企源知识库

Read the following passage and choose the most likely answer to each of the following questions.

        In the year 787 began a series of events which were to have a great effect upon the history of the English language. For it was in that year, according to the records that have come down to us, that the Scandinavians made their first attack on the English coast. It is not known exactly why, after centuries of peace, the Scandinavians suddenly began their attacks on all the lands along the North Sea and the Baltic. But in the eighth century some development, perhaps economic or perhaps political, caused these people to leave their homes and seek adventure at sea. These daring sea-warriors are commonly known as Vikings, and the period of their great activity, starting in the eighth century and extending to the beginning of the eleventh, is popularly called the Viking Age.
        As a result of these events, large numbers of Scandinavians settled in England, becoming farmers and often marrying English women. Some idea of their numbers may be gained from the fact that more than 1400 places in England still have Scandinavian names. Most of the new inhabitants were Danes, though there were also considerable Norwegian settlements, particularly in the northwest.
        With the gradual and peaceful union of Scandinavians and English, it was only natural that the two peoples would begin to borrow words from each other's language—the languages being quite similar to begin with. Indeed, because of this similarity it is often very difficult to determine whether a particular word in Modern English is a native or a borrowed word. And if we expect to find that the borrowed Scandinavian words fall into any special classes, we shall be disappointed. The civilization 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 a 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 in the above lists do not represent new objects and ideas which the English received from the Scandinavians. Rather, the Scandinavian and English words for these and many other everyday objects, actions, and ideas must have been used side by side for a while, and the survival of one or the other of them in English must often have been a mere matter of chance.

        Altogether about nine hundred words in present-day Standard English are definitely known to have been borrowed from Scandinavian. And quite likely there are at least an equal number for which Scandinavian origin is probable or which show some Scandinavian influence. In addition, scholars tell us that thousands of Scandinavian words are still used in the everyday speech of the people who live in the north and east of England—words which have never entered the standard language but which have been handed down from generation to generation of English-speakers within certain regions of the country.

        As for the hundreds upon hundreds of Scandinavian personal names and place names which have been taken into English, it is not possible in this brief survey to do more than give a few examples. To illustrate the former, we may refer to personal names ending in -son, such as Johnson, Thompson, and Wilson. Such names, showing a typical Scandinavian formation, appear as far back as the records of late Old English times. In similar fashion, English place names ending in -by, such as Derby and Rugby, clearly come to us from Scandinavian, where the ending signified a town or settlement.

What do we know about the reasons for the Scandinavians to attack the English coast?（  ）

They are not fully understood.

They have been recently found out.

They are related to the fertile lands.

They are more political than economic.

本题考查斯堪的那维亚人袭击英国海岸的原因。

根据题干信息回文定位到第一段。根根”It is not known exactly why“”还不知道确切的原因。“对应A选项”They are not fully understood.“”他们还没有完全被理解。“故选A。