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 劍橋雅思4閱讀Test2原文+譯文：語(yǔ)言的消失

  Lost for words

  Many minority languages are on the danger list

  語(yǔ)言的消失

  ——許多少數(shù)民族語(yǔ)言瀕臨滅絕

  In the Native American Navajo nation, which sprawls across four states in the American south-west, the native language is dying. Most of its speakers are middle-aged or elderly. Although many students take classes in Navajo, the schools are run in English. Street signs, supermarket goods and even their own newspaper are all in English. Not surprisingly, linguists doubt that any native speakers of Navajo will remain in a hundred years’ time.

  對(duì)于居住在美國(guó)西南部四州的那瓦霍人來(lái)講，他們的語(yǔ)言正在遭遇滅頂之災(zāi)。大多數(shù)說(shuō)那瓦霍語(yǔ)的人要么是中年人，要么就是垂垂老者。盡管有許多學(xué)生都在學(xué)習(xí)該門(mén)語(yǔ)言，可是學(xué)校卻是用英文授課的。路牌、超市商品說(shuō)明、甚至報(bào)紙全部是英文的。因此語(yǔ)言學(xué)家懷疑在百年之后還會(huì)不會(huì)有人會(huì)說(shuō)這門(mén)語(yǔ)言也就不足為奇了。

  Navajo is far from alone. Half the world’s 6,800 languages are likely to vanish within two generations — that’s one language lost every ten days. Never before has the planet’s linguistic diversity shrunk at such a pace. ‘At the moment, we are heading for about three or four languages dominating the world,’ says Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading. ‘It’s a mass extinction, and whether we will ever rebound from the loss is difficult to know.’

  那瓦霍語(yǔ)決不是惟一會(huì)有此厄運(yùn)的語(yǔ)言。再經(jīng)歷兩代人的時(shí)間，全球6,800種語(yǔ)言當(dāng)中的半數(shù)就有可能從世界上徹底消失——這就相當(dāng)于平均每十天就有一種語(yǔ)言消失。地球上語(yǔ)言的多樣性從未以如此驚人的速度降低過(guò)。“現(xiàn)在，我們面臨的將是兩三種語(yǔ)言支配整個(gè)世界。”雷丁大學(xué)的進(jìn)化生物學(xué)家Marl Pagel說(shuō)，“這就是(語(yǔ)言的)大規(guī)模滅絕，而且我們很難知道能否從這種語(yǔ)言滅絕當(dāng)中恢復(fù)過(guò)來(lái)。”

  Isolation breeds linguistic diversity: as a result, the world is peppered with languages spoken by only a few people. Only 250 languages have more than a million speakers, and at least 3,000 have fewer than 2,500. It is not necessarily these small languages that are about to disappear. Navajo is considered endangered despite having 150,000 speakers. What makes a language endangered is not just the number of speakers, but how old they are. If it is spoken by children it is relatively safe. The critically endangered languages are those that are only spoken by the elderly, according to Michael Krauss, director of the Alassk Native Language Center, in Fairbanks.

  封閉產(chǎn)生了語(yǔ)言的多樣性。結(jié)果整個(gè)世界就布滿(mǎn)了只有幾個(gè)人說(shuō)的語(yǔ)言。只有250種語(yǔ)言擁有超過(guò)100萬(wàn)的使用者，而至少有3,000種語(yǔ)言使用者不足2,500人。那些行將消失的小語(yǔ)種并非命該如此。盡管仍有15萬(wàn)人在使用那瓦霍語(yǔ)，但這種語(yǔ)言還是上了瀕危名單。判斷一種語(yǔ)言是否瀕危的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)不是使用者的數(shù)量，而是使用者的年齡。如果一種語(yǔ)言是孩子們?cè)谑褂茫蜁?huì)相對(duì)安全些。用費(fèi)爾班克斯Alassk語(yǔ)言中心的主任Micheal Krauss的話(huà)說(shuō)就是，真正面臨滅絕之災(zāi)的是那些只有老年人才懂得說(shuō)的語(yǔ)言。

  Why do people reject the language of their parents? It begins with a crisis of confidence, when a small community finds itself alongside a larger, wealthier society, says Nicholas Ostler, of Britain’s Foundation for Endangered Languages, in Bath. ‘People lose faith in their culture,’ he says. ‘When the next generation reaches their teens, they might not want to be induced into the old traditions.’

  可人們?yōu)槭裁淳芙^說(shuō)他們父母的語(yǔ)言呢?這一切都始于一場(chǎng)信任危機(jī)。BATH英國(guó)瀕危語(yǔ)言基金會(huì)成員Nicholas Ostler說(shuō)：“當(dāng)一個(gè)小規(guī)模社會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)自己與一個(gè)大規(guī)模，更富有的社會(huì)并肩而存的時(shí)候，其成員就會(huì)對(duì)自己的文化喪失信心。當(dāng)這個(gè)社會(huì)的下一代進(jìn)人青春期的時(shí)候，他們很可能不會(huì)接受(包括語(yǔ)言在內(nèi)的)傳統(tǒng)事物。”

  The change is not always voluntary. Quite often, governments try to kill off a minority language by banning its use in public or discouraging its use in schools, all to promote national unity. The former US policy of running Indian reservation schools in English, for example, effectively put languages such as Navajo on the danger list. But Salikoko Mufwene, who chairs the Linguistics department at the University of Chicago, argues that the deadliest weapon is not government policy but economic globalisation. ‘Native Americans have not lost pride in their language, but they have had to adapt to socio-economic pressures,’ he says. ‘They cannot refuse to speak English if most commercial activity is in English.’ But are languages worth saving? At the very least, there is a loss of data for the study of languages and their evolution, which relies on comparisons between languages, both living and dead. When an unwritten and unrecorded language disappears, it is lost to science.

  這種轉(zhuǎn)變往往不是自發(fā)的。為了加強(qiáng)國(guó)家凝聚力，政府通常會(huì)通過(guò)在公共場(chǎng)合禁用，以及在學(xué)校中不提倡使用的方法，消滅少數(shù)民族語(yǔ)言。例如，以前美國(guó)政府在印地安保留地學(xué)校推行英語(yǔ)授課政策，這事實(shí)上就是將那瓦霍語(yǔ)等少數(shù)語(yǔ)言推上了瀕危名單。但是芝加哥大學(xué)語(yǔ)言學(xué)系系主任Salikoko Mufwene認(rèn)為，最致命的原因并不是政府政策，而是經(jīng)濟(jì)的全球化。他說(shuō)，“美國(guó)印地安人并沒(méi)有失去對(duì)他們自己語(yǔ)言的信心，但是他們不得不去適應(yīng)社會(huì)經(jīng)濟(jì)壓力。如果大多數(shù)生意都是用英語(yǔ)來(lái)談的，他們就不能拒絕說(shuō)英語(yǔ)，但是，瀕危語(yǔ)言就真的值得去挽救嗎?至少，對(duì)于語(yǔ)言及其進(jìn)化研究來(lái)講，(不去挽救)就會(huì)導(dǎo)致資料的缺失，因?yàn)樵撗芯空腔趯?duì)現(xiàn)存的和過(guò)去的語(yǔ)言的比較而進(jìn)行的。當(dāng)一門(mén)既無(wú)文字記錄也無(wú)錄音考證的語(yǔ)言消失時(shí)，對(duì)于科學(xué)(研究)來(lái)講，它也就不存在了。

  Language is also intimately bound up with culture, so it may be difficult to preserve one without the other. ‘If a person shifts from Navajo to English, they lose something,’ Mufwene says. ‘Moreover, the loss of diversity may also deprive us of different ways of looking at the world,’ says Pagel. There is mounting evidence that learning a language produces physiological changes in the brain. ‘Your brain and mine are different from the brain of someone who speaks French, for instance,’ Pagel says, and this could affect our thoughts and perceptions. ‘The patterns and connections we make among various concepts may be structured by the linguistic habits of our community.’

  語(yǔ)言與文化也有千絲萬(wàn)縷的聯(lián)系，因此要想單純保存語(yǔ)言而不保留文化是非常困難的。“如果一個(gè)本來(lái)說(shuō)那瓦霍語(yǔ)的人現(xiàn)在要改說(shuō)英語(yǔ)，那么他準(zhǔn)得失去點(diǎn)東西。”Mufwene說(shuō)道，Pagel也評(píng)價(jià)道，“而且，語(yǔ)言多樣性的喪失也使我們無(wú)法以多種方式來(lái)看待這個(gè)世界。”越來(lái)越多的證據(jù)表明，學(xué)習(xí)一門(mén)語(yǔ)言可以為大腦帶來(lái)生理上的變化。“比如說(shuō)，你我的大腦與說(shuō)法語(yǔ)人的大腦就十分不同，”P(pán)age說(shuō)，這是會(huì)影響我們的思維和看法的。“我們針對(duì)不同的概念建立了不同的模式和聯(lián)系，這很可能就是由我們社會(huì)的語(yǔ)言習(xí)慣構(gòu)筑而成的。”

  So despite linguists’ best efforts, many languages will disappear over the next century. But a growing interest in cultural identity may prevent the direst predictions from coming true. ‘The key to fostering diversity is for people to learn their ancestral tongue, as well as the dominant language,’ says Doug Whalen, founder and president of the Endangered Language Fund in New Haven, Connecticut. ‘Most of these languages will not survive without a large degree of bilingualism,’ he says. In New Zealand, classes for children have slowed the erosion of Maori and rekindled interest in the language. A similar approach in Hawaii has produced about 8,000 new speakers of Polynesian languages in the past few years. In California, ‘a(chǎn)pprentice’ programmes have provided life support to several indigenous languages. Volunteer ‘a(chǎn)pprentices’ pair up with one of the last living speakers of a Native American tongue to learn a traditional skill such as basket weaving, with instruction exclusively in the endangered language. After about 300 hours of training they are generally sufficiently fluent to transmit the language to the next generation. But Mufwene says that preventing a language dying out is not the same as giving it new life by using it every day. ‘Preserving a language is more like preserving fruits in a jar,’ he says.

  所以，盡管語(yǔ)言學(xué)家已經(jīng)竭盡全力，但是許多語(yǔ)言到了下個(gè)世紀(jì)還是會(huì)消失。但是，一種對(duì)文化認(rèn)同感越來(lái)越多的關(guān)注，也許會(huì)阻止最駭人的預(yù)言成為現(xiàn)實(shí)。“保持語(yǔ)言多樣性的關(guān)鍵在于，讓人們接受主流語(yǔ)言的同時(shí)，也去學(xué)習(xí)他們祖先的語(yǔ)言。”康那狄格州紐黑文市瀕危語(yǔ)言基金會(huì)主席Doug Whalen說(shuō)道，“如果不實(shí)行雙語(yǔ)制度，大多數(shù)瀕危語(yǔ)言都無(wú)法生存下去。”在新西蘭，為孩子們開(kāi)設(shè)的課程明顯減輕了毛利語(yǔ)所受的損害，并且重新燃起了人們對(duì)該語(yǔ)言的興趣。在夏威夷，一種相似的方式使波利尼西亞語(yǔ)的使用者在過(guò)去數(shù)年中增長(zhǎng)了8,000人。在加利福尼亞州，“學(xué)徒”計(jì)劃使得數(shù)種土著語(yǔ)言得以生存。“學(xué)徒”志愿者與某種印地安語(yǔ)的最后一些使用者中的一位組成小組，學(xué)習(xí)如編織籃子這樣的傳統(tǒng)工藝，當(dāng)然交流全部都是用印地安語(yǔ)。通常，經(jīng)過(guò)300個(gè)小時(shí)的訓(xùn)練后，他們就可以流利地說(shuō)了，其流利程度足以將這種語(yǔ)言傳給他們的子女。但是Mufwene指出，避免語(yǔ)言消失并不等同于通過(guò)每天的使用賦予其新的生命。他指出，“保存語(yǔ)言更像用罐子保存水果。”

  However, preservation can bring a language back from the dead. There are examples of languages that have survived in written form and then been revived by later generations. But a written form is essential for this, so the mere possibility of revival has led many speakers of endangered languages to develop systems of writing where none existed before.

  然而，通過(guò)保存的確可以使一門(mén)語(yǔ)言起死回生。已經(jīng)有例子表明，有些語(yǔ)言通過(guò)文字記錄被保存了下來(lái)，而且還在后代中得以復(fù)興。當(dāng)然，文字記錄是這其中的關(guān)鍵。因此，單單是這種語(yǔ)言復(fù)興的可能性，就使得很多說(shuō)瀕危語(yǔ)言的人試圖去創(chuàng)造本來(lái)并不存在的文字系統(tǒng)。

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