第4天 4 reasons to learn a new lan

演讲者：John McWhorter

Linguist（语言学家） John McWhorter thinks about language in relation to race, politics and our shared cultural history.

---

The language I'm speaking right now is on its way to becoming the world's universal language, for better or for worse. Let's face it, it's the language of the internet, it's the language of finance, it's the language of air traffic control, of popular music, diplomacy -- English is everywhere.

我现在所说的语言正朝着成为世界通用语言的方向发展，无论是好是坏。让我们面对它，它是互联网的语言，它是金融的语言，它是空中交通管制的语言，流行音乐，外交--英语无处不在。

Now, Mandarin Chinese is spoken by more people, but more Chinese people are learning English than English speakers are learning Chinese. Last I heard, there are two dozen universities in China right now teaching all in English. English is taking over.

现在，越来越多的人说普通话，但是越来越多的中国人在学习英语，而不是说英语的人在学习汉语。我听说，现在中国有24所大学正在教英语。英语正在取代。

And in addition to that, it's been predicted that at the end of the century almost all of the languages that exist now -- there are about 6,000 -- will no longer be spoken. There will only be some hundreds left. And on top of that, it's at the point where instant translation of live speech is not only possible, but it gets better every year.

除此之外，据预测，到本世纪末，几乎所有现存的语言（约有6000种）将不再被使用。只剩下几百个了。最重要的是，现场演讲的即时翻译不仅是可能的，而且每年都会变得更好。

The reason I'm reciting those things to you is because I can tell that we're getting to the point where a question is going to start being asked, which is: Why should we learn foreign languages -- other than if English happens to be foreign to one? Why bother to learn another one when it's getting to the point where almost everybody in the world will be able to communicate in one?

我向你背诵这些东西的原因是因为我可以告诉你，我们正处在一个问题即将开始被问到的地步，那就是：为什么我们要学习外语，而不是英语碰巧是外国语？当它到达世界上几乎每个人都能在一个地方交流的时候，为什么还要费心去学习另一个呢？

I think there are a lot of reasons, but I first want to address the one that you're probably most likely to have heard of, because actually it's more dangerous than you might think. And that is the idea that a language channels your thoughts, that the vocabulary and the grammar of different languages gives everybody a different kind of acid trip, so to speak. That is a marvelously enticing idea, but it's kind of fraught.

我认为有很多原因，但我首先想谈谈你可能最可能听说过的，因为事实上它比你想象的更危险。这就是一种语言表达了你的想法，不同语言的词汇和语法给了每个人一种不同的酸酸之旅。这是一个非常诱人的想法，但也有点令人担忧。

So it's not that it's untrue completely. So for example, in French and Spanish the word for table is, for some reason, marked as feminine. So, "la table," "la mesa," you just have to deal with it. It has been shown that if you are a speaker of one of those languages and you happen to be asked how you would imagine a table talking, then much more often than could possibly be an accident, a French or a Spanish speaker says that the table would talk with a high and feminine voice. So if you're French or Spanish, to you, a table is kind of a girl, as opposed to if you are an English speaker.

所以这不是完全不真实的。例如，在法语和西班牙语中，“桌子”这个词由于某种原因被标记为“阴性”。所以，“La Table”，“La Mesa”，你只需要处理它。它已经被证明，如果你是一个语言的发言者，你碰巧被问到你如何想象一个桌子谈话，然后更多的往往比可能是一个事故，一位法国或西班牙的发言者说，这张桌子将用一种高而女性化的声音说话。所以，如果你是法语或西班牙语，对你来说，一个桌子是一种女孩，而不是如果你是一个英语发言者。

It's hard not to love data like that, and many people will tell you that that means that there's a worldview that you have if you speak one of those languages. But you have to watch out, because imagine if somebody put us under the microscope, the us being those of us who speak English natively. What is the worldview from English?

很难不喜欢这样的数据，很多人会告诉你，这意味着你有一个世界观，如果你说一种语言。但你必须小心，因为想象如果有人把我们放在显微镜下，美国就是我们这些说英语的人。英语的世界观是什么？

So for example, let's take an English speaker. Up on the screen, that is Bono. He speaks English. I presume he has a worldview. Now, that is Donald Trump. In his way, he speaks English as well.

比如说，让我们带一个英语演讲者。在屏幕上，那是波诺。他会说英语。我想他有世界观。现在，那是唐纳德·特朗普。在他的方式，他说英语。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

And here is Ms. Kardashian, and she is an English speaker, too. So here are three speakers of the English language. What worldview do those three people have in common? What worldview is shaped through the English language that unites them? It's a highly fraught concept. And so gradual consensus is becoming that language can shape thought, but it tends to be in rather darling, obscure psychological flutters. It's not a matter of giving you a different pair of glasses on the world.

这里是卡戴珊女士，她也是一名英语演讲人。这里有三个讲英语的人。这三个人有什么共同的世界观？什么世界观是通过英语语言形成的？这是一个非常令人担忧的概念。所以逐渐的共识正在成为语言可以塑造思想，但它往往是在相当的宠儿，模糊的心理的飘摇。这不是一个给你一个不同的眼镜对世界的问题。

Now, if that's the case, then why learn languages? If it isn't going to change the way you think, what would the other reasons be? There are some. One of them is that if you want to imbibe a culture, if you want to drink it in, if you want to become part of it, then whether or not the language channels the culture -- and that seems doubtful -- if you want to imbibe the culture, you have to control to some degree the language that the culture happens to be conducted in. There's no other way.

既然如此，那为什么还要学习语言呢？如果它不会改变你的想法，其他的原因是什么呢？有一些。其中之一是，如果你想吸收一种文化，如果你想喝它，如果你想成为它的一部分，那么，语言是否能引导文化——这似乎是值得怀疑的——如果你想吸收文化，你就必须在某种程度上控制文化所发生的语言。没有别的办法了。

There's an interesting illustration of this. I have to go slightly obscure, but really you should seek it out. There's a movie by the Canadian film director Denys Arcand -- read out in English on the page, "Dennis Ar-cand," if you want to look him up. He did a film called "Jesus of Montreal." And many of the characters are vibrant, funny, passionate, interesting French-Canadian, French-speaking women. There's one scene closest to the end, where they have to take a friend to an Anglophone hospital. In the hospital, they have to speak English. Now, they speak English but it's not their native language, they'd rather not speak English. And they speak it more slowly, they have accents, they're not idiomatic. Suddenly these characters that you've fallen in love with become husks of themselves, they're shadows of themselves.

有一个有趣的例子。我得稍微含糊一点，但你真的应该找出来。加拿大电影导演丹尼斯·阿卡德的一部电影，在网页上用英文朗读，如果你想看他的话。他拍了一部名为《蒙特利尔的耶稣》的电影。许多角色都是充满活力、风趣、热情、有趣的法裔加拿大人、讲法语的女性。有一个场景最接近尾声，他们必须带一个朋友到一个英语医院。在医院里，他们必须说英语。现在，他们说英语，但这不是他们的母语，他们宁愿不说英语。他们说得更慢，他们有口音，他们不习惯。突然间，你爱上的这些角色变成了自己的躯壳，他们是自己的影子。

To go into a culture and to only ever process people through that kind of skrim curtain is to never truly get the culture. And so the extent that hundreds of languages will be left, one reason to learn them is because they are tickets to being able to participate in the culture of the people who speak them, just by virtue of the fact that it is their code. So that's one reason.

进入一种文化，只有通过这种方式来处理人们，才能真正获得文化。因此，有数百种语言将被保留，其中一个原因是因为它们是能够参与说这些语言的人的文化的门票，只是因为这是他们的代码。这就是原因之一。

Second reason: it's been shown that if you speak two languages, dementia is less likely to set in, and that you are probably a better multitasker. And these are factors that set in early, and so that ought to give you some sense of when to give junior or juniorette lessons in another language. Bilingualism is healthy.

第二个原因：它被证明，如果你说两种语言，痴呆症是不太可能设置，你可能是一个更好的multitasker。这些都是早期设置的因素，所以应该给你一些什么时候给初中或初中的其他语言课程的感觉。双语是健康的。

And then, third -- languages are just an awful lot of fun. Much more fun than we're often told. So for example, Arabic: "kataba," he wrote, "yaktubu," he writes, she writes. "Uktub," write, in the imperative. What do those things have in common? All those things have in common the consonants sitting in the middle like pillars. They stay still, and the vowels dance around the consonants. Who wouldn't want to roll that around in their mouths? You can get that from Hebrew, you can get that from Ethiopia's main language, Amharic. That's fun.

然后，第三种语言是非常有趣的。比我们经常说的有趣多了。例如，阿拉伯语：“卡塔巴”，他写道，“雅库布，”他写道，她写道。“UkBand，”写，在命令。这些东西有什么共同点？所有这些东西有共同的辅音坐在中间像柱子。他们一动不动，元音围绕着辅音跳舞。谁不想在他们嘴里打滚？你可以从希伯来语中得到，你可以从埃塞俄比亚的主要语言阿姆哈拉语中得到。那很有趣。

Or languages have different word orders. Learning how to speak with different word order is like driving on the different side of a street if you go to certain country, or the feeling that you get when you put Witch Hazel around your eyes and you feel the tingle. A language can do that to you.

或者语言有不同的语序。学习如何用不同的语序说话就像开车到某个国家的不同的街道，或者当你把金缕梅放在你的眼睛周围，你会感觉到刺痛。一种语言可以这样对你。

So for example, "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," a book that I'm sure we all often return to, like "Moby Dick." One phrase in it is, "Do you know where I found him? Do you know where he was? He was eating cake in the tub, Yes he was!" Fine. Now, if you learn that in Mandarin Chinese, then you have to master, "You can know, I did where him find? He was tub inside gorging cake, No mistake gorging chewing!" That just feels good. Imagine being able to do that for years and years at a time.

例如，“帽子里的猫回来了，”一本书，我相信我们都经常回到，像“白鲸”。其中一句话是：“你知道我在哪里找到他的吗？”你知道他在哪里吗？他在浴缸里吃蛋糕，是的！”好的。现在，如果你学习普通话，那么你必须掌握，“你可以知道，我在哪里找到他？”他在一个大蛋糕里，没有错误的咀嚼！”那感觉很好。想象一下，一次可以这么做很多年。

Or, have you ever learned any Cambodian? Me either, but if I did, I would get to roll around in my mouth not some baker's dozen of vowels like English has, but a good 30 different vowels scooching and oozing around in the Cambodian mouth like bees in a hive. That is what a language can get you.

或者，你有没有学过柬埔寨语？我也是，但如果我这样做了，我会在我的嘴上滚来滚去，而不是像英国人那样的一打元音，但是，一个很好的30个不同的元音在柬埔寨的嘴里像蜜蜂一样在蜂房里跑来跑去。这是一种语言可以得到你。

And more to the point, we live in an era when it's never been easier to teach yourself another language. It used to be that you had to go to a classroom, and there would be some diligent teacher -- some genius teacher in there -- but that person was only in there at certain times and you had to go then, and then was not most times. You had to go to class. If you didn't have that, you had something called a record. I cut my teeth on those. There was only so much data on a record, or a cassette, or even that antique object known as a CD. Other than that you had books that didn't work, that's just the way it was.

更重要的是，我们生活在一个从来都不容易教自己另一种语言的时代。它曾经是你必须去教室，那里会有一些勤奋的老师--一些天才的老师--但是那个人只是在某些时候，你必须去，然后不是大多数时候。你必须去上课。如果你没有，你有一个记录。我的牙齿掉了。唱片上只有这么多的数据，或是盒式磁带，甚至是被称为CD的古董物品。除了你有没有工作的书，这就是它的方式。

Today you can lay down -- lie on your living room floor, sipping bourbon, and teach yourself any language that you want to with wonderful sets such as Rosetta Stone. I highly recommend the lesser known Glossika as well. You can do it any time, therefore you can do it more and better. You can give yourself your morning pleasures in various languages. I take some "Dilbert" in various languages every single morning; it can increase your skills. Couldn't have done it 20 years ago when the idea of having any language you wanted in your pocket, coming from your phone, would have sounded like science fiction to very sophisticated people.

今天你可以躺在你的客厅地板上，啜饮波旁酒，教你自己任何你想要的语言，如罗塞塔石碑。我极力推荐鲜为人知的语言。你可以随时做，所以你可以做得越来越好。你可以用各种语言给自己带来早晨的快乐。我每天早上都会用各种语言“呆伯特”，这样可以提高你的技能。20年前，当你的口袋里有你想要的任何语言的想法，从你的电话里传出来的时候，你不可能做到这一点，这听起来像科幻小说，对非常老练的人来说。

So I highly recommend that you teach yourself languages other than the one that I'm speaking, because there's never been a better time to do it. It's an awful lot of fun. It won't change your mind, but it will most certainly blow your mind.

因此，我强烈建议你教自己的语言，而不是我说的，因为从来没有一个更好的时间去做。这真是太有趣了。它不会改变你的想法，但它肯定会打击你的头脑。

Thank you very much.

非常感谢。

(Applause)

（掌声）