Questão de InglêsInterpretação de texto | Reading comprehension, Aspectos linguísticos | Linguistic aspects

Text 7A3-II 

    400 million people speak English as their first language;
another 1.4 billion as a second tongue. Born 1,600 years ago
among the Germanic tribes of northern Europe, English became
global. A new exhibition at the British Library, named Evolving
English, traces for the first time the incredible journey launched
by the Frisians, Saxons, Angles and Jutes who sailed to southeast
England, and whose descendants created the Vespasian Psalter in
the eighth century. From the Vespasian Psalter the journey
moves on through England’s early literary heroes, Beowulf, Sir
Gawayne and the Grene Knight, and on to Jonathan Swift.

    The curators of Evolving English have been clever to
focus not just on English at school and English at work, but
English at play, from spoonerisms to malapropisms, puns and
palindromes and the 1,800 words invented by William
Shakespeare — among them “green-eyed”, “go-between”,
“well-read” and “zany”. Not only was Shakespeare the greatest
English writer, he could have been no other kind.

Internet: (<www.economist.com> (adapted).