Humanities › English How Well Do You Know the History of the English Language? The Merchant from Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales". Getty Images English English Grammar An Introduction to Punctuation Writing By Richard Nordquist Richard Nordquist English and Rhetoric Professor Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester B.A., English, State University of New York Dr. Richard Nordquist is professor emeritus of rhetoric and English at Georgia Southern University and the author of several university-level grammar and composition textbooks. Learn about our Editorial Process Published on October 01, 2018 Where has the English language been for the past 1,500 years, who has been using it, what habits has it acquired, and why does it refuse to stand still? Test your knowledge! Give yourself a couple of minutes to complete this multiple-choice quiz. 1. The ultimate origins of the English language lie in which language family? Indo-European Latin North American Correct Wrong 2. What is another name for Old English? Middle English Anglo-Saxon Celtic Correct Wrong 3. Which one of the following texts was composed during the Old English period? The Canterbury Tales Beowulf Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge Correct Wrong 4. During the Middle English period, many words were borrowed from which two languages? Celtic and Old Norse Urdu and Iroquoian Latin and French Correct Wrong 5. Published in 1604, the first monolingual English dictionary was: Nathaniel Bailey's Universal Etymological Dictionary of the English Language Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall Correct Wrong 6. Which Anglo-Irish writer proposed the creation of an English Academy to regulate English usage and "ascertain" the language? Jonathan Swift Samuel Johnson Oliver Goldsmith Correct Wrong 7. Who published the book Dissertations on the English Language (1789), which advocated an American standard of usage? Noah Webster John Webster Daniel Webster Correct Wrong 8. Which late-19th-century novel introduced a colloquial prose style that significantly influenced the writing of fiction in the U.S.? "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain "Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave" by Aphra Behn Correct Wrong 9. The Philological Society's New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, begun in 1879, was eventually published under which title in 1928? Roget's Thesaurus The King's English Oxford English Dictionary Correct Wrong 10. During which decade did the number of speakers of English as a second language exceed the number of native speakers for the first time? 1920s 1950s 1990s Correct Wrong How Well Do You Know the History of the English Language? You got: % Correct. Share Your Results How Well Do You Know the History of the English Language? You got: % Correct. Share Your Results How Well Do You Know the History of the English Language? You got: % Correct. Share Your Results