Throughout history, people have been interested in knowing how language first began, but no one knows exactly where or how this happened. However, we do know a lot about languages, the languages of today and also the languages of earlier times. There are probably about three thousand languages in the world today. Chinese is the language with the most speakers. English, Russian and Spanish are also spoken by many millions of people. On the other hand, some languages in the world have less than one hundred speakers.
There are several important families of languages in the world. For example, most of the languages of Europe are in one large family called Indo-European. The original (最初的) language of this family was spoken about 4,500 years ago. Many of the present day languages of Europe and India are modern forms of the language of 4,500 years ago.
Languages are always changing. The English of today is very different from the English of 500 years ago. In time some even die out pletely. About 1,000 years ago English was a little -known relative of German spoken on one of the borders（边界）of Europe.
If a language has a lot of speakers or if it is very old, there may be differences in the way it is spoken in different areas. That is, the language may have several dialects. Chinese is a good example of dialect differences. Chinese has been spoken for thousands of years by many millions of speakers. The differences between the dialects of Chinese are so great that speakers of Chinese from some parts of China cannot understand speakers from other parts.
【小题1】The first paragraph mainly tells us that .A．most people in the world speak ChineseB．there are thousands of languages in the world todayC．man has much knowledge about languagesD．some people know several languages【小题2】Many European and Indian languages .A．will soon die out pletelyB．were once a relative of EnglishC．are the same as beforeD．e from the same family【小题3】 seems to have changed a lotA．ChineseB．EnglishC．SpanishD．German【小题4】The best title of this passage is .A．EnglishB．Changes of EnglishC．ChineseD．Knowledge of LanguageC
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(答案→)C
解析：讲述了世界语言方面的相关知识。
【小题1】段落大意题。通读第一段可知这一段谈到了人类对语言有了很多的了解。
【小题2】细节题。根据第二段第二行most of the languages of Europe are in one large family called Indo-European.
【小题3】细节题。根据第三段第一行The English of today is very different from the English of 500 years ago.
【小题4】主旨大意题。文章是关于语言方面的知识的。