Passage 1
In the year 787 began a seriesof events which were to have a great effect upon the history of the Englishlanguage. For it was in that year, according to the records that have come downto us, that the Scandinavians made their first attack on the English coast. Itis not known exactly why, after centuries of peace, the Scandinavians suddenlybegan their attacks on all the lands along the North Sea and the Baltic. But inthe eighth century some development, perhaps economic or perhaps political,caused these people to leave their homes and seek adventure at sea. Thesedaring sea-warriors are commonly known as Vikings, and the period of theirgreat activity, starting in the eighth century and extending to the beginningof the eleventh, is popularly called the Viking Age.
As a result of these events,large numbers of Scandinavians settled in England, becoming farmers and oftenmarrying English women. Some idea of their numbers may be gained from the factthat more than 1400 places in England still have Scandinavian names. Most ofthe new inhabitants were Danes, though there were also considerable Norwegiansettlements, particularly in the northwest.
With the gradual and peacefulunion of Scandinavians and English, it was only natural that the two peopleswould begin to borrow words from each other's' language—the languages beingquite similar to begin with. Indeed, because of this similarity it is oftenvery difficult to determine whether a particular word in Modem English is anative or a borrowed word. And if we expect to find that the borrowedScandinavian words fall into any special classes, we shall be disappointed. Thecivilization of the Danes was very much like that of the English themselves,and so the words that were borrowed by the English tend to be of a simple,everyday character. Their varied nature can best be shown by few examples.Among the nouns which English acquired from Scandinavian are birth, dirt, egg,guess, kid, seat, skin, sky, want, and window. The borrowed verbs include call,die, get, give, lift, raise and take.
Quite obviously the words inthe above lists do not represent new objects and ideas which the Englishreceived from the Scandinavian. Rather, the Scandinavian and English words forthese and many other everyday objects, actions, and ideas must have been usedside by side for a while, and the survival of one or the other of them inEnglish must often have been a mere matter of chance.
Altogether about nine hundredwords in present-day Standard English are definitely known to have beenborrowed from Scandinavian. And quite likely there are at least an equal numberfor which Scandinavian origin is probable or which show some Scandinavianinfluence. In addition, scholars tell us that thousands of Scandinavian wordsare still used in the everyday speech of the people who live in the north andeast of England--words which have never entered the standard language but whichhave been handed down from generation to generation of English-speakers withincertain regions of the country.
As for the hundreds uponhundreds of Scandinavian personal names and place names which have been takeninto English it is not possible in this brief survey to do more than give a fewexamples. To illustrate the former, we may refer to personal names endingin-son,such as Johnson, Thompson, and Wilson. Such names, showin g a typicalScandinavian formation, appear as far back as the records of late Old Englishtimes. In similar fashion, English place names ending in-by, such as Derby andRugby, clearly come to us from Scandinavian, where the ending signified a townor settlement.
What do we know about the reasons for the Scandinavians to attack the English coast?
A.They are not fully understood. B.They have been recently found out. C.They are related to the fertile lands. D.They are more political than economic.正确答案A
