LISTENING SCRIPTS
¾ Script 1 : Listen and consider ¾ Script 2 : Listening Unit 1,Script 1: Listen and consider Dr. Victor Skipp, a historian, is answering questions about ancient civilizations during a radio broadcast. Radio interviewer: I’ll start with a tricky question, if you don’t mind. How many civilizations has the world known so far ? Dr. Skipp: Well historians don’t agree on the exact number. According to some of them, there have been 26 or27 civilizations on the whole. Radio interviewer: And which one is the world’s earliest civilization? Dr. Skipp: The world’s earliest civilization is probably the Sumerian civilization. It flourished on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia ( present day Iraq) about 5,500 yzaers ago.As for the Egyptian civilization, it emerged about 5,000 years ago. It was based on along the Nile Valley. Then came the Indus Valley civilization about 4,500 years ago , and the Chinese civilization along the lower valley of the Yellow River about 4,200 years ago. Radio interviewer: What about what is known as Ancient Greek civilization? Dr. Skipp: Well, Ancient Greek civilization started in the Island of Crete some 4,000 years ago and then spread to mailand Greece where it flourished until approximately 150 B.C. Radio interviewer: This is when the Romans took over, I suppose. Dr. Skipp: Right you are! Unit 1,Script 2: Listening
I’m going to talk to you about the Phoenicians. Originally, these skilful sailors and traders, who brought us the alphabet, used to live in the desert, in what is known as Jordan today. But, in the course of time, they settled along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, in a land which aws known as Phoenicia and which is called Lebanon, nowadays. In the desert, the Phoenicians led a nomadic life. When they arrived in Phoenicia, they adopted more settled ways and quickly became town‐dwellers. At first, and for quite a long time, they kept to the coasts and refused to sail out to the open Mediterranean. Down to about 1200 B.C, most of their trade was with Ancient Egypt, which they were able to reach by following their own shoreline southwards. But by 1000 B.c. they sailed from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, bartering their goods everywhere. Commerce became the Phoenicians ‘life. They did not limit their trade to the Mediterranean sea. Soon they sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar onto the Atlantic Ocean all the way to today’s England. When Phoenicians travelled over these vast areas, they didn’t simply do business. They founded trading posts and cities like Carthage in Tunisia, and Icosium ( Algiers) and Hippo ( Annaba), in present‐ day Algeria. They also spread ideas and inventions. One invention which was of particular importance for human civilization, and which was spread by the Phoenicians, was alphabetic writing. Their alphabet was probably adapted from Egyptian hieroglyphics. The Phoenician alphabet was eventually adopted – and adapted ‐ by the Greeks and later by the Romans. (Adapted from Victor Skipp, Out of the Ancient World)