单选题
The Aleuts, residing on several islands of the
Aleutian Chain, the Pribilof Islands, and the Alaskan peninsula have possessed a
written language since 1825, when the Russian missionary Ivan Venation selected
appropriate characters of the Cyrillic alphabet to represent Aleut speech
sounds, recorded the main body of Aleut vocabulary and formulated grammatical
rules. The Czarist Russian conquest of the proud, independent sea hunters was so
devastatingly thorough that tribal traditions, even tribal memories, were almost
obliterated. The slaughter of the majority of an adult generation was sufficient
to destroy the continuity of tribal knowledge, which was dependent upon oral
transmission. As a consequence, the Aleuts developed a fanatical devotion to
their language as their only cultural heritage. The Russian
occupation placed a heavy linguistic burden on the Aleuts. Not only were they
compelled to learn Russian to converse with their overseers and governors, but
they had to learn Old Slavonic to take an active part in church services as well
as to master the skill of reading and writing their own tongue. In 1867, when
the United States purchased Alaska, the Aleuts were unable to break sharply with
their immediate past and substitute English for any one of their three
languages. To communicants of the Russian Orthodox Church a
knowledge of Slavonic remained vital as did Russian, the language in which one
conversed with the clergy. The Aleuts came to regard English education as a
device to wean them from their religious faith. The introduction of compulsory
English schooling caused a minor renascence of Russian culture as the Aleut
parents sought to counteract the influence of the schoolroom. The harsh life of
the Russian colonial rule began to appear more happy and beautiful in
retrospect. Regulations forbidding instruction in any language
other than English increased its unpopularity. The superficial alphabetical
resemblance of Russian and Aleut linked the two tongues so closely that every
restriction against teaching Russian was interpreted as an attempt to eradicate
the Aleut tongue. From the wording of many regulations, it appears that American
administrators often had not the slightest idea that the Aleuts were
clandestinely reading and writing their own tongue or even had a written
language of their own. To too many officials, anything in Cyrillic letters was
Russian and something to be stamped out. Bitterness bred by abuses and the
exploitations the Aleuts suffered from predatory American traders and
adventurers kept alive the Aleut resentment against the language spoken by
Americans. Gradually despite the failure to emancipate the
Aleuts from a sterile past by relating the Aleut and English languages more
closely, the passage of years has assuaged the bitter misunderstandings and
caused an orientation, away from Russian toward English as their second
language, but Aleut continues to be the language that molds their thought and
expression.
单选题
The author is primarily concerned with describing______.
A.United States government attempts to persuade the Aleuts to use English as
a second language
B.Russian and United States treatment of Alaskan inhabitants both before and
after 1867
C.how the Czarist Russian occupation of Alaska created a written language
for the Aleuts
D.the Aleuts' loyalty to their language and American failure to understand
it
单选题
According to the passage, which of the following was the most important
reason for the Aleuts' devotion to their language?______.
A.Invention of a written version of their language.
B.Disruption of oral transmission of tribal knowledge.
C.Introduction of Old Slavonic for worship.
D.Institution of compulsory English education.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】[解析] 本题的四个选项中，只有B项为正确答案。这可从文中第一段的最后两句话“The slaughter of the majority of an adult generation was sufficient to destroy the continuity of tribal knowledge，which was dependent upon oral transmission．As a consequence，the Aleuts developed a fanatical devotion to their language as their only cultural heritage”推知。
单选题
Why does the author mention that the Russians killed the majority of
adult Aleuts?______.
A.To explain the extreme loyalty Aleuts feel to their language.
B.To urge Russia to make restitution on the children of those killed.
C.To stir up outrage against the Russians for committing such
atrocities.
D.To call attention to the immorality of foreign conquest.
A.the Cyrillic alphabet was invented for the Aleut language
B.all of the Cyrillic characters were used in writing the Aleut
language
C.Russian and the Aleut language have some similar speech sounds
D.English is also written using the Cyrillic alphabet
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 本题的四个选项中，只有C项为正确答案。这可从文中第四段的第二句话“The superficial alphabetical resemblance of Russian and Aleut linked the two tongues so closely that every restriction against teaching Russian was interpreted as an attempt to eradicate the Aleut tongue”推知。
单选题
Distributing which of the following publications would be most likely
to encourage Aleuts to make more use of English?______.
A.Russian translations of English novels.
B.An Aleut-English bilingual text devoted to important aspects of Aleutian
culture.
C.An English-Russian bilingual text devoted to important aspects of Aleutian
culture.