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.

2 . Valencia is in the east part of Spain. It has a port on the sea, two miles away on the coast. It is the capital of a province that is also named Valencia.

The city is a market centre for what is produced by the land around the city. Most of the city’s money is made from farming. It is also a busy business city, with ships, railways, clothes and machine factories.

Valencia has an old part with white buildings, coloured roofs, and narrow streets. The modern part has long, wide streets and new buildings. Valencia is well known for its parks and gardens. It has many old churches and museums. The university in the centre of the city was built in the 13th century.

The city of Valencia has been known since the 2nd century. In the 8th century it was the capital of Spain. There is also an important city in Venezuela (委内瑞拉) named Valencia.