#onthisday in 1746: birth of philologist and hyperpolyglot Sir William Jones! http://ow.ly/BYARP
All Ears with Terrance McKnight
Musical Polyglots
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Saturday, March 15, 2014
Britain and languagesGeneration monoglot
Measures are under way to revive language-learning—but slowly
Best of all, they were not imposed from above. Mrs Ostrom put no faith in governments, nor in large conservation schemes paid for with aid money and crawling with concrete-bearing engineers. “Polycentrism” was her ideal.
2010年11月12日 07:59 AM英語氣數已盡？The death of English作者： 亨利•希金斯為英國《金融時報》撰稿The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel, by Nicholas Ostler, Allen Lane RRP £20, 313 pages《最後的通用語言：巴別塔重現前的英語》(The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel)：尼古拉斯•奧斯特勒(Nicholas Ostler)著，Allen Lane出版，建議零售價：20英鎊，313頁。People whose first language is English are apt to be complacent about its pre-eminence. English is seen as indomitable – ruling the worlds of business, science and entertainment. Yet in The Last Lingua Franca, Nicholas Ostler serves up a bold corrective to Anglo- centrism and its familiar flag-waving myopia.以英語為母語的人老是沾沾自喜於它一枝獨秀的地位，認為英語無法替代——如今它在商業界、科技界以及娛樂界獨領風騷。然而，在《最後的通用語言：巴別塔重現前的英語》一書中，作者尼古拉斯•奧斯特勒對盎格魯中心主義思想(Anglo- centrism)以及常見的目光短淺的狂熱愛國主義情緒進行了大膽糾正。Ostler, a Briton who chairs the Foundation for Endangered Languages, opens with the provocative statement that “the decline of English, when it begins, will not seem of great moment”. The key word here is “when”; Ostler is advancing not some tentative hypothesis, but a grand polemic. He maintains that any lingua franca is by its very nature a language of convenience, and that pretty soon international English will cease to be convenient and “will be dropped, without ceremony, and with little emotion”.作為瀕危語言基金會(Foundation for Endangered Languages)主席的奧斯特勒（他是位英國人）在書中開篇就語出驚人：“當英語語言開始衰落時，將會是波瀾不驚”。這裡的關鍵字是“當”；奧斯特提出的不是什麼沒有把握的假設，而是大膽的論斷。他的觀點是，任何世界通用語從本質上說都應該是方便使用的語言，並且要不了多少時間，國際性的英語將不再方便使用，“會從神壇上跌落，沒有任何儀式，也激不起多少哀怨”。Ostler gives an account of the fluctuating fortunes of other major world languages. In each case their majesty has proved fragile. For instance, the might of Persian, established over a period of almost a thousand years, was shaken to its foundations in just 16. If we imagine that the supremacy of English will endure forever, says Ostler, we are guilty of both “memory failure” and a “signal lack of imagination”.奧斯特勒向讀者講述了世界其它主要語言跌宕起伏的命運。事實說明每種語言的“唯我獨尊”到最後均是不堪一擊。拿波斯語來說，它差不多花了1000年才確立通用語的地位，但在短短的16年裡就淪為了尋常語言。奧斯特勒說，如果我們臆想英語至高無上的地位會永遠持續下去，就是犯了“失憶症”與“典型的想像力缺乏症”。Today, we're told, English “offers an entry card to the world's Executive Club”. But sceptics suggest that its prospects are tainted by its association with Britain's exploitative past and America's recent taste for political interventionism.眾所周知，如今英語就好比是“通往國際高管俱樂部(Executive Club)的入場券”。但是，懷疑論者指出：英語會讓人聯想起過去大英帝國大肆擴張的歷史以及現在美國人在政治上到處指手畫腳的愛好，這無疑會成為其未來發展道路上的污點。Worriers allege that the diffusion of English must lead to its break-up: it will develop in many directions, its various new forms in the end becoming mutually unintelligible.憂天者則斷言，英語的大肆傳播必將導致其最終的衰落：英語會朝各個方向發展演變，最終各種新變體相互之間會變得難以溝通理解。Ostler contends that the future promises something quite different: a new linguistic world order, in which China, India, Russia and Brazil, increasingly dominant economically, will discover that they can secure their positions in the global marketplace without recourse to English. The international form of the language will evaporate, and English will revert to being spoken only in its native heartlands. Those heartlands will be less important politically and commercially.奧斯特勒則認為，未來可能會出現完全不同的圖景：在新的世界語言格局中，隨著中國、印度、俄羅斯以及巴西在經濟上逐漸變得舉足輕重，它們會發現即使不借助英語，同樣能鞏固自身在全球市場中的地位。國際性的語言將不復存在，英語會重新成為尋常語言，只有英語發源國家與地區才會繼續使用它，屆時那些國家與地區在政治上和經濟上都將不再舉足輕重。Usually, anyone who argues that English's position is insecure proposes that some other language – most likely Spanish or Mandarin Chinese – will supersede it. Yet Ostler takes the view that by around 2050 no global lingua franca will be needed. To a large extent, this will be thanks to technology, for example as improved machine translation will make more languages mutually accessible.通常說來，持英語地位不穩論觀點的人認為其它某種語言——西班牙語和漢語的可能性最大——最終將取而代之。但奧斯特勒的觀點是：到2050年前後，世界將不再需要全球性的通用語言。從很大程度來說，這要歸功於科技發展，比方說隨著機器翻譯能力的提高，越來越多的語言之間可以實現互通。In articulating these arguments, Ostler demonstrates a formidable degree of erudition. There is scarcely a page of this book that does not contain some remark-able gobbet of information.在闡述上述論點時，奧斯特勒展示出的博學多才令人敬佩。他旁徵博引，引經據典，幾乎貫穿於全書始終。The way Ostler shuttles between different cultures and tongues, as in his brilliant macro-history Empires of the Word (2005), is frequently jaw-dropping and never less than convincing. Yet while he writes with engaging crispness, at times the text becomes forbiddingly technical, and one can lose oneself in a thicket of thorny names and bristling verbiage.正如奧斯特勒在2005年出版的鴻篇巨著《語言帝國：世界語言史》(Empires of the Word)中所展示的：他在多種文化與語言間游刃有餘，總是讓人拍案叫絕，無比信服。全書文筆簡潔流暢，引人入勝，但也時不時出現一些專業性過強的篇章， 成堆晦澀的概念與望而生畏的冗詞贅句讓讀者不知所云。This serves as a kind of rebuke: the polyglot Ostler is palpably frustrated by his blithely monoglot compatriots. We ought to be more comfortable among other languages. The fundamental contention of The Last Lingua Franca is that civilisation is growing more multilingual. Native speakers of English need jolting out of their self-satisfaction.這成了反對者反唇相譏的理由：看得出來，在他那些無憂無慮、只會說英語的同胞面前，通曉多種語言的奧斯特勒很是失意。我們應該坦然接受多種語言並存的局面。 《最後的通用語》一書的基本觀點就是文明的發展必將呈現多種語言齊頭並進的態勢。母語是英語的國民應該走出孤芳自賞式的固步自封。
Ostler's arguments are cogent and alarming. Yet he leaves us with a salutary thought: while the world can today seem flat and homogenous, and while a language dies out every fortnight, many distinct tongues persist, and in them survives a rich miscellany of traditions, histories and nuances of human character.奧斯特勒的論點說服力強、令人警醒。然而，他也給了我們某種有益的啟迪：儘管如今的世界變得越來越扁平與同質化，每兩週就有一種語言從地球消失，但很多獨具特色的方言仍然頑強地存續著，而且藉由這些方言，千姿百態的豐富傳統、歷史以及民族性格的細微差異均得以傳承。Henry Hitchings is author of 'The Secret Life of Words: How English became亨利•希金斯是《文字的秘密：揭密英語發跡史》(The Secret Life of Words: How English became English)一書的作者，該書由John Murray出版社出版。
bristle
(brĭs'əl)
n.
- A stiff hair.
- A stiff hairlike structure: the bristles of a wire brush.
v., -tled, -tling, -tles. v.intr.
- To stand stiffly on end like bristles: The hair on the dog's neck bristled.
- To raise the bristles: The cat bristled at the sight of the large dog.
- To react in an angry or offended manner: The author bristled at the suggestion of plagiarism.
- To be covered or thick with or as if with bristles: The path bristled with thorns.
- To cause to stand erect like bristles; stiffen.
- To furnish or supply with bristles.
- To make bristly; ruffle.
[Middle English bristel, probably from Old English *byrstel, from byrst, bristle.]
sociological verbiage
| verbiage | (noun) The excessive and often meaningless use of words; verbosity. |
| Synonyms: | repetition, tautology, redundancy, circumlocution, prolixity, periphrasis, pleonasm |
| Usage: | He is generally a smooth and fluent versifier, but his fluency is his undoing; he wraps up his material in too great a mass of verbiage. |
Man's understanding of these mysteries is embodied in
his concept of a Divine Being. As a final question, do you
believe in God?
To be quite candid-- and what I am going to say now is
something I never said before, and I hope it provokes a
salutary little chill-- I know more than I can express in
words, and the little I can express would not have been
expressed, had I not known more.
salutary
[形]
1 健康によい, 健康（的）な.
2 （困難だが）有益な, ためになる.adj.
- Effecting or designed to effect an improvement; remedial: salutary advice.
- Favorable to health; wholesome: a salutary climate.
[Middle English saluter, from Old French salutaire, from Latin salūtāris, from salūs, salūt-, health.]
salutarily sal'u·tar'i·ly (-târ'ə-lē) adv.salutariness sal'u·tar'i·ness n.
サンタ・マリア・デッラ・サルーテ聖堂 （イタリア語：Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute、和名：救済の聖母マリア聖堂）は、一般にサルーテと縮めて呼ばれる、
安康聖母大殿（Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute），簡稱為「Salute」，是威尼斯的著名教堂是威尼斯巴洛克建築的傑作。在1630年黑死病肆虐之際，共和國政府決定興建此教堂獻給聖母瑪利亞，由著名設計師巴爾達薩雷·隆格納設計，正式落成於1687年，位於威尼斯大運河和威尼斯潟湖的聖馬可內港之間風景優美的狹長的尖角地帶，從水路進入聖馬可廣場者都可看見。它擁有 次級聖殿的地位，其富於裝飾性的獨特外形和地理位置使之成為義大利最上鏡的教堂之一。
salutary
ADJECTIVE
Origin
Late Middle English (as a noun in the sense 'remedy'): from French salutaire or Latin salutaris, from salus, salut- 'health'.
polycentrism
: the existence of many centers of Communist ideological thought; especially : the existence of a number of autonomous national Communist movements 1956
- 発音記号[pɑ`liséntrizm | pɔ`l-]
[名][U]（政治の）多中心［多元］主義.
-tric
[形]多中心の.polyglot
[pol・y・glot]
発音記号[pɑ'liglɑ`t | pɔ'liglɔ`t]
((形式))[形]
1 多言語（3か国語以上）に通じた, 多言語を話す.
2 多くの言語で書かれた
a polyglot dictionary
数か国語対訳辞典.
━━[名]
1 多言語に通じた人.
2 数か国語で記された対訳書［聖書］.
3 数言語の混交［混合］；数言語が入り乱れて話される状態.
［中ラテン語←ギリシャ語polýglōttos （POLY-＋-glot舌, 言葉）］
polyglot
Line breaks: poly|glot
Pronunciation: /ˈpɒlɪɡlɒt /
ADJECTIVE
1.1(Of a book) having the text translated into several languages:polyglot and bilingual technical dictionaries
NOUN
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A person who knows and is able to use several languages:Slovenians, being surrounded by many countries, aremostly polyglots
Derivatives
monoglot
Syllabification: (mon·o·glot)
Pronunciation: /ˈmänəˌglät/
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