剑桥雅思11Test4Passage3阅读原文翻译 This Marvellous Invention

剑桥雅思11 Test4 Passage3阅读原文翻译

段落A

Of all mankind’s manifold creations, language must take pride of place. Other inventions – the wheel, agriculture, sliced bread – may have transformed our material existence, but the advent of language is what made us human. Compared to language, all other inventions pale in significance, since everything we have ever achieved depends on language and originates from it. Without language, we could never have embarked on our ascent to unparalleled power over all other animals, and even over nature itself.

在人类所有各种各样的发明中，语言必定占有重要位置。其他发明-轮子，农耕，切片面包-可能改变了我们的物质生活，但语言的出现才让我们成为人类。与语言相比，其他所有发明在重要性上都黯然失色。这是因为我们目前所取得的一切都建立在语言之上，并源自于它。没有语言，我们永远不可能登上凌驾于所有其他动物，甚至自然本身的至高地位。

段落B

But language is foremost not just because it came first. In its own right it is a tool of extraordinary sophistication, yet based on an idea of ingenious simplicity: ‘this marvellous invention of composing out of twenty-five or thirty sounds that infinite variety of expressions which, whilst having in themselves no likeness to what is in our mind, allow us to disclose to others its whole secret, and to make known to those who cannot penetrate it all that we imagine, and all the various stirrings of our soul’. This was how, in 1660, the renowned French grammarians of the Port-Royal abbey near Versailles distilled the essence of language, and no one since has celebrated more eloquently the magnitude of its achievement. Even so, there is just one flaw in all these hymns of praise, for the homage to language’s unique accomplishment conceals a simple yet critical incongruity. Language is mankind’s greatest invention – except, of course, that it was never invented. This apparent paradox is at the core of our fascination with language, and it holds many of its secrets.

但语言的至高地位并不仅仅是因为它首先出现。就自身而言，它是一种极其精密复杂的工具，但其基础理念却又如此简单：“这一伟大的发明可以利用25或26种声音组合成无穷无尽、各种各样的表达。这些发音自身虽然与我们心中所想并无相似之处，但却使得我们可以借此向他人展露出心中的所有秘密。令那些原本无法透视我们心灵的他人知晓我们全部的想象意念，以及我们灵魂中的所有震撼悸动“。这就是在1660年，位于凡尔赛附近Port-Royal修道院中那些着名的法语语法大师们所用来精炼地阐释语言精髓的措辞，在那以来再也没有其他人能用更加雄辩的方式来高度赞颂语言所取得成就辉煌灿烂、举足轻重了。即便如此，在所有这些赞颂之词中还是存在着一个问题，因为对于语言独一无二成就的敬辞掩盖了一个简单却又至关重要的不一致性。语言是人类最伟大的发明-只是除了，它根本不是发明出来的。这种显而易见的悖论正是我们痴迷于语言的核心原因，它包含着许多自身的秘密。

段落C

Language often seems so skillfully drafted that one can hardly imagine it as anything other than the perfected handiwork of a master craftsman. How else could this instrument make so much out of barely three dozen measly morsels of sound? In themselves, these configurations of mouth -p,f,b,v,t,d,k,g,s,h,a,e and so on – amount to nothing more than a few haphazard spits and splutters, random noises with no meaning, no ability to express, no power to explain. But run them through the cogs and wheels of the language machine, let it arrange them in some very special orders, and there is nothing that these meaningless streams of air cannot do: from sighing the interminable boredom of existence to unravelling the fundamental order of the universe.

语言的创作显得如此精妙，以至于除了将它想象成某个大师级工匠所造就的完美作品之外，再也没有合适的比喻。若非如此，这个工具如何能用仅仅三十多个读音就组合出这么多的含义。就它们自身而言，这些不同口型所发出的声音-p,f,b,v,t,d,k,g,s,h,a,e等等-不过就是一些混乱的声响，没有任何含义的噪音，不具备表达能力，也不具备解释的力量。但将它们送进语言机器的齿轮进行加工，让它用一种十分特别的顺序对它们进行排列，这些原本毫无意义的气流就会变得无所不能：从感叹存在的永恒乏味，到揭示宇宙的基本规律。

段落D

The most extraordinary thing about language, however, is that one doesn’t have to be a genius to set its wheels in motion. The language machine allows just about everybody – from pre-modern foragers in the subtropical savannah, to post-modern philosophers in the suburban sprawl – to tie these meaningless sounds together into an infinite variety of subtle senses, and all apparently without the slightest exertion. Yet it is precisely this deceptive ease which makes language a victim of its own success, since in everyday life its triumphs are usually taken for granted. The wheels of language run so smoothly that one rarely bothers to stop and think about all the resourcefulness and expertise that must have gone into making it tick. Language conceals art.

然而，语言最非比寻常的特点在于，一个人并不需要是个天才才能让它的齿轮开始运转。语言机器让几乎每个人-从亚热带稀疏草原上过着原始生活的采集者，到生活在城郊杂乱地区的后现代哲学家-都可以将这些无意义的声响结合在一起，传达出无限多种微妙的感受，而且整个过程显得不费吹灰之力。然而，正是这种颇具欺骗性的轻而易举，让语言成为它自身成功的受害者。日常生活中，它的伟大总是被视为理所当然。语言的齿轮运转的如此流畅，以至于一个人很少会费心停下来去思考，要让它工作所必需的丰富资源和专业知识。语言掩盖了艺术。

段落E

Often, it is only the estrangement of foreign tongues, with their many exotic and outlandish features, that brings home the wonder of language’s design. One of the showiest stunts that some languages can pull off is an ability to build up words of breath-breaking length, and thus express in one word what English takes a whole sentence to say. The Turkish word ?ehirlili?tiremediklerimizdensiniz, to take one example, means nothing less than ‘you are one of those whom we can’t turn into a town-dweller’. (In case you were wondering, this monstrosity really is one word, not merely many different words squashed together – most of its components cannot even stand up on their own.)

通常来说，只有外语所带来的疏远，以及他们诸多奇异古怪的特征，才能让我们意识到语言设计的奇妙。一些语言所展现出来的最引人注目的特征之一，是其构建超长单词，并由此可以用一个词汇来表达英语中要用一整句话才能说明白的含义的能力。例如，土耳其词汇?ehirlili?tiremediklerimizdensiniz所表达的含义为：“你是那种我们无法转变为城里人的人”。（以防你好奇，这一巨大的字眼真的是一个单词，而不是许多不同单词拼接而成-其大部分组成元素不具备任何含义）。

段落F

And if that sounds like some one-off freak, then consider Sumerian, the language spoken on the banks of the Euphrates some 5,000 years ago by the people who invented writing and thus enabled the documentation of history. A Sumerian word like munintuma’a (‘when he had made it suitable for her’) might seem rather trim compared to the Turkish colossus above. What is so impressive about it, however, is not its lengthiness but rather the reverse – the thrifty compactness of its construction. The word is made up of different slots, each corresponding to a particular portion of meaning. This sleek design allows single sounds to convey useful information, and in fact even the absence of a sound has been enlisted to express something specific. If you were to ask which bit in the Sumerian word corresponds to the pronoun ‘it’ in the English translation ‘when he had made it suitable for her’, then the answer would have to be nothing. Mind you, a very particular kind of nothing: the nothing that stands in the empty slot in the middle. The technology is so fine-tuned then that even a non-sound, when carefully placed in a particular position, has been invested with a specific function. Who could possibly have come up with such a nifty contraption?

如果这听起来像是某种例外，那么请考虑下苏美尔语。这种语言在大约5000年前由生活在幼发拉底河岸的人们使用。他们发明了书写，因此使得文字记录历史成为可能。像munintuma’s（当他为她把它准备合适的时候）这样的苏美尔单词，可能看起来比刚才提到的土耳其巨词要简洁许多。然而，它令人印象深刻的地方并不在于长度，恰恰相反，在于其构架的简约紧凑。该单词由不同的片段组成。每个片段对应特定的含义。这一流畅的设计使得单个声响也能传递有用的信息。事实上，甚至声音的缺失也被用来表达某种特定的意思。如果你想问，苏美尔单词中的哪部分对应英语翻译“当他为她把它准备合适的时候”中的“它”，那么答案只能是没有。提醒你一下，这是一种非常独特的没有，是位于中间空白片段的没有。当时的语言编制是如此精良，以至于即便是没有发出的声音，当被仔细置于特定的位置时，也会被赋予特定的功能。谁能够提出如此精妙的设置呢？