Unit 4
THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH
01 In the middle of the sixteenth century, English was spoken by between four and five millions of people, and stood fifth among the European languages, with French, German, Italian, and Spanish ahead of it in that order, and Russian following. Two hundred years later, Italian had dropped behind but Russian had gone ahead, so that English was still in fifth place. By the end of the Eighteenth Century English began to move forward, and by the middle of the nineteenth it had forced its way into first place. Today it is so far in the lead that it is probably spoken by as many people as the next two languages—Russian and German combined.
在16世纪中叶，有四五百万人说英语，说英语的人数在欧洲的语言中名列第五。前四位依次是法语、德语、意大利语和西班牙语。俄语排在英语之后。两百年以后，意大利语排名落后，而俄语的排名靠前了，英语依然处于第五位。到了18世纪末，英语的地位开始上升。到19世纪中叶，英语已经跻身于第一位了。今天，英语的地位遥遥领先，说英语的人数可能达到说后两种语言，即俄语和德语人数的总和。
02 How many people speak it today? It is hard to answer. Besides those to whom English is their native tongue, there are people who, though born to some other language, live in English-speaking communities and speak English in their daily business. More importantly,
English is now spoken as a foreign language throughout the world—very often, to be sure, badly, but nevertheless understandably. It has become a platitude that one may go almost anywhere with no other linguistic equipment and get on almost as well as in New York.
今天到底有多少人说英语?这个问题难以回答。除了把英语作为母语的人以外，还有一些人虽然出生在说其他语言的地方，但现在生活在说英语的社会，这些人在日常工作中说的是英语。更重要的是，英语目前在世界范围里作为外语广泛使用——当然，在这些地方英语往往说得蹩脚，但是也可以让人理解。你几乎可以去世界的任何一个地方，不会任何别的语言，也能像在纽约一样过得顺利，这已成为司空见惯的事情。
03 In part, of course, its spread has been due to the extraordinary dispersion of the English-speaking peoples. They have been the greatest travelers of modern times, and the most adventurous merchants, and the most assiduous colonists. Moreover, they have been, on the whole, poor linguists, and so they have dragged their language with them, and forced it upon the human race.
当然，英语得到普及，部分原因是说英语的人分布极广。他们是现代最热衷旅行的人、最敢冒险的商人、最执着的殖民主义者。除此以外，他们总体上学语言的能力很差，所以，他们走到哪里，便把自己的语言带到哪里，并将之强加于人。
04 But there is more to the matter than this. English, brought to close quarters with formidable rivals, has won very often, not by force of
numbers, but by the sheer weight of its merit. “In wealth, wisdom, and strict economy,” said the eminent Jakob Grimm a century ago, “none of the other living languages can vie with it.” To which the eminent Otto Jespersen was adding only the other day: English is simple, it has clear sounds, it packs its words closely together, it is logical in their arrangement, and it is free from all pedantic flubdub.
但是，问题远不止如此。英语在与其劲敌的竞争中取胜，往往不是因为数量原因，而完全是因为其优点。“在丰富性、所包含的智慧、以及严谨的精炼程度方面，”著名的雅各布·格利姆在一个世纪之前说，“没有一种现存的语言能与英语媲美。”而著名的奥托·耶斯佩森就在前几天对此加以补充说：英语简单，发音清晰，词与词之间的结构紧密，词的安排组织有逻辑性，而且英语中没有迂腐的废话。 05 When American pedagogues speak of the virtues of English they almost always begin by hymning its enormous vocabulary, which is at least twice as large as that of any other language. But this is not what enchants the foreigner; on the contrary, the vast reaches of the vocabulary naturally alarm him. The thing that really wins him is the succinctness and simplicity of the language. We use, for all our store of Latin polysyllables, a great many more short words than long ones, and we are always trying to make the long ones short. What was once puniligrion is now pun; what was gasoline only yesterday is already gas. No other European language has so many three-letter words, nor so many four-word sayings. “First come, first served”—that is typically
English, for it is bold, plain, and short.
当美国的教育工作者谈及英语的优点时，几乎总是一开始就赞美其词汇量之庞大。英语的词汇比任何其他语言的词汇至少多一倍。然而，吸引外国人的并不是词汇量大，相反，浩瀚的词汇很容易令外国人担忧。真正赢得外国人的是英语简练和纯朴的特征。尽管英语中有大量的源于拉丁文的多音节词，但我们却更多地使用短词，少用长词。而且，我们总是努力把长词缩短。以前使用的puniligrion现在缩短成了pun；昨天还是gasoline，今天已成为gas。欧洲没有任何一种其他语言有这么多由三个字母构成的单词，也没有如此多由四个单词构成的格言。“First come, first served”(先到先供应)便是典型的英语，因为它一目了然、朴实无华、短小精悍。
06 The English psychologist, Dr. Ogden believes, indeed, that 850 words are sufficient for all ordinary purposes, and he has devised a form of simplified English, called by him Basic, which uses no more. Of his 850 words no less than 600 are the names of things, which leaves only 250 for the names of qualities and actions, and for all the linguistic hooks and eyes that hold sentences together.
英国心理学家奥格登博士认为，在一般的交流中，850个词就足够了。他把英语改编成简单的形式，将这种形式叫做基础英语。基础英语中的词汇不超过850个。在这850个词中，有至少600个词表示事物的名称，剩下的250个词包括说明事物的特征和动作行为的词、以及将句子连接在一起的语法词和小品词
07 Does this seem too few? Then it is only to those who have
forgotten one of the prime characteristics of English—its capacity for getting an infinity of meanings out of a single word by combining it with simple modifiers. Consider, for example, the difference between the verbs to get. To get going, to get by, to get on to, to get wise, to get off, to get ahead of, and to get over. Dr. Ogden proposes to rid the language of a great many verbs—some of them irregular, and hence difficult—by substituting such compounds for them. Why, for example, should a foreigner be taught to say that he has disembarked from a ship? Isn’t it sufficient for him to say that he has got off? And why should he be taught to say that he has recovered from the flu, or escaped the police, or obtained a job? Isn’t it enough to say that he has got over the first, got away from the second, and simply got the third?
这些词的数量是不是显得太少了?只有那些忘记了下面这一英语基本特征的人才会这么认为：英语中同一个词与不同的小修饰词结合，便可以产生无数多的意思。例如，我们可以想一想动词get在下列组合中的不同意思：to get going，to get by，to get onto，to get wise，to get off，to get ahead，to get over等。奥格登博士建议去掉英语中的大量动词——其中一些是不规则动词，因而难以掌握，这些动词可以用上述短语动词来取代。例如，为什么要教外国人说他已从船上“上岸” (disembark)? 难道说他已“下船”(get off)不能表达同样的意思吗?为什么要教他说从流感中“复原”(recover)、“逃避”(escape)了警察，“获得”(obtain) 了工作? 难道说“流感好了”(get over the flu)、“甩开警察”(get away from the police)，或者简单地说“找到工作”(get a