经济学人197:你说什么语言?

 　　Linguistics²

　　语言学

　　Say what?

　　你说什么？

　　To find new subjects of study, some linguists³ simply open their front doors

　　要寻找新的研究主题，一些语言学家只须打开前门

　　Sep 10th 2011 | NEW YORK | from the print edition

　　WHERE in the world is the largest number of different languages spoken? Most linguists would probably plump for New Guinea, an island that has 830 recognised tongues scattered⁴ around its isolated⁵, jungle-covered valleys. But a place on the other side of the world runs it close. The five boroughs⁷ of New York City are reckoned to be home to speakers of around 800 languages, many of them close to extinction⁸.

　　世界上哪一个地区使用的语言种类最多？大部分语言学家可能都会坚决地认为是新几内亚，在这个岛上，有830种已被认可的语言散布在丛林广布的偏远山谷中。但在地球的另一端，有一个地方的语言数目几乎能赶上新几内亚。纽约市的五个区被认为是约八百种语言使用者的聚居地，其中很多语种濒临灭绝。

　　New York is also home, of course, to a lot of academic linguists, and three of them have got together to create an organisation⁹ called the Endangered Language Alliance (ELA), which is ferreting out speakers of unusual tongues from the city’s huddled¹⁰ immigrant masses. The ELA, which was set up last year by Daniel Kaufman, Juliette Blevins and Bob Holman, has worked in detail on 12 languages since its inception¹¹. It has codified¹² their grammars, their pronunciations and their word-formation patterns, as well as their songs and legends. Among the specimens¹³ in its collection are Garifuna, which is spoken by descendants of African slaves who made their homes on St Vincent after a shipwreck¹⁴ unexpectedly liberated¹⁵ them; Mamuju, from Sulawesi in Indonesia; Mahongwe, a language from Gabon; Shughni, from the Pamirian region of Tajikistan; and an unusual variant¹⁶ of a Mexican language called Totonac.

　　当然，纽约也有许多学术界的语言学家，其中有三人就已一起成立了名为濒危语言联盟的组织（简称ELA），该组织正从城市聚居在一起的移民百姓中搜寻出使用罕见语种的人。去年，丹尼尔?考夫曼、朱丽叶?布莱文思和鲍伯?霍尔曼成立了这个联盟。联盟自创始以来，已对12种语言进行了详细研究，并已将这些语言的语法、发音、构词法还有歌曲、传说等编纂成典。其作品集的语言样本包括：加利弗那语，即非洲奴隶的后代所使用的语言（从前一次海难意外地解放了他们，之后他们就在圣文森特安家）；马穆朱语，源自印度尼西亚的苏拉威西岛；马宏威语，一种来自加蓬的语言；舒格尼语，源自塔吉克斯坦的帕米尔地区；还有一种墨西哥语的特别变体，名为托托纳克语。

　　Each volunteer speaker of a language of interest is first tested with what is known as a Swadesh list. This is a set of 207 high-frequency, slow-to-change words such as parts of the body, colours and basic verbs like eat, drink, sleep and kill. The Swadesh list is intended to ascertain¹⁷ an individual’s fluency¹⁸ before he is taken on. Once he has been accepted, Dr Kaufman and his colleagues start chipping away at the language’s phonology (the sounds of which it is composed) and its syntax (how its meaning is changed by the order of words and phrases). This sort of analysis is the bread and butter of linguistics.

　　首先，要用称为斯瓦迪士核心词表的列表为一种目标研究语言的每位志愿者进行测试。这是一组207个高频、变化缓慢的词汇，如身体部位、颜色和诸如吃、喝、睡或杀等基本动词。斯瓦迪士核心词表旨在于录用志愿者前先确定他的语言流利程度。一旦他被录用，考夫曼博士及其同事就开始不断研究那种语言的音位学（即组成这个体系的各种发音）和句法（其词汇和短语的次序如何改变意思）。这种分析是语言学中非常重要而且基础的一部分。

　　Every so often, though, the researchers come across a bit of jam. The Mahongwe word manono, for example, means “I like” when spoken soft and flat, and “I don’t like” when the first syllable¹⁹ is a tad sharper in tone. Similarly, mbaza could be either “chest” or “council house”. In both cases, the two words are nearly indistinguishable to an English speaker, but yield starkly²⁰ different patterns when run through a spectrograph. Manono is a particular linguistic¹ oddity, since it uses only tone to differentiate²¹ an affirmative from a negative—a phenomenon the ELA has since discovered applies to all verbs in Mahongwe.

　　不过，研究者们偶尔也会碰上一点困难。例如，马宏威语词汇manono，当用温和平缓的语调发音时，意思为“我喜欢”，而当第一个音节发音稍微尖锐时，意思却是“我不喜欢”。与此类似，mbaza可以是“胸膛”，也可以是“廉租房”。在以上两个例子里，对于一个说英语的人，这两个词都几乎无法分辨，但通过声谱仪处理后却能形成明显不同的图案。从语言学角度上看，Manono这个词是个独特的怪胎，因为它只用声调来区分肯定和否定——濒危语言联盟已经发现这个现象适用于马宏威语中所有的动词。

　　Such niceties are interesting to experts. But the ELA is attempting to understand more than just the nuts and bolts of languages. It is collecting stories and other verbal material specific to the cultures of the participants. One volunteer, for example, wants to write a storybook for children in her language (Shughni), and also a recipe book. That means creating a written form of the language, which the researchers do using what is known as the International Phonetic²² Alphabet.

　　专家们会觉得这些细节相当有趣。但是濒危语言联盟尝试理解的不仅仅是语言的基本要素。它还在收集参与者所属文化特有的故事和其他口语素材。例如，一位志愿者想用其语言(舒格尼语)写一本儿童故事书和一本菜谱。这意味着要创造那种语言的书面语体，而研究者们正在使用被称为国际音标的符号体系来完成这件事。

　　Many of Dr Kaufman’s better finds, he says, have come from “hanging out at street corners with a clipboard on Roosevelt Avenue”—a street (pictured above) in the borough⁶ of Queens that he describes as the “epicentre of the epicentre” of linguistic New York. How long it will remain so is moot²³. The world’s languages, which number about 6,900, are reckoned to be dying out at the rate of one a fortnight. The reason is precisely²⁴ the sort of cultural mixing that New York epitomises. The value of learning any particular language is increased by the number of people who already speak it. Conversely, the value of a minority language is diminished as people abandon it. To those languages that hath, in other words, shall be given. From those that hath not, shall the last speakers soon be taken away.

　　考夫曼博士说，许多更为精妙的发现都是他带着一块剪贴版在罗斯福大道上街角处闲逛所得来的——这条街（见上图）位于皇后区，他说那里是纽约语言学上“中心的中心”。这种现象会持续多久？不得而知。全世界的语言多达6900多种，估计每两周就有一种语言会消失。原因恰是纽约这种典型的文化交融。任何一种语言，使用的人数能越多，学习这种语言的价值就越高。相反，少数人使用的语言会遭到人们抛弃，其价值便会随之降低。换言之，价值更高的那些语言将会有更多的人学习之。而价值较低的语言，其最后一批使用者也将会很快消失。

1 linguistic   

adj.语言的，语言学的

参考例句：

• She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
• The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。

2 linguistics   

n.语言学

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。

3 linguists   

n.通晓数国语言的人( linguist的名词复数 )；语言学家

参考例句：

• The linguists went to study tribal languages in the field. 语言学家们去实地研究部落语言了。 来自辞典例句
• The linguists' main interest has been to analyze and describe languages. 语言学家的主要兴趣一直在于分析并描述语言。 来自辞典例句

4 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

5 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

6 borough   

n.享有自治权的市镇；(英)自治市镇

参考例句：

• He was slated for borough president.他被提名做自治区主席。
• That's what happened to Harry Barritt of London's Bromley borough.住在伦敦的布罗姆利自治市的哈里.巴里特就经历了此事。

7 boroughs   

（尤指大伦敦的）行政区( borough的名词复数 )； 议会中有代表的市镇

参考例句：

• London is made up of 32 boroughs. 伦敦由三十二个行政区组成。
• Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City. 布鲁克林区是纽约市的五个行政区之一。

8 extinction   

n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种

参考例句：

• The plant is now in danger of extinction.这种植物现在有绝种的危险。
• The island's way of life is doomed to extinction.这个岛上的生活方式注定要消失。

9 organisation   

n.组织，安排，团体，有机休

参考例句：

• The method of his organisation work is worth commending.他的组织工作的方法值得称道。
• His application for membership of the organisation was rejected.他想要加入该组织的申请遭到了拒绝。

10 huddled   

挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• We huddled together for warmth. 我们挤在一块取暖。
• We huddled together to keep warm. 我们挤在一起来保暖。

11 inception   

n.开端，开始，取得学位

参考例句：

• The programme has been successful since its inception.这个方案自开始实施以来一直卓有成效。
• Julia's worked for that company from its inception.自从那家公司开办以来，朱莉娅一直在那儿工作。

12 codified   

v.把（法律）编成法典( codify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• In the meantime, however, Kennecott had been codified elsewhere in the Act. 然而，“肯尼考特”一案已被编人法案。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Congress has since codified this holding. 从那时以来，国会编纂整理了最高法院的这一裁定。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法

13 specimens   

n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人

参考例句：

• Astronauts have brought back specimens of rock from the moon. 宇航员从月球带回了岩石标本。
• The traveler brought back some specimens of the rocks from the mountains. 那位旅行者从山上带回了一些岩石标本。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 shipwreck   

n.船舶失事，海难

参考例句：

• He walked away from the shipwreck.他船难中平安地脱险了。
• The shipwreck was a harrowing experience.那次船难是一个惨痛的经历。

15 liberated   

a.无拘束的，放纵的

参考例句：

• The city was liberated by the advancing army. 军队向前挺进，解放了那座城市。
• The heat brings about a chemical reaction, and oxygen is liberated. 热量引起化学反应，释放出氧气。

16 variant   

adj.不同的，变异的；n.变体，异体

参考例句：

• We give professional suggestions according to variant tanning stages for each customer.我们针对每位顾客不同的日晒阶段，提供强度适合的晒黑建议。
• In a variant of this approach,the tests are data- driven.这个方法的一个变种，是数据驱动的测试。

17 ascertain   

vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清

参考例句：

• It's difficult to ascertain the coal deposits.煤储量很难探明。
• We must ascertain the responsibility in light of different situtations.我们必须根据不同情况判定责任。

18 fluency   

n.流畅，雄辩，善辩

参考例句：

• More practice will make you speak with greater fluency.多练习就可以使你的口语更流利。
• Some young children achieve great fluency in their reading.一些孩子小小年纪阅读已经非常流畅。

19 syllable   

n.音节；vt.分音节

参考例句：

• You put too much emphasis on the last syllable.你把最后一个音节读得太重。
• The stress on the last syllable is light.最后一个音节是轻音节。

20 starkly   

adj. 变硬了的,完全的 adv. 完全,实在,简直

参考例句：

• The city of Befast remains starkly divided between Catholics and Protestants. 贝尔法斯特市完全被处在天主教徒和新教徒的纷争之中。
• The black rocks stood out starkly against the sky. 那些黑色的岩石在天空衬托下十分显眼。

21 differentiate   

vi.(between)区分；vt.区别；使不同

参考例句：

• You can differentiate between the houses by the shape of their chimneys.你可以凭借烟囱形状的不同来区分这两幢房子。
• He never learned to differentiate between good and evil.他从未学会分辨善恶。

22 phonetic   

adj.语言的，语言上的，表示语音的

参考例句：

• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。
• English phonetic teaching is an important teaching step in elementary stages.语音教学是英语基础阶段重要的教学环节。

23 moot   

v.提出；adj.未决议的；n.大会；辩论会

参考例句：

• The question mooted in the board meeting is still a moot point.那个在董事会上提出讨论的问题仍未决的。
• The oil versus nuclear equation is largely moot.石油和核能之间的关系还很有争议。

24 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。