導言：本篇為《The Economist》2017年3月4日的書評文章，標題為“Why words die”，介紹的是部分英文單詞的消亡和英語方言的挽救工作。英文單詞并非簡單的字母排列組合，每個單詞都有鮮活的生命和背后的文化淵源，有舊詞的凋零，必然有新詞的誕生，這正是人類語言和文明的魅力所在。
why words die
為何詞匯會消亡
How to keep lexical treasures from keeling over
如何防止詞匯寶藏的坍塌
BIOLOGISTS reckon that most species that have ever existed are extinct. That is true of words, too. Of the Oxford English Dictionary’s 231,000 entries, at least a fifth are obsolete. They range from “aa”, a stream or waterway (try that in Scrabble), to “zymome”, “that constituent of gluten which is insoluble in alcohol”.
reckon:Be of the opinion 認為
obsolete: No longer produced or used; out of date. 過時
constituent: Being a part of a whole. 成分
gluten：A mixture of two proteins present in cereal grains, especially wheat, which is responsible for the elastic texture of dough.
insoluble: (of a substance) incapable of being dissolved. 不溶解的
譯文：生物學家們認為大部分曾經(jīng)存在過的物種都已滅絕，詞匯也是一樣。在牛津英語詞典收錄的231000個詞條中，至少五分之一已經(jīng)過時，其中既有“aa”這樣表示'水流'或“航道”的單詞，也有“zymome”這樣表示“麩質(zhì)的一種不溶于酒精的成分”的單詞。
That is surely an undercounting. The English have an unusually rich lexicon, in part because first they were conquered (by the Vikings and Norman French) and then they took their turn conquering large swathes of the Earth, in Asia, North America and Africa. Thousands of new words entered the standard language as a result. Many more entered local dialects, which were rarely written down. The OED only includes words that have been written.
undercount：A count or figure that is inaccurately low. 低估，類似于underestimate.
lexicon : The vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge. 詞匯
swathe：A broad strip or area of something. 寬帶狀地域
譯文：真實數(shù)據(jù)絕對不止五分之一，英國人的語匯極為豐富，部分原因是他們曾經(jīng)被維京人和諾曼人征服過，繼而又征服過地球上包括亞洲、北美和非洲的大面積疆土。大量新詞因此進入了標準英語語言，更多的融入了方言，但是方言極少成為書面語，而牛津英語詞典只收錄書面語。
Dedicated researchers have managed to capture some of the unwritten ones. For the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE), researchers conducted thousands of interviews—usually with older country folk—who still spoke their regional dialect. They found such treasures as “to pungle up”, meaning for someone to produce money or something else owed, and “the mulligrubs”: indigestion and, by extension, a foul mood.
dialect : A particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group. 方言
譯文：專注的研究者們已成功挽救了一些英語口語詞匯。為編撰“美國地方英語詞典（以下簡稱DARE）”這樣一部辭書，研究者們對鄉(xiāng)音未改的美國鄉(xiāng)村老人進行了數(shù)千次訪談。 他們發(fā)現(xiàn)很多民間的語言寶藏，例如“to pungle up”，意為付錢或還物，還有“mulligrubs”，意為不消化，引申義為心情不好。
The smaller and more local a word, the more danger it faces of dying out. DARE’s editors trekked out to find old people in the countryside precisely because younger urban speakers are more likely to adopt metropolitan norms, whether “broadcast standard” in America or “BBC English” in Britain. Other factors gave this homogenising trend a boost: advertising, which tends to standardise the names of things bought and sold in national markets, and the rise of American popular culture and global mass media in the second half of the 20th century.
metropolitan：Relating to or denoting a metropolis 大都市的
homogenize：Make uniform or similar 同化
譯文：越是小眾和局域化的單詞越容易消亡。DARE的編撰者們?nèi)ムl(xiāng)村訪談老人的原因恰是因為城市年輕人更容易使用都市詞匯，要么是美國的播音式英語，或者英國的BBC式英語。其他因素也導致語言同質(zhì)化現(xiàn)象越來越普遍，包括用統(tǒng)一名稱命名商品的各種廣告，美國流行文化以及大眾傳媒全球化在20世紀后半段的興起。
A study published in 2012 found some evidence for this homogenisation. It looked through a huge trove of books published since 1800, scanned and made searchable by Google, and found that the death rate of words seems to have speeded up in English (and also in Spanish and Hebrew) since about 1950. One cause is the death of perfect synonyms in an era of mass communications: the words “radiogram” and “roentgenogram”, both meaning the same thing, were eventually edged out by “x-ray”, the world having no need for three labels for the same thing.
trove：A store of valuable or delightful things 寶庫
synonym：A word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the same language, for example shut is a synonym of close.
譯文：2012年的發(fā)表的一項研究為這種同質(zhì)化現(xiàn)象提供了佐證。谷歌公司曾把自1800年出版的大量書籍進行掃描并提供檢索功能，該研究從這些在線書籍寶庫中發(fā)現(xiàn)英語（也包括西班牙語和希伯來語）單詞的消亡速度自1950年已經(jīng)加快。其中一個原因是在大眾傳媒時代，完全等同的同義詞開始消亡。比如完全同義的“radiogram” 和 “roentgenogram”這兩個詞已被'X-ray（X射線）'擠出歷史舞臺，同一事物沒有必要用三個單詞來表示。
But DARE’s editors resist the standardisation hypothesis. What people call their grandparents—for example, “gramps and gram” or “mee-maw and papaw”—is more immune to the steamroller of national norms. In fact, these words are especially stubborn precisely because they give people an emotional connection to where they come from.
steamroller：An oppressive and relentless power or force. 巨大的力量
譯文：但是DARE的編輯們并不同意詞匯標準化這一假說。比如在祖父祖母的稱謂上，“gramps and gram”（口語昵稱，gramps為祖父，gram為祖母） 或者 “mee-maw and papaw”（同上，mee-maw為祖母，papaw為祖父）就不那么容易被標準用詞所淹沒。實際上這些昵稱的頑強生命力得益于它們能夠在表達者和其身世之間建立一條情感紐帶。
Some words were never a great loss in the first place. The OED has “respair”, both as a noun and verb, meaning the return of hope after a period of despair—an obvious etymological kissing-cousin. But the great dictionary’s only citation for this dates back to 1425. For whatever reason, “respair” is a word that English-speakers decided they could happily live without. The OED also includes a host of terms from the “inkhorn” period of English word-coinage, when writers readily made up new words from Greek and Latin roots. These include such forgettables as “suppeditate”, meaning “subdued” or “overcome”. Good riddance to them.
etymological：Relating to the origin and historical development of words and their meanings. 詞源的
kissing-cousin：A relative known well enough to be given a kiss in greeting. 近親
forgettable：Easily forgotten, especially through being uninteresting or mediocre. 易被遺忘的事物
sup- + pedit-, 文中提到的suppeditate是典型的詞根造詞，sup=under，是“向下”的詞根，ped=foot，向下用腳踩，征服。
譯文：有些詞匯的消失一開始就無傷大雅。牛津英語詞典里面有“respair”這個單詞，既可作名詞也可作動詞，表示“一時的失望后重燃希望”，很明顯這個單詞在詞源上和despair對應，但牛津英語詞典唯一記錄的就是該詞在1425年的使用。無論什么原因，英語國家已經(jīng)不再講這個單詞了。牛津英語詞典還納入了一系列“inkhorn”時期的詞匯，所謂inkhorn造詞時代就是那時的作者可以隨意利用希臘和拉丁詞根創(chuàng)造新詞。這些隨意新造的詞匯易被遺忘，“suppeditate”就是其中一例，該詞意為“征服”或“克服”。這些詞丟棄為好。
Some words hang on in a sort of life-support state, frozen in a single usage but otherwise forgotten. Who uses the verb “to wend”, except in the fixed expression “to wend one’s way somewhere”? (Bonus fact: the past tense of “wend” replaced the old past tense of “to go”, which is why we say “I went”.) Had Shakespeare not memorialised the name of a small siege explosive in the phrase to be “hoist with his own petard”, meaning a small bomb but also linked to the French word for “fart”, that would probably be gone, too.
memorialise： Preserve the memory of; commemorate. 紀念，緬懷
譯文：有些詞匯已經(jīng)“命懸一線”，若不是在一些固定搭配里客串一下，恐怕早已被人遺忘。 除了在固定搭配“to wend one’s way somewhere”里能看到“wend”，誰還會使用“to wend”這個動詞短語。（彩蛋：wend這個詞的過去式已經(jīng)替代了“to go”的過去式，所以今天我們說“I went”）倘若不是莎士比亞在短語“hoist with his own petard”這個短語里追憶了petard一詞（一種小型攻城炸彈，也與法語中的“屁”有關聯(lián)），這個詞也早就無影無蹤了。
Those who get the mulligrubs thinking about great old words dying can pungle up for a subscription to DARE, helping those lexicographers keep adding words to the online edition. But a word needs to be used to live. So DARE has teamed up with Acast, a podcast producer, creating a list of 50 endangered American regionalisms, and trying to get Acast’s podcasters to use them. Who can resist “to be on one’s beanwater”—meaning “in high spirits”? And isn’t “downpour” a bit workaday for heavy rain, when you could be calling it a “frog strangler”? No one wants to see English submit to boring homogenisation; using a few of these lexical rarities might offer some respair.
subscription：An arrangement to receive something, typically a publication, regularly by paying in advance. 訂閱
lexicographers：A person who compiles dictionaries. 詞典編者
podcast：A digital audio file made available on the Internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device, typically available as a series, new instalments of which can be received by subscribers automatically. 播客
regionalism：A linguistic feature peculiar to a particular region and not part of the standard language of a country. 方言
beanwater：coffee
frog strangler：多么生動形象描述大雨，這個簡直和rain cats and dogs一樣是極有畫面感的英文表達，strangle中文意思是“使窒息”，雨下到讓青蛙都無法呼吸，可見雨勢之猛烈。
譯文：那些為逝去的“老詞匯”郁郁寡歡的人可以去付費訂閱DARE詞典，資助這些詞典編者在其網(wǎng)絡版本的方言詞典中不斷增加詞匯。但是詞匯的生命畢竟在于運用，所以DARE聯(lián)合Acast，一家播客制作公司，梳理出一張“五十個瀕臨滅絕的美國方言”清單，并嘗試讓Acast在播客里使用這些方言。 如果能用to be on one's beanwater 能夠表達“興高采烈”的意思何樂而不為？用downpour來表達“傾盆大雨”是不是有點太平庸了，用frog strangler豈不是更顯妙趣橫生。沒有人愿意看到英語淪落到一種無趣的高度同質(zhì)化的狀態(tài)，用用這些詞匯里的“稀有品種”也許能“在失望后重燃希望”。
附圖一張
后注：本文中所有生詞的英文解釋均來自https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/
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