2019年经济学人 约翰逊语言专栏--为何广泛使用的语言语法更简单(1)

 

Books & arts

来源于《图书和艺术》版块

Johnson

约翰逊语言专栏

Big and basic

大而基础

Why widely spoken languages have simpler grammar

为何广泛使用的语言语法更简单

Stalin spoke¹ Russian as a second language. The Georgian dictator of the Soviet² Union had a noticeable accent and is said to have mumbled³ his case-endings. The tale indicates two things. One is that learning new languages is hard, even with a great deal of exposure. (Stalin started learning Russian at around ten and spoke it all his adult life.) The other is that languages are more complex than they need to be. Not having mastered all Russian’s finer points didn’t keep Stalin from ruling the Soviet Union with a murderously effective iron hand.

俄语是斯大林的第二语言。这位前苏联的格鲁吉亚独裁者口音很重，据说他的格尾口齿不清。这个故事说明了两件问题。一个是学习新语言是困难的，即使有大量的接触。(斯大林十岁左右开始学习俄语，成年后一直说俄语。) 另一个原因是语言实际比所需复杂得多。虽然斯大林没有掌握所有俄语的细微之处，但这并没有阻止他以铁腕统治苏联。

Russian really is hard for learners, and a casual comparison might serve the conclusion that big, prestigious⁴ languages like Russian are complex. Just look, after all, at their rich, technical vocabularies, and the complex industrial societies that they serve.

俄语对学习者来说真的很难，随便比较一下就会得出这样的结论：像俄语这样有名的大语种是复杂的。毕竟，只要看看他们丰富的技术词汇，以及他们所服务的复杂工业社会就知道了。

But linguists⁵ who have compared languages systematically⁶ are struck by the opposite conclusion. They tend to find that “big” languages—spoken by large numbers over a big land area—are actually simpler than small, isolated⁷ ones. This is largely because linguists, unlike laypeople, focus on grammar, not vocabulary. Consider Berik, spoken in a few villages in eastern Papua. It may not have a word for “supernova”, but it drips with complex rules: a mandatory⁸ verb ending tells what time of day the action occurred, and another indicates the size of the direct object. Of course these things can be said in English, but Berik requires them. Remote societies may be materially simple; “primitive”, their languages are not.

但是，对不同语言进行系统比较的语言学家却得出了相反的结论。他们倾向于发现，“大”语言——在一大片土地上被大量使用的语言——实际上比小的、孤立的语言更简单。这在很大程度上是因为语言学家与外行人不同，他们关注的是语法，而不是词汇。想想巴布亚东部的几个村庄说的柏雷克语吧。它可能没有“超新星”这个词，但它有着复杂的规则：强制动词的结尾表示动作发生的时间，另一个表示直接对象的大小。当然，这些事情本可以用英语说，但柏雷克语要求不能如此。偏远的社会可能物质上很简单；“原始的”，但他们的语言不是。

Systematically so: a study in 2010 of thousands of tongues found that smaller languages have more Berik-style grammatical bits and pieces attached to words. By contrast, bigger ones tend to be like English or Mandarin⁹, in which words change their form little if at all. No one knows why, but a likely culprit is the very scale and ubiquity of such widely travelled languages.

语言系统是这样的：2010年对数千种语言进行的一项研究发现，较小的语言在单词上有更多柏雷克风格的语法碎片。相比之下，更大的语言如英语或普通话，单词的形式几乎没有变化。没有人知道原因，但一个可能的罪魁祸首是如此广泛传播的语言的规模和普遍性。

1 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。

2 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

3 mumbled   

含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He mumbled something to me which I did not quite catch. 他对我叽咕了几句话，可我没太听清楚。
• George mumbled incoherently to himself. 乔治语无伦次地喃喃自语。

4 prestigious   

adj.有威望的，有声望的，受尊敬的

参考例句：

• The young man graduated from a prestigious university.这个年轻人毕业于一所名牌大学。
• You may even join a prestigious magazine as a contributing editor.甚至可能会加入一个知名杂志做编辑。

5 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

6 systematically   

adv.有系统地

参考例句：

• This government has systematically run down public services since it took office.这一屆政府自上台以来系统地削减了公共服务。
• The rainforest is being systematically destroyed.雨林正被系统地毀灭。

7 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。

8 mandatory   

adj.命令的；强制的；义务的；n.受托者

参考例句：

• It's mandatory to pay taxes.缴税是义务性的。
• There is no mandatory paid annual leave in the U.S.美国没有强制带薪年假。

9 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。