“Second，there is no such thing as a primitive language．”可知，A项正确。
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