1 . If you ask people to name the one person who had the greatest effect on the English language, you will get answers like “Shakespeare” “Samuel Johnson” and “Webster”, but none of these men had any effect at all compared to a man who didn’t even speak English-William the Conqueror.

Before 1066, in the land we now call Great Britain lived peoples belonging to two major language groups. In the west-central region lived the Welsh, who spoke a Celtic language, and in the north lived the Scots, whose language, though not the same as Welsh, was also Celtic. In the rest of the country lived the Saxons, actually a mixture of Anglos, Saxons, and other Germanic and Nordic peoples, who spoke what we now call Anglo-Saxon or Old English, a Germanic language. If this state of affairs had lasted, English today would be close to German.

But this state of affairs did not last. In 1066 the Normans led by William defeated the Saxons and began their rule over England. For about a century, French became the official language of England while Old English became the language of peasants. As a result, English words of politics and the law come from French rather than German. In some cases, modern English even shows a distinction (区别) between upper-class French and lower-class Anglo-Saxon in its words. We even have different words for some foods, meat in particular, depending on whether it is still out in the fields or at home ready to be cooked, which shows the fact that the Saxon peasants were doing the farming, while the upper-class Normans were doing most of the eating. When Americans visit Europe for the first time, they usually find Germany more “foreign” than France because the German they see on signs and advertisements seems much more different from English than French does. Few realize that the English language is actually Germanic in its beginning and that the French influences are all the result of one man’s ambition.

1. What language did people in Britain mainly speak before 1066?

A．Celtic and Old English.	B．Nordic and Germanic.
C．Welsh and Scottish.	D．Anglo-Saxon and Germanic.

2. How did William the Conqueror influence English?

A．By teaching people in Britain to speak English.

B．By defeating the Saxons and ruling the whole England.

C．By bringing French to Britain to greatly influence English.

D．By speaking good English to show that they were upper-class.

3. Why does Americans feel France is less foreign than Germany?

A．They know French better than German.

B．They know little history of the English people.

C．In France most of the advertisements appear in English.

D．There are more similarities between English and French.

4. What is the main idea of this passage?

A．The history of Great Britain.

B．The French effects on the English language.

C．The differences between English and French.

D．The great people who had effects on English.