2019年经济学人 拉丁语的演化发展(2)

 

Throughout the Dark Ages, the few literate¹ Europeans continued to write in classical Latin. Or they tried to: as their speech evolved, their writing sometimes mutated to match it. A list of commonly misspelled words, written in the third or fourth century, offers a glimpse of what was happening. For example, the list insists on calida (hot) not calda: the unstressed “i” was evidently disappearing. (Now it is calda in Italian.) Other sounds were changing, too. Use frigida not fricda, the list advises. The word for “cold” was on its way to today’s fredda.

在整个黑暗时代，少数精通文学的欧洲人继续用古典拉丁语写作。随着语言不断进化，其他人有时试图让写作发生相应的变化。一份写于三、四世纪的常见拼写错误的单词列表，能让我们一窥当时发生了什么。例如，这个列表坚持使用“calida”(意为“热的”)而不是“calda”：不重读的“i”显然正在消失。(现在意大利语是“calda”。) 其他读音也在变化。那个列表建议使用“frigida”而不是“fricda”。这个词意为“冷的”，现在写作“fredda”。

Nor was pronunciation the only moving part. Modern students of Latin often wrestle² despondently³ with the language’s case system, in which the role a noun plays in a sentence is signalled by alternative endings. These collapsed⁴ into fewer forms in the Dark Ages; in modern Italian they leave no trace. Meanwhile, Latin’s three genders⁵ (masculine, neuter and feminine) merged⁶ into two. Words were substituted. People stopped using Latin’s loqui, “to speak”, and started using parabolare, which originally had a narrower meaning. It became Italian’s parlare.

发音并不是唯一改变的部分。现代拉丁语学生常常沮丧地与这种语言的大小写系统作斗争，在这种系统中，名词在句子中所起的作用由不同的结尾来表示。这些在黑暗时代坍塌成更少的形态；在现代意大利语中，它们没有留下任何痕迹。与此同时，拉丁语的三种性别(阳性、中性和阴性)合并为两种。很多词有了替代。人们不再使用拉丁语的“loqui” (意为“说话”)，而是开始使用“parabolare”，这个词最初的意思比较少。现在这个词的意大利语是“parlare”。

A millennium⁷ or so after Cicero’s moans, in other words, Europeans spoke⁸ a range of tongues that were nevertheless related to each other and to Latin. What happened next in Italy had as much to do with politics as with the dynamics⁹ of languages. The contrast with its northern neighbour is instructive. France was unified¹⁰ by the conquest of territory spreading out from Paris; the conquerors¹¹ brought Parisian speech with them, and that became “French”. A mighty¹² state then did its best to teach that language everywhere, and to eradicate¹³ local variants¹⁴.

换句话说，在西塞罗抱怨之后的一千年左右，欧洲人说着各种各样的语言，尽管这些语言彼此关联，也与拉丁语有关。接下来在意大利发生的事情，不仅与语言的活力有关，也与政治有关。与北方邻国的对比很能说明问题。法国通过征服从巴黎向外扩张的领土而统一；征服者带来了巴黎语，并成为“法语”。当时，这个强大的国家竭尽全力在各地 教授这种语言，并根除当地的变体。

1 literate   

n.学者；adj.精通文学的，受过教育的

参考例句：

• Only a few of the nation's peasants are literate.这个国家的农民中只有少数人能识字。
• A literate person can get knowledge through reading many books.一个受过教育的人可以通过读书而获得知识。

2 wrestle   

vi.摔跤，角力；搏斗；全力对付

参考例句：

• He taught his little brother how to wrestle.他教他小弟弟如何摔跤。
• We have to wrestle with difficulties.我们必须同困难作斗争。

3 despondently   

adv.沮丧地，意志消沉地

参考例句：

• It had come to that, he reflected despondently. 事情已经到了这个地步了，他沉思着，感到心灰意懒。 来自辞典例句
• He shook his head despondently. 他沮丧地摇摇头。 来自辞典例句

4 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

5 genders   

n.性某些语言的（阳性、阴性和中性，不同的性有不同的词尾等）( gender的名词复数 )；性别；某些语言的（名词、代词和形容词）性的区分

参考例句：

• There are three genders in German: masculine, feminine and neuter. 德语中有叁性：阳性、阴性和中性。 来自辞典例句
• Japan was fourth among the genders of foreign students. 日本在二十个留美学生输送地中列第四位。 来自互联网

6 merged   

（使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中

参考例句：

• Turf wars are inevitable when two departments are merged. 两个部门合并时总免不了争争权限。
• The small shops were merged into a large market. 那些小商店合并成为一个大商场。

7 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。

8 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

9 dynamics   

n.力学，动力学，动力，原动力；动态

参考例句：

• In order to succeed,you must master complicated knowledge of dynamics.要取得胜利，你必须掌握很复杂的动力学知识。
• Dynamics is a discipline that cannot be mastered without extensive practice.动力学是一门不做大量习题就不能掌握的学科。

10 unified   

(unify 的过去式和过去分词)； 统一的； 统一标准的； 一元化的

参考例句：

• The teacher unified the answer of her pupil with hers. 老师核对了学生的答案。
• The First Emperor of Qin unified China in 221 B.C. 秦始皇于公元前221年统一中国。

11 conquerors   

征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Danes had selfconfidence of conquerors, and their security precautions were casual. 这些丹麦人具有征服者的自信，而且他们的安全防卫也是漫不经心的。
• The conquerors believed in crushing the defeated people into submission, knowing that they could not win their loyalty by the victory. 征服者们知道他们的胜利并不能赢得失败者的忠心，于是就认为只有通过武力才能将他们压服。

12 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

13 eradicate   

v.根除，消灭，杜绝

参考例句：

• These insects are very difficult to eradicate.这些昆虫很难根除。
• They are already battling to eradicate illnesses such as malaria and tetanus.他们已经在努力消灭疟疾、破伤风等疾病。

14 variants   

n.变体( variant的名词复数 )；变种；变型；（词等的）变体

参考例句：

• Those variants will be preserved in the'struggle for existence". 这些变异将在“生存竞争”中被保留下来。 来自辞典例句
• Like organisms, viruses have variants, generally called strains. 与其他生物一样，病毒也有变种，一般称之为株系。 来自辞典例句