阅读理解。
Language is always changing. In a society where life continues year after year with few changes, the
language does not change, either. The earliest known languages had difficult grammar but a small, limited
vocabulary. Over the century, the grammar changed, and the vocabulary grew. For example, the English
and Spanish people who came to America during the sixteenth century gave names to all new plants and
animals they found. In this way, hundreds of new words were introduced into English and Spanish
vocabularies. Today life is changing very fast, and language is changing fast too.
There are several major language families in the world. Some scientists say there are nine main families,
but other scientists divide them differently. The languages in each family are connected, and scientists think
that they came from the same parent language About 3 percent of the people in the world speak languages
that are not in these major families.
1. The early language had ______.
A. a lot of problems
B. words and easy grammar
C. words but no grammar
D. grammar but not many words
2. In the next few hundred years we can expect language to ______.
A. stay exactly the same
B. change a great deal
C. change only a little
D. add more words and drop some grammar
3. What this article shows is that ______.
A. languages change fast
B. languages really don't want to change
C. language changes with changes of society
D. Spanish and English change
4. From this article we can see that ______.
A. language can change very slowly or very quickly
B. if we don't change, then our language won't change, either
C. we should give our plants new names
D. English and Spanish are the only languages that have changes
