擴展視聽材料
1. 十分鐘英語史(在線觀看):http://open.163.com/special/opencourse/english.html
2. BBC之The Adventure of English (下載):
http://pan.baidu.com/s/1gdsuRLL#path=/The.Adventure.of.English&render-type=grid-viewUnit 7 Learning about English
Some languages resist the introduction of new words. Others, likeEnglish, seem to welcome them. Robert MacNeil looks at the historyof English and comes to the conclusion that its tolerance forchange represents deeply rooted ideas of freedom.
有些語言拒絕引入新詞。另一些語言，如英語，則似乎歡迎新詞的引入。羅伯特·麥克尼爾回顧英語的歷史，得出結論說，英語對變化的包容性體現(xiàn)了根深蒂固的自由思想。
Text A
The Glorious Messiness of English
英語中絢麗多彩的雜亂無章現(xiàn)象
by Robert MacNeil
1 The story of our English language is typically one of massivestealing from other languages. That is why English today has anestimated vocabulary of over one million words, while other majorlanguages have far few
er.
我們的英語的歷史是典型的大量竊取其它語言的歷史。正因為如此，今日英語的詞匯量據(jù)估計超過一百萬，而其它主要語言的詞匯量都要小得多。
2 French, for example, has only about 75,000 words, and thatincludes English ekspressions like snack bar and hit parade. TheFrench, however, do not like borrowing foreign words because theythink it corrupts their language. The government tries to ban wordsfrom English and declares that Walkman is not desirable; so theyinvent a word, balladeur, which French kids are supposed to sayinstead -- but they don't.
例如，法語只有約75,000個單詞，其中還包括像snack bar（快餐店）和 hitparade（流行唱片目錄）這樣的英語詞匯。但法國人不喜歡借用外來詞，因為他們認為這樣會損害法語的純潔性。法國政府試圖逐出英語詞匯，宣稱Walkman（隨身聽）一詞有傷大雅，因此他們造了個新詞balladeur讓法國兒童用——可他們就是不用。
3 Walkman is fascinating because it isn't even English. Strictlyspeaking, it was invented by the Japanese manufacturers who put twosimple English words together to name their product. That doesn'tbother us, but it does bother the French. Such is the gloriousmessiness of English. That happy tolerance, that willingness toaccept words from anywhere, explains the richness of English andwhy it has become, to a very real extent, the first truly globallanguage.
Walkman一詞非常耐人尋味，因為這個詞連英語也不是。嚴格地說，該詞是由日本制造商發(fā)明的，他們把兩個簡單的英語單詞拼在一起來命名他們的產(chǎn)品。這事兒我們不介意，法國人卻耿耿于懷。由此可見英語中絢麗多彩的雜亂無章現(xiàn)象。這種樂意包容的精神，這種不管源自何方來者不拒的精神，恰好解釋了英語為什么會這么豐富，解釋了英語緣何在很大程度上第一個成了真正的國際語言。
4 How did the language of a small island off the coast of Europebecome the language of the planet -- more widely spoken and writtenthan any other has ever been? The history of English is present inthe first words a child learns about identity (I, me, you);possession (mine, yours); the body (eye, nose, mouth); size (tall,short); and necessities (food, water). These words all come fromOld English or Anglo-Saxon English, the core of our language.Usually short and direct, these are words we still use today forthe things that really matter to us.
歐洲沿海一個彈丸小島的語言何以會成為地球上的通用語言，比歷史上任何一種其他語言都更為廣泛地被口頭和書面使用？英語的歷史體現(xiàn)在孩子最先學會用來表示身份（I,me, you）、所屬關系（mine, yours）、身體部位（eye, nose, mouth）、大小高矮（tall,short），以及生活必需品（food,water）的詞匯當中。這些詞都來自英語的核心部分古英語或盎格魯－薩克遜英語。這些詞通常簡短明了，我們今天仍然用這些詞來表示對我們真正至關重要的事物。
5 Great speakers often use Old English to arouse our emotions. Forexample, during World War II, Winston Churchill made this speech,stirring the courage of his people against Hitler's armiespositioned to cross the English Channel: 'We shall fight on thebeaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight inthe fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. Weshall never surrender.'
偉大的演說家常常用古英語來激發(fā)我們的情感。例如，在二戰(zhàn)期間，溫斯頓·丘吉爾作了如下的演講來激勵國民的勇氣以抵抗屯兵英吉利海峽準備渡海作戰(zhàn)的希特勒的軍隊：“我們要戰(zhàn)斗在海灘上，我們要戰(zhàn)斗在著陸場上，我們要戰(zhàn)斗在田野和街巷，我們要戰(zhàn)斗在群山中。我們決不投降。”
6 Virtually every one of those words came from Old English, exceptthe last -- surrender, which came from Norman French. Churchillcould have said, 'We shall never give in,' but it is one of thelovely -- and powerful -- opportunities of English that a writercan mix, for effect, different words from different backgrounds.Yet there is something direct to the heart that speaks to us fromthe earliest words in our language.
這段文字中幾乎每個詞都來自古英語，只有最后一個詞——surrender 是個例外，來自諾曼法語。丘吉爾原本可以說：“We shallnever givein,”但這正是英語迷人之處和活力所在，作家為了加強效果可以糅合來自不同背景的不同詞匯。而演說中使用古英語詞匯具有直接撥動心弦的效果。
7 When Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 B.C., English did notexist. The Celts, who inhabited the land, spoke languages thatsurvive today mainly as Welsh. Where those languages came from isstill a mystery, but there is a theory.
尤利烏斯·凱撒在公元前55年入侵不列顛時，英語尚不存在。當時不列顛的居民凱爾特人使用的那些語言流傳下來主要成了威爾士語。這些語言的起源至今仍是個不解之謎，但有一種理論試圖解開這個謎。
8 Two centuries ago an English judge in India noticed that severalwords in Sanskrit closely resembled some words in Greek and Latin.A systematic study revealed that many modern languages descendedfrom a common parent language, lost to us because nothing waswritten down.
兩個世紀前，在印度當法官的一位英國人注意到，梵文中有一些詞與希臘語、拉丁語中的一些詞極為相似。系統(tǒng)的研究顯示，許多現(xiàn)代語言起源于一個共同的母語，但由于沒有文字記載，該母語已經(jīng)失傳。
9 Identifying similar words, linguists have come up with what theycall an Indo-European parent language, spoken until 3500 to 2000B.C. These people had common words for snow, bee and wolf but noword for sea. So some scholars assume they lived somewhere innorth-central Europe, where it was cold. Traveling east, someestablished the languages of India and Pakistan, and others driftedwest toward the gentler climates of Europe. Some who made theearliest move westward became known as the Celts, whom Caesar'sarmies found in Britain.
語言學家找出了相似的詞，提出這些語言的源頭是他們稱之為印歐母語的語言，這種語言使用于公元前3500年至公元前2000年。這些人使用同樣的詞表達“雪”、“蜜蜂”和“狼”，但沒有表示“海”的詞。因此有些學者認為，他們生活在寒冷的中北歐某個地區(qū)。一些人向東遷徙形成了印度和巴基斯坦的各種語言，有些人則向西漂泊，來到歐洲氣候較為溫暖的地區(qū)。最早西移的一些人后來被稱作凱爾特人，亦即凱撒的軍隊在不列顛發(fā)現(xiàn)的民族。
10 New words came with the Germanic tribes -- the Angles, theSaxons, etc. -- that slipped across the North Sea to settle inBritain in the 5th century. Together they formed what we callAnglo-Saxon society.
新的詞匯隨日爾曼部落——盎格魯、薩克遜等部落——而來，他們在5世紀的時候越過北海定居在不列顛。他們共同形成了我們稱之為盎格魯－薩克遜的社會。
11 The Anglo-Saxons passed on to us their farming vocabulary,including sheep, ox, earth, wood, field and work. They must havealso enjoyed themselves because they gave us the wordlaughter.
盎格魯－薩克遜人將他們的農(nóng)耕詞匯留傳給我們，包括sheep, ox, earth, wood, field和work等。他們的日子一定過得很開心，因為他們留傳給我們laughter一詞。
12 The next big influence on English was Christianity. It enrichedthe Anglo-Saxon vocabulary with some 400 to 500 words from Greekand Latin, including angel, disciple and martyr.
下一個對英語產(chǎn)生重大影響的是基督教?；浇桃?00至500個希臘語、拉丁語詞匯豐富了盎格魯－薩克遜詞匯，如angel（天使）,disciple（門徒） 和 martyr（殉難者）等。
13 Then into this relatively peaceful land came the Vikings fromScandinavia. They also brought to English many words that beginwith sk, like sky and skirt. But Old Norse and English bothsurvived, and so you can rear a child (English) or raise a child(Norse). Other such pairs survive: wish and want, craft and skill,hide and skin. Each such addition gave English more richness, morevariety.
接著北歐海盜從斯堪的納維亞來到了這塊相對和平的土地。他們也給英語帶來了許多以sk開頭的詞匯，如sky 和skirt。但古斯堪的納維亞語和英語同時留傳下來，因此你可以說rear a child（英語），也可以說raise achild（斯堪的納維亞語）。其他留傳下來的這類同義詞組有：wish 和 want，craft 和 skill，hide 和skin。每一個類似的詞的增添都使英語更加豐富，更加多樣化。
14 Another flood of new vocabulary occurred in 1066, when theNormans conquered England. The country now had three languages:French for the nobles, Latin for the churches and English for thecommon people. With three languages competing, there were sometimesdifferent terms for the same thing. For example, Anglo-Saxons hadthe word kingly, but after the Normans, royal and sovereign enteredthe language as alternatives. The extraordinary thing was thatFrench did not replace English. Over three centuries Englishgradually swallowed French, and by the end of the 15th century whathad developed was a modified, greatly enriched language -- MiddleEnglish -- with about 10,000 'borrowed' French words.
另一次新詞的大量涌入發(fā)生在1066年，諾曼人征服英國的時候。這時英國三種語言并用：貴族使用法語，教會使用拉丁語，平民使用英語。由于三種語言相互競爭，有時同一事物就出現(xiàn)了不同的名稱。例如，盎格魯－薩克遜語有kingly一詞，但諾曼人入侵后，royal和sovereign作為替代詞進入了英語。不同尋常的是，法語沒有取代英語。三個多世紀后，英語逐漸吞并了法語，到15世紀末，發(fā)展成為一種經(jīng)過改進，大大豐富了的擁有一萬多個“借來”的法語詞匯的語言——中古英語。
15 Around 1476 William Caxton set up a printing press in Englandand started a communications revolution. Printing brought intoEnglish the wealth of new thinking that sprang from the EuropeanRenaissance. Translations of Greek and Roman classics were pouredonto the printed page, and with them thousands of Latin words likecapsule and habitual, and Greek words like catastrophe andthermometer. Today we still borrow from Latin and Greek to name newinventions, like video, television and cyberspace.
大約在1476年，威廉·卡克斯頓在英國制造了一臺印刷機，由此掀起了一場信息傳播技術的革命。印刷術把歐洲文藝復興運動中涌現(xiàn)的大量新思想傳入英國。希臘羅馬經(jīng)典著作的譯文紛紛印成書冊，成千上萬的拉丁詞，如capsule（密封小容器；航天艙） 和 habitual （慣常的），希臘詞，如catastrophe （大災難） 和thermometer（溫度計）等也隨之涌入。今天我們?nèi)越栌美?、希臘語命名新的發(fā)明創(chuàng)造，如video, television 和cyberspace（虛擬空間）等。
16 As settlers landed in North America and established the UnitedStates, English found itself with two sources -- American andBritish. Scholars in Britain worried that the language was out ofcontrol, and some wanted to set up an academy to decide which wordswere proper and which were not. Fortunately their idea has neverbeen put into practice.
隨著移民在北美登陸并建立美國，英語出現(xiàn)了兩個源頭——美式英語和英式英語。英國的學者擔心英語會失控，有人想成立一個有權威的學會，決定哪些詞匯合適，哪些詞匯不合適。幸運的是，他們的設想從未付諸實施。
17 That tolerance for change also represents deeply rooted ideas offreedom. Danish scholar Otto Jespersen wrote in 1905, 'The Englishlanguage would not have been what it is if the English had not beenfor centuries great respecters of the liberties of each individualand if everybody had not been free to strike out new paths forhimself.'
這種對變化的包容態(tài)度也體現(xiàn)了根深蒂固的自由精神。丹麥學者奧托·葉斯柏森在1905年寫道：“如果不是多少世紀以來英國人一向崇尚個人自由，如果不是人人都能自由地為自己開拓新的道路，英語就不會成為今天的英語?！?br>18 I like that idea. Consider that the same cultural soil producingthe English language also nourished the great principles of freedomand rights of man in the modern world. The first shoots sprang upin England, and they grew stronger in America. The English-speakingpeoples have defeated all efforts to build fences around theirlanguage.
我喜歡這一觀點。想想吧，孕育英語的文化土壤也同樣為現(xiàn)今的世界培育了偉大的自由精神及人權準則。最初的根芽在英國萌發(fā)，接著在美國生長壯大。英語國家的人民挫敗了種種意欲建立語言保護的企圖。
19 Indeed, the English language is not the special preserve ofgrammarians, language police, teachers, writers or the intellectualelite. English is, and always has been, the tongue of the commonman.
事實上，英語不是語法學家、語言衛(wèi)道士、教師、作家或知識精英的特殊領地。英語是，而且一向是，人民大眾的語言。
