英語文化：九個(gè)你不知道的英語冷知識(shí)

　　摘要：據(jù)英國(guó)文化委員會(huì)的調(diào)查數(shù)據(jù)顯示，在2000年，全球有10億左右的人正在學(xué)習(xí)英語。如今這個(gè)數(shù)字很可能有了更為顯著的提高。

　　1. It is the only major language without an academy to guide it.

　　英語是唯一沒有學(xué)術(shù)機(jī)構(gòu)加以規(guī)正的大語種。

　　L’Académie française, based in Paris, is in charge of overseeing the French language. For Spanish there is the Real Academia Española. German has the Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung. There is no equivalent to L’Académie for English. Of the 10 most-widely spoken languages in the world, only English has no academy guiding it.

　　法蘭西文學(xué)院位于巴黎，負(fù)責(zé)審查法語。對(duì)于西班牙語，有西班牙皇家學(xué)院，德語有標(biāo)準(zhǔn)德語德語正字法協(xié)會(huì)。而英語則沒有相應(yīng)的文學(xué)院。世界十大使用最為廣泛的口語中，唯有英語沒有學(xué)術(shù)研究院引領(lǐng)。

　　2. More than 1 billion people are learning English as you read this.

九個(gè)你不知道的英語冷知識(shí)

　　你讀這篇文章的時(shí)候，有超過10億的人正在學(xué)英語。

　　According to the British Council, around 1 billion people around the world were learning English in 2000. This figure is now likely to be significantly higher.

　　據(jù)英國(guó)文化委員會(huì)的調(diào)查數(shù)據(jù)顯示，在2000年，全球有10億左右的人正在學(xué)習(xí)英語。如今這個(gè)數(shù)字很可能有了更為顯著的提高。

　　3. 96 of the 100 most common English words are Germanic.

　　英語中100個(gè)最常用詞中96個(gè)來自日耳曼語。

　　Of the hundred most frequently used words in English, 96 have Germanic roots. Together, those 100 words make up more than 50% of the Oxford English Corpus, which currently contains over 2 billion words found in writing around the world.

　　100個(gè)使用頻率最高的英語詞匯中，96個(gè)有日耳曼語詞根?？偟膩碚f，牛津英語語料庫詞匯有超過一半由這100個(gè)詞匯組成——目前涵蓋世界各地書面語中超過20億的詞匯。

　　Surprised? The most frequently used words are the meat and bones of the language, the essentials that make communication work, including I, you, go, eat, and so on.

　　吃驚嗎?使用頻率最高的詞匯是一門語言的骨架，這些要素讓人們成功溝通，比如“我”、“你”、“去”、“吃”等等。

　　4. But most words that have entered the language since 1066 have Latin origins.

　　不過自1066年之后的大部分英語詞匯都有拉丁詞根。

　　The Renaissance, which started in Italy and reached England via France, was a massive source of new vocabulary. New ideas, or old ideas rediscovered, started flooding out of the southern cities but there were no words to describe them in English. So the language adopted or adapted the Latin words. During the Renaissance, the English lexicon roughly doubled in size.

　　起源于意大利，席卷法國(guó)再蔓延至英國(guó)的文藝復(fù)習(xí)帶來了海量新詞。新的點(diǎn)子也好，舊的想法也罷，被人們重新發(fā)現(xiàn)，不斷從南部的意大利城市中奔涌而出，而英語中卻沒有相應(yīng)詞匯用以描述。于是英語就采用、改寫了拉丁詞匯。文藝復(fù)興時(shí)期，英語的詞匯幾乎翻了一倍。

　　5. For more than a century, the English aristocracy couldn’t speak English.

　　有一個(gè)世紀(jì)多的時(shí)間，英國(guó)貴族不會(huì)說英語。

　　William the Conqueror tried to learn English at the age of 43 but gave up. Within 20 years of the Normans taking power in England, almost all of the local religious institutions were French-speaking. There is little to suggest that aristocrats themselves spoke English. It isn’t until the end of the 12th Century that we have evidence of the children of the English aristocracy with English as a first language.

　　英國(guó)國(guó)王威廉一世曾在43歲時(shí)嘗試學(xué)習(xí)英語，但半途而廢。諾曼人控制英國(guó)的20年里，大部分的地方宗教機(jī)構(gòu)都說法語。鮮有證據(jù)顯示英國(guó)的貴族自己會(huì)說英語。證據(jù)顯示，直到12世紀(jì)末，才有英語貴族子女以英語為第一語言。

　　6.That is why Latin words sound more prestigious than Germanic ones.

　　這就是為什么拉丁詞匯比日耳曼詞匯聽上去更高大上。

　　Think about the difference between a house (Germanic) and a mansion (French), or between starting something and commencing, between calling something kingly or regal. English has a huge number of close synonyms, where the major difference is the level of formality or prestige. The prestigious form is almost always the Latin one.

　　想想看"house"("房子"，日耳曼詞匯)與"mansion"("宅邸"，法語詞匯)的差異，及"starting(開始)"與"commencing(肇始)"的不同、“kingly(皇家氣質(zhì))"與"regal(君威)"的區(qū)別。英語中有大量意思貼近的同義詞，其主要差異在于其正式與高級(jí)程度。高級(jí)形式幾乎都是拉丁詞匯。

　　7. The concept of “correct” spelling is fairly recent.

　　“正確”拼寫是相當(dāng)新近的概念。

　　Shakespeare, for example, was liberal in his spellings of words, often using multiple variants within a single text; his name itself has been spelt in many different ways over the centuries.

　　例如莎士比亞，在拼寫單詞就非常隨意，常在同一文本中使用數(shù)種變體;數(shù)世紀(jì)以來，其名字也有多種不同的拼法。

　　8. One man is largely responsible for the differences between American and British spelling.

　　美式英語和英式英語拼寫上的差異很大程度上因一人而起。

　　Noah Webster, whose name you still find on the front of many American dictionaries, was a patriotic man. Between 1783 and 1785, he produced three books on the English language for American schoolchildren. During his lifetime, 385 editions of his Speller were published. The modern US spelling of color was initially spelt in the British way, colour, but this changed in later editions.

　　在美國(guó)的許多詞典封面上你還能找到一個(gè)人的名字，一位富有愛國(guó)心的美國(guó)人——諾亞·韋伯斯特。在1783至1785年間，韋伯斯特為美國(guó)的學(xué)齡兒童創(chuàng)作了三本關(guān)于英語的書籍。韋伯斯特一生中，其拼寫教材出了385版。現(xiàn)代美式英語中“color(顏色)”一詞起初是英式的拼寫方式，但在后來的版本中，這些詞的拼寫方式發(fā)生了變化。

　　9. -ize is not an American suffix-ize.

　　并不是美式英語中的后綴。

　　There is a popular belief that words such as popularise/ize, maximise/ize and digitise/ize have different spellings in British and American English.

　　人們普遍認(rèn)為，popularise/ize(普及)、maximise/ize(最大化)、digitise/ize(數(shù)字化)等詞在英式英語和美式英語中拼寫方式不同。

　　Look at that z – isn’t it snazzy? It’s got to be American, hasn’t it?

　　看看這個(gè)Z——不是很時(shí)髦嗎?它一定是美式英語，不是嗎?