After reading the
passage below, fill in each blank with a proper word given in the box. Each
word can be used only once. Note that there is one more word than you need.
|
A.
picturing B. separated C. vary D. celebration E. complicated F. vast G.
roughly H. mythical I. delicately J stress K. distinguishing
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The United Nations' series of "language days" are
designed to promote the use of the six official languages of the UN as well as
to celebrate cultural and linguistic diversity (语言多样性). Chinese Language Day is the 20th
April. It's a time chosen to fit in with the Chinese{#blank#}1{#/blank#} of Guyu
(古语), which honours Cangjie—the four-eyed {#blank#}2{#/blank#} figure who is traditionally understood to have
created Chinese characters in the time of the Yellow Emperor, 5000 years ago.
Mandarin (普通话) is the most-spoken language in the
world, with over 1.5 billion speakers. When most people think of "Chinese",
it is Mandarin that they are {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. But Mandarin Chinese is far from the
only variant of the Chinese language—or the only language spoken in China. In
fact, there are a great number of Chinese languages. Remember—this is a country
which is both very large and very, very old. Different regions are within the {#blank#}4{#/blank#} expanse of territory, that is, China can be {#blank#}5{#/blank#} not only by great distances but also by
broadly geographical features such as mountain ranges.
It is hard to guess how many dialects actually exist. In
general, dialects can be {#blank#}6{#/blank#} classified into one of the seven large groups:
Putonghua (Mandarin), Gan, Kejia (Hakka), Min, Wu, Xiang, and Yue (Cantonese).
Each language group contains a large number of dialects.
Understanding the situation is {#blank#}7{#/blank#} by the fact that, while many Chinese people in
different geographical areas of the country may not understand each other when
they speak their regional dialect, they may share the same written language
even if their pronunciation of different characters within that language may{#blank#}8{#/blank#}.
A {#blank#}9{#/blank#} feature across all Chinese languages is tone.
For instance, Mandarin has four tones and Cantonese has six tones. Tone, in
terms of language, is the pitch (音高) in which syllables (音节) in words are spoken. In Chinese, different words {#blank#}10{#/blank#} different keys. Some words even have pitch
variations in one single syllable.
