II. Reading. Part 1. THE History of the International Languages
Part 1. THE History of the International Language is the means of communication. The most common way of expressing an idea for people is to say it out loud. Language enables A language that is used as a means of communication by people of International language is not the phenomenon of our age only. The first international language appeared on Earth with the birth of civilization. The Biblical myth about the mixture of languages during the construction of the Babylon Tower, when the people lost their universal language and thus could not communicate, was a reflection of how dearly the people of ancient periods held the gift of speech and understanding. Ever since those times the foreign languages and people who knew them played a significant part in the development of international relations and trade of diffe-rent countries. The first international language that we know about was the language of the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians were a nation of industrious merchants and brave seafarers who settled originally on the territory of the Lebanon. The Greek language replaced Phoenician as a means of international communication. The Greek culture and language were imposed in all Hellenistic centers and states, including Egypt, Syria and Persia. The Romans went a little further. The Roman legionary marched to the ends of the earth carrying Latin, their language, with the help of their orators and philosophers to Europe, Asia, and Africa. From that time the role of languages in the historical development of humanity has increased. Latin survived the collapse of the Roman Empire. Until the establishment of national states, new national languages that originated from Latin (French, Spanish, and Italian) were still emerging. In such circumstances it was the universal language of Medieval Europe for fifteen centuries. In Europe Latin was used for the serious business of government, diplomacy, and philosophy. A person who did not know Latin was unable to become educated because Latin was also the language of the Universities. Then with the emergence of national states and development of national languages the need to learn foreign languages became especially acute. Educated people of Europe were to know several modern languages. For example, Rubens, the greatest painter of the Western civilization who lived in Flanders in the 17-th century, spoke and wrote six modern languages. It should be said that not all the languages had equal importance in different centuries in the world. Preference was given to that one which country was more powerful at that time. In the 15-th and 16-th centuries Spain was in the vanguard of European and world expansion and the Spanish language could be heard in the far reaches of our planet. French became the dominant language of the Western world in the 17-th and 19-th centuries. In the 19-th century French was the official language of our country. Since childhood Russian aristocrats were learning French. For example, Pushkin wrote his first poem in French. Russian was spoken only by common people. In the first half of the 20-th century, during the period between two World Wars, English started gradually to replace French as the international language. The transition from French to English as the international language was relatively easy because in many countries of the world
|
