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History of English & English in India — GK Questions with Answers

Current Affairs 2026 Today's GK Quiz Static GK हिन्दी
26 questions
  1. English belongs to which branch of Indo-European?
    1. Italic
    2. Germanic
    3. Celtic
    4. Hellenic
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Germanic

    English is Germanic, despite its large Latin and French vocabulary.

  2. The Indo-European family was established by —
    1. Jacob Grimm
    2. Sir William Jones
    3. Max Müller
    4. Ferdinand de Saussure
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Sir William Jones

    Sir William Jones, in Calcutta in 1786.

  3. Old English is best described as —
    1. analytic
    2. synthetic and inflected
    3. isolating
    4. agglutinative
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) synthetic and inflected

    It used endings rather than word order to show grammatical relations.

  4. Which event most changed English vocabulary in the Middle English period?
    1. the Viking raids
    2. the Norman Conquest
    3. the Renaissance
    4. the invention of printing
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) the Norman Conquest

    The Norman Conquest of 1066 brought thousands of French words.

  5. The words beef, mutton and pork came into English from —
    1. Old Norse
    2. French
    3. Latin
    4. Dutch
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) French

    French — the animal in the field kept its English name, the meat on the table took a French one.

  6. Which dialect of Middle English became the basis of standard English?
    1. Northern
    2. Kentish
    3. East Midland
    4. Southern
    Show answer

    Answer: (C) East Midland

    The East Midland dialect of London.

  7. The Great Vowel Shift occurred roughly between —
    1. 1066 and 1200
    2. 1400 and 1700
    3. 1700 and 1800
    4. 1800 and 1900
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    Answer: (B) 1400 and 1700

    Between about 1400 and 1700, affecting all the long vowels.

  8. The Great Vowel Shift explains —
    1. the loss of inflections
    2. the mismatch between English spelling and pronunciation
    3. the French borrowings
    4. the rise of the East Midland dialect
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) the mismatch between English spelling and pronunciation

    Spelling was fixed by printers before the shift finished.

  9. Caxton set up the first English printing press in —
    1. 1456
    2. 1476
    3. 1496
    4. 1516
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) 1476

    1476, at Westminster.

  10. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language appeared in —
    1. 1745
    2. 1755
    3. 1765
    4. 1775
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) 1755

    1755.

  1. The first complete edition of the Oxford English Dictionary appeared in —
    1. 1884
    2. 1900
    3. 1928
    4. 1933
    Show answer

    Answer: (C) 1928

    Begun in 1857, completed in 1928, chiefly under James Murray.

  2. The change of meat from "any food" to "flesh" is an example of —
    1. widening
    2. narrowing
    3. elevation
    4. degeneration
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) narrowing

    Narrowing or specialisation.

  3. Villain once meant a farm worker. Its change is an example of —
    1. amelioration
    2. pejoration
    3. generalisation
    4. metonymy
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) pejoration

    Pejoration or degeneration — the word fell in status.

  4. Smog and brunch are examples of —
    1. clipping
    2. blending
    3. back-formation
    4. compounding
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) blending

    Blends or portmanteau words.

  5. Burgle formed from burglar is an example of —
    1. clipping
    2. conversion
    3. back-formation
    4. coinage
    Show answer

    Answer: (C) back-formation

    Back-formation — a shorter word made by removing a supposed affix.

  6. Which of these is an acronym rather than an initialism?
    1. BBC
    2. UPSC
    3. NATO
    4. ATM
    Show answer

    Answer: (C) NATO

    NATO is said as a word; the others are spelt out.

  7. The smallest meaningful unit of a language is the —
    1. phoneme
    2. morpheme
    3. syllable
    4. lexeme
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) morpheme

    The morpheme. The phoneme is the smallest unit of sound.

  8. The word cats contains —
    1. one morpheme
    2. two morphemes
    3. three morphemes
    4. no morphemes
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) two morphemes

    Two — cat and the plural -s — though it has only one syllable.

  9. How many inflectional suffixes does English have?
    1. four
    2. six
    3. eight
    4. twelve
    Show answer

    Answer: (C) eight

    Eight — two on nouns, four on verbs, two on adjectives.

  10. The variant pronunciations /s/, /z/ and /ɪz/ of the plural are —
    1. phonemes
    2. allomorphs
    3. allophones
    4. morphs
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) allomorphs

    Allomorphs of the plural morpheme.

  1. Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education was written in —
    1. 1813
    2. 1835
    3. 1854
    4. 1857
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) 1835

    1835.

  2. Macaulay aimed to create a class "Indian in blood and colour, but —"
    1. loyal to the Crown
    2. English in taste, opinions, morals and intellect
    3. trained in commerce
    4. fluent in Sanskrit and Arabic
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) English in taste, opinions, morals and intellect

    The best-known sentence of the Minute.

  3. Which document is called the "Magna Carta of English education in India"?
    1. Macaulay’s Minute
    2. Wood’s Despatch
    3. the Hunter Commission report
    4. the Charter Act of 1813
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Wood’s Despatch

    Wood’s Despatch of 1854.

  4. The Three Language Formula was recommended by the —
    1. Radhakrishnan Commission
    2. Kothari Commission
    3. Mudaliar Commission
    4. Hunter Commission
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Kothari Commission

    The Kothari Commission (1964–66); adopted in the NPE of 1968.

  5. In the Constitution of India, English is —
    1. one of the 22 scheduled languages
    2. an associate official language of the Union
    3. the sole official language
    4. a classical language
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) an associate official language of the Union

    It is not in the Eighth Schedule; it continues as an associate official language.

  6. NEP 2020 recommends as the medium of instruction till at least Class 5 —
    1. English
    2. Hindi
    3. the mother tongue or regional language, wherever possible
    4. Sanskrit
    Show answer

    Answer: (C) the mother tongue or regional language, wherever possible

    The policy prefers the home language in the early years.

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