The Future of English the Big mix and miscellaneous of Languages

Source: www.speakup.com.br

As a matter fact English is a miscellaneous of Languages, it was born due the need of the World Population communicating each other. Check out the text THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH, THE BIG MIX. And le me know what do you think of.

The owner of the text by William Sutton.

Imagine a situation where diverse cultural groups are thrown together. They need to communicate for trade and technology. Many of them speak more or less the same language, but variations in vocabulary and grammar cause misunderstandings.

Sounds like the internet today? Not at all: this is a description of theBritish Isles in the first millennium.

FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS

English had tiny beginnings. In 500 A.D., it was spoken by perhaps twenty thousand people – less than today speak Cherokee Indian, an endangered language.

The Angles invaded from Angeln in Schleswig (modern Germany) in the 5^th century AD. Other Germanic tribes, the Jutes and Saxons settled in the south, while the Angles took the rest, as far as Edinburgh.

The country became known as “Engla Land” (Land of the Angles) and their language as Englisc. From the older languages, Celtic and Latin, only place names survived: Avon is Celtic for river: Chester, Leicester and Lancaster from Latin “castra,” camp. Indeed the word Wales derives from Old English for “foreigners.”

Old English provides all the most common words in modern English: the, is, you, man, house, drink, here, there. It gives us almost all our numbers, personal pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions and conjunctions. Likewise, fundamental concepts: life and death, day and night, month and year, heat and could, love and hate. It is also responsible for irregular past tense and unpredictable pronunciation.

CHANGING TIMES

Alfred the Great, king of Wessex (that is, West Saxon), was the first great promoter of English. he translated St. Augustine’s Latin for his countrymen to read. He also made peace with invading Vikings. As the Norsemen settled peacefully across England, they because the first to need instant E.F.L. lessons.

Although simplified, Old English was enriched by Scandinavian words: happy, ugly, wrong, die. This gave us synonymous pairs: besides Anglo-Saxon wish we have Norse want: we have craft and skill, rear and raise.

FRENCH RYING

Everything changed when the Norman invasion of 1066 subjugated English. consider the language of food. Words for the meat cooked for the Norman aristocracy – beef, pork and venison – derive from French , domestic animals remain distinctly Anglo-Saxon: cow, pig and deer.

The words city, palace and residence are French; but town, house and home are English. Tradesmen have English names: baker, builder, fisherman, shoemaker. But skilled artisans derive from French: carpenter, painter, tailor.

Synonyms from this period are revealing: freedom and liberty, love and affection, truth and veracity. Still today, people regard words of Anglo-Saxon origin as less intellectual than words with French and Latin origins – and therefore more trustworthy.

NEW HORIZONS

As the Age of Colonialism brought English to new shores, native languages form Canada, Australia, South Africa and India colonized and enriched it with new animals (kangaroo, chimpanzee), plants (tea, tobacco) and clothes (pyjamas, anorak).

Back home, the Enlightenment lifted scientific words form Greek and Latin. Musical language was taken from Italian. Martial arts have come from the Far East. Still today, neologisms from around the globe are added to dictionaries every year.

Will English be ruined by this new input? Should we raise the alarm? Ban foreign words, as the French and Germans have? Surely not. There may be no such thing as a pure language, but English is even less pure than most. From the first, it was a means of communication for diverse ethnic and linguistic groups, a mixed-up mongrel. This ability to absorb and mutate may give it just the right pedigree for the challenges of a global future.

Graffiti to Glasnost: The Origin of English Words

Modern English is half Germanic and half Romance, but it has acquired the largest vocabulary of any language by freely adopting and adopting words from countless languages.

Old English (Anglo Saxon): England, man, child water, house.

Old Norse (Viking): Seat, window, ill, ugly.

French: Royal, beef, menu, hotel.

Latin: Family, wine, school.

Greek: Telephone, grammar.

Italian: Crescendo, vibrato, belvedere, grotto, extravaganza.

Spanish: Cannibal, guerrilla, mosquito, tornado, vanilla.

Portuguese: Marmalade, flamingo.

Dutch: Yacht, boss, cookie, apartheid, commando, trek.

Gaelic/Irish: Hooligan, clan, slogan, whisky.

Japanese: Kimono, tycoon, hara-kiri, samurai, tsunami.

Hindi: Guru, jungle, cheetah, shampoo, pyjamas, polo.

Persian: Paradise, divan, lilac, bazaar, caravan, chess.

Aboriginal Australian: Kangaroo, wallaby, boomerang, budgerigar.

Hebrew: Cherub, hallelujah, messiah, jubilee.

Arabic: alchemy, alcohol, assassin, cipher, syrup, zero.

Norwegian: Ski.

Finnish: Sauna.

Czech: Robot.

Turkish: coffee, kiosk, caviar.

Chinese: Tea.

Malay: Ketchup, bamboo, junk, orangutan.

Polynesian: Taboo, tattoo.

Inuit (Eskimo): Kayak, igloo, anorak. 

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The origins of Easter and Passover

Source: www.maganews.com For more info, keep in touch with the website, affordable prices. Actually is really useful English material, for Students and Teachers in Brazil.

Christians celebrate the Resurrection of Christ at Easter, while Jews remember the liberation of the Israelites at Passover

The Jews created Passover to celebrate the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt about 3,250 years ago. Inspired by God, Moses led the exodus of a people who had been enslaved by the Egyptians for almost 400 years. For the Jews, Passover symbolizes the escape from slavery. For Christians, Easter also symbolizes escape, but from death to life. Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It can be said that for both Jews and Christians Easter means rebirth, liberation, or simply a new life.

Symbols: rabbits and eggs

Many centuries ago, most Europeans were pagans (people who believed in several gods).  The gods were associated with nature, such as the sun, or the seasons.  Every year, at the end of March, pagans celebrated the god Eostre (also known as Ostara), who represented fertility and spring.  The pagans saw the rabbit as a fertility symbol. Another symbol in this pagan ritual was the egg, symbolizing life, and people painted eggs in different colors. Over time Christianity began to spread around the world. Most European pagans began to convert to Christianity. Former pagans stopped celebrating spring and began to celebrate Easter (which was an event that occurred at the same time of the year). However, the Europeans carried with them some symbols that they used to use in pagan rituals, such as the egg and the rabbit. Chocolate eggs came later, at the beginning of the 20^thCentury.

Matéria publicada na edição de abril da Revista Maganews

Ilustração - Calberto

ÁUDIO - David Hatton

Vocabulary

1 Passover – passagem (“pessach”, em hebraico) / Páscoa Judaica

2 Easter – Páscoa

3 Jews – judeus

4 exodus – êxodo / fuga (escape = fuga)

5 Moses – Moisés

6 enslaved - escravizado

7 rebirth - renascimento

8 spring – primavera

9 rabbit – coelho

10 over time – aqui = com o passar do tempo

11 to spread – se espalhar

12 to occur – acontecer / ocorrer

THE REAL THING

Source: SpeakUp

Language level: Advanced

Speaker: Chuck Rolando

THE REAL THING

source of the picture: http://www.sonshinetours.com

Coca-cola is one of the world’s most successful and famous brands. And if you want to get an idea of its remarkable story, then you should visit The World of Coca-Cola. This is in Atlanta, Georgia, the city where the drink was invented by a local pharmacist, John Pemberton, back in 1886. When Speak Up went to the World of Coca-Cola, we asked Karen Brunke (above), its marketing director, to define Coca-Cola.

Karen Brunke

(Standard American Accent)

Coca-Cola is magic. It’s truly the embodiment of happiness and joy and uplift and optimism that we have the privilege of lifting hearts and minds and souls universally around the globe. It is that magic in the bottle, it is what that brand stands for. The brand stands for that little piece that “My day is going to be better,” that hopes that “My day is going to be more optimistic and full of joy.” And we’re not over-promising, but that is truly what the brand stands for when you speak to consumers around the globe. So when you think about words that characterize the brand genuine, authentic, optimistic, joyful, refreshing, bubbly, these elements, both the emotional, as well as the functional, just combine beautifully and, quite honestly, in a very inexplainable way, to connect with consumers’ minds and hearts. And it’s a humbling privilege that we have. And we take it very seriously each and every day.

OUR BOYS

One of the more unusual chapters in the Coca-Cola story is the Second World War, when it became a truly global brand Robert Woodruff was the company president at that time.

Karen Brunke

When Robert Woodruff wanted to ensure that all American soldiers had a refreshing Coca-Col in their hands during the war he basically revolutionized our distribution system in that…that it was actually the root of our international distribution expansion, to support our military. So it’s really a fascinating story, but the fact that Coca-Cola’s a global brand, quite honestly, is in large part a tribute to Robert Woodruff and his vision of ensuring that our American troops had a little piece of America with them and a sign of hope and optimism with them, while they were, you know, defending our country abroad.

Ray Kroc, 1902-1984: The Man Who Made McDonald's Popular Around the World

Source: Voice of America Special English

www.manythings.org/voa/people www.voanews.com

I'm Phoebe Zimmermann. And I'm Steve Ember with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.  Today, we tell about Ray Kroc, the man who helped make the fast food industry famous. He expanded a small business into an international operation called McDonald's.

(MUSIC)

You probably know what fast food is.  It is cooked food that is ready almost as soon as you enter a public eating place.  It does not cost much.  It is popular with most Americans and with many people around the world.  Some experts say that at least twenty-five percent of American adults eat fast food every day. Most fast food restaurants offer ground beef sandwiches called hamburgers and potatoes cooked in hot oil called French fries.  Other fast food places serve fried chicken, pizza or tacos.

You see fast food restaurants almost everywhere in the United States.  The names and the designs of the buildings are easily recognized – Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and of course, McDonald's. Most are chain restaurants.  That means each one is part of a huge company.

Each restaurant in the chain has the same large, colorful sign that can be recognized from far away.  Each offers its own carefully limited choice of foods.  Each kind of hamburger or piece of chicken tastes the same at every restaurant in the chain.

The fast food industry began with two brothers in San Bernardino, California in the nineteen forties.  Mac and Dick McDonald owned a small, but very successful restaurant.  They sold only a few kinds of simple food, especially hamburgers.

People stood outside the restaurant at a window.  They told the workers inside what they wanted to eat.  They received and paid for their food very quickly.  The food came in containers that could be thrown away.  The system was so successful that the McDonald brothers discovered they could sell a lot of food and lower their prices.

Ray Kroc sold restaurant supplies.  He recognized the importance of the McDonald brothers' idea.  He saw that food sales could be organized for mass production -- almost like a factory.  Mr. Kroc paid the McDonald brothers for permission to open several restaurants similar to theirs.  He opened the first McDonald's restaurant near Chicago, Illinois, in nineteen fifty-five.  Soon, more McDonald's were opening all across the United States.  Other people copied the idea and more fast food restaurants followed.

(MUSIC)

Raymond Albert Kroc was a very wealthy businessman when he died in nineteen eighty-four.  But he had not always been successful. Ray was born in Illinois in nineteen-oh-two.  His parents were not rich.  He attended school in Oak Park, near Chicago.  Ray never completed high school, however.  He left school to become a driver for the Red Cross in World War One.  He lied about his age to be accepted.  He was only fifteen. The war ended before he could be sent to Europe.

After the war, Ray became a jazz piano player.  He played with famous music groups. He got married when he was twenty.  Then he began working for the Lily Tulip Cup Company, selling paper cups.  He kept trying new things, however. He attempted to sell land in the southern state of Florida.  That business failed.  Ray Kroc remembered driving to Chicago from Florida after his business failed.  He said: "I will never forget that drive as long as I live.  The streets were covered with ice, and I did not have winter clothing.  When I arrived home I was very cold and had no money."

Ray Kroc went back to being a salesman for the Lily Tulip Cup Company.  He was responsible for product sales in the central United States.  His life improved when he started a small business that sold restaurant supplies.  He sold a machine that could mix five milkshakes at one time.

In nineteen fifty-four, he discovered a small restaurant that was using eight of his machines.  He went there and found that the owners of the restaurant had a good business selling only hamburgers, French fries and drinks.

At first, Mr. Kroc saw only the possibility for increasing the sales of his mixers to more restaurants.  Then he proposed an agreement with the McDonald brothers to start a number of restaurants.  Under the agreement, the McDonald brothers would get a percentage of all sales.

The first McDonald's restaurant opened in Des Plaines, Illinois, in nineteen fifty-five.  Ray Kroc was fifty-two years old -- an age when many people start thinking about retirement.  He opened two restaurants.  Soon he began to understand that the real profits were made in selling hamburgers, not the mixers.  He quickly sold the mixer company and invested the money in the growing chain of McDonald's restaurants.

In nineteen-sixty, Mr. Kroc bought the legal rights to the restaurants from the McDonald brothers.  By then, the chain had more than two hundred restaurants.

(MUSIC)

Fast food restaurants spread quickly in the United States because of franchising.  Franchising means selling the legal right to operate a store in a company's chain to an independent business person.  If the company approves, the business person may buy or lease the store for a period of years.

Many people want to own a McDonald's restaurant, but only a few are approved.  Each restaurant buys its supplies at a low cost from the parent company.  Each restaurant also gives the company about ten percent of the money it earns in sales.  Today, about seventy percent of McDonald's restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent businessmen and women.

Ray Kroc was good at identifying what the public wanted.  He knew that many American families wanted to eat in a restaurant sometimes.  He gave people a simple eating place with popular food, low prices, friendly service and no waiting.  And all McDonald's restaurants sold the same food in every restaurant across the country.

Ray Kroc established rules for how McDonald's restaurants were to operate.  He demanded that every restaurant offer "quality, service and cleanliness."  People lucky enough to get a franchise must complete a program at a training center called Hamburger University.  They learn how to cook and serve the food, and how to keep the building clean.  More than sixty-five thousand people have completed this training.

(MUSIC)

McDonald's began to expand around the world in nineteen sixty-seven.  Ray Kroc's business ability made McDonald's the largest restaurant company in the world.  There are now more than thirty thousand McDonald's restaurants on six continents.

The company operates in about one hundred twenty countries.  Every day, McDonald's restaurants around the world serve about fifty million people.

In later years, Ray Kroc established the Kroc Foundation, a private organization that gives money to help others.  He also established a number of centers that offer support to families of children who have cancer.  They are called Ronald McDonald houses.

Many people praised Ray Kroc for his company's success and good works.  But other people sharply criticized him for the way McDonald's treated young employees.  Many of the workers were paid the lowest wage permitted by American law.  Health experts still criticize McDonald's food for containing too much fat and salt.

In the nineteen seventies, Ray Kroc turned his energy from hamburgers to sports.  He bought a professional baseball team in California, the San Diego Padres.  He died in nineteen eighty-four.  He was eighty-one years old.

That first McDonald's restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, was torn down.  It was replaced by a store and visitors center that attempts to copy what was in the original building.  Another museum in nearby Oak Park describes the life of Ray Kroc.  Ray Kroc's story remains an important part of McDonald's history. And his way of doing business continues to influence fast food restaurants that feed people around the world.

(MUSIC)

This program was written by George Grow.  Lawan Davis was the producer.  I'm Steve Ember. And I'm Phoebe Zimmermann.  Join us again next week for anotherPEOPLE IN AMERICA program in VOA Special English.