2022年经济学人 启发性文学体裁的终结：常用语手册的消亡(1)

Sells of phrasebooks are falling fast.

外语常用语手册的销量正在迅速下降。

The phrasebook had looked so helpful.

常用语手册曾经似乎很有用。

When Eric Newby, a writer, set out to walk in the Hindu Kush in 1956, he knew he would be visiting places no Englishman had been since 1891.

1956年，作家埃里克·纽比前往了兴都库什山，他知道他将造访的是自1891年以来英国人从未去过的地方。

Nonetheless, he was hopeful of communicating.

尽管如此，他仍对交流抱有希望。

In his bag he carried “Notes on the Bashgali Language”, a phrasebook published in Calcutta in 1902.

他的包里有一本1902年在加尔各答出版的常用语手册《巴什加利语言笔记》。

Opening it one afternoon in the high Himalayas, his hopes faded.

一天下午，他在高耸的喜马拉雅山上打开了这本手册，然后，他的希望破灭了。

Whereas most guidebooks explain how to order a small glass of red wine or a coffee, this offered phrases of more opaque¹ utility.

大多数的旅游指南都会介绍如何点一小杯红酒或咖啡，但这本书中提到的短语却看不出有什么实用性。

“Ini ash ptul p’mich e manchi mrisht waria’m” ran one which, it explained, meant: “I saw a corpse² in a field this morning.”

其中一句写道：“Ini ash ptul p’mich e manchi mrisht waria’m”，意思是：“今天早上我在田野里看到一具尸体。”

That was followed by “Tu tott baglo piltia” (“Thy father fell into the river”); “I non angur ai; tu ta duts angur ai” (“I have nine fingers; you have ten”); and “Ia chitt bitto tu jarlom” (“I have an intention to kill you”).

紧随其后的是“Tu tott baglo piltia”(“你父亲掉进了河里”)、“I non angur ai; tu ta duts angur ai”(“我有九根手指，你有十根手指”)和“Ia chitt bitto tu jarlom”(“我打算杀了你”)。

Some struck a more conversational³ tone, such as “Tu chi se biss gur biti?”

也有些像是用于对话的句子，比如“Tu chi se biss gur biti?”

(“How long have you had a goitre?”).

(“你的甲状腺肿有多久了？”)。

But on the whole the book left him with “a disturbing impression” of Bashgali life.

但总体而言，这本书让他对巴什加利生活产生了“不安的印象”。

Newby’s guide was an eccentric but by no means unique example of a neglected literary genre⁴: the phrasebook.

纽比手中的指南属于一种容易被忽视的文学类型：常用语手册。它不同寻常，但绝不罕见。

These began in antiquity⁵, gathered pace with medieval pilgrimages and flourished in the age of empires and, later, of aeroplanes.

常用语手册出现于古代，随着中世纪的朝圣之旅快速发展，并在帝国时代和后来的航空时代焕发蓬勃生机。

Once they were essential.

它们曾是不可或缺的书籍。

Now the internet and machine translation are rendering⁶ them obsolete⁷.

而现在，由于互联网和机器翻译的发展，它们开始逐渐过时。

Figures from Nielsen Book Research, a market-research firm, show that sales in Britain have fallen by 40% in three years.

市场研究公司尼尔森图书研究公司的数据显示，在英国，常用语手册的销量在三年内下降了40%。

The phrasebook is dying.

常用语手册正在消亡。

Few readers will mourn them.

但很少有读者会对它们表示哀悼。

The conversations they mapped out rarely ran so smoothly⁸ in life as on the page.

书中安排的对话说起来不像现实生活中那样流畅。

But for historians they are invaluable⁹.

但对于历史学家来说，它们是无价的。

Newby thought his phrasebook was revealing about the Bashgalis; in truth such books reveal much more about their English-speaking authors.

纽比认为他的常用语手册揭示了有关巴什加利人的事实；但事实上，这样的书籍更多地映照了会说英语的作者内心的想法。

To sift¹⁰ through old phrasebooks is to study an unparalleled source on the assumptions made by Britons abroad.

旧时的常用语手册是一些独一无二的材料，能够用于研究旅居海外的英国人对当地产生的猜测。

It is an archaeology¹¹ of othering.

这是一门关于他者的考古学。

Two things quickly become clear.

两件事很快变得明朗起来。

The first is that travel was seen as a troublesome, even perilous¹², pursuit.

首先，旅行过去被视为一种麻烦，甚至是危险的行动。

The other is that the now familiar form of the genre - books offering sentences that are practically and predictably useful - took some time to develop.

第二，现在人们熟悉的那种书籍体裁——提供一些实用句子，供日常生活使用，或应对可能情况的书籍——过了一段时间才发展起来。

The 1900 English-Welsh phrasebook “for the use of Travellers and Students” offers “Have you any apples?”

1900年出版的“供旅行者和学生使用的”英语-威尔士语常用语手册中的句子包括：“你有苹果吗？”

and “Where is the butter market?”

和“黄油市场在哪里？”

before adding the more unexpected: “They have cut off his arm.”

更让人意想不到的是：“他们砍掉了他的胳膊。”

The savour of national stereotypes¹³ can be tasted on almost every page.

几乎每一页都能感受到作者对威尔士民族的刻板印象。

J.B.Leek’s 1928 English-Italian Conversation Handbook shows that Italy has long been seen as a land of aesthetic¹⁴ indulgence.

J.B.利克在1928年出版的《英语-意大利语对话手册》显示，意大利长期以来被视为一个艺术且放纵的国家。

A section on hair care (“Shave my mustachio/ Kindly¹⁵ twist up my mustachio/ A little pomade on my mustachio”) follows a lengthy¹⁶ section on food.

书中有关于毛发护理的章节(“剃掉我的八字胡/小心地整理我的八字胡/在我的八字胡上抹一点润发油”)，在那之前，是关于食物的长篇大论。

“Give me a bottle...of red wine/ of white wine/ of claret/ of Burgundy...” it runs.

“给我一瓶……红葡萄酒/白葡萄酒/干红葡萄酒/勃艮第葡萄酒……“书中这样写到。

“Give me some Brie cheese/ some Camembert/ some Gruyere...”

“给我一些布里干酪/一些卡蒙贝尔奶酪/一些古老也芝士奶酪......”

1 opaque   

adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的

参考例句：

• The windows are of opaque glass.这些窗户装着不透明玻璃。
• Their intentions remained opaque.他们的意图仍然令人费解。

2 corpse   

n.尸体，死尸

参考例句：

• What she saw was just an unfeeling corpse.她见到的只是一具全无感觉的尸体。
• The corpse was preserved from decay by embalming.尸体用香料涂抹以防腐烂。

3 conversational   

adj.对话的，会话的

参考例句：

• The article is written in a conversational style.该文是以对话的形式写成的。
• She values herself on her conversational powers.她常夸耀自己的能言善辩。

4 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

5 antiquity   

n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹

参考例句：

• The museum contains the remains of Chinese antiquity.博物馆藏有中国古代的遗物。
• There are many legends about the heroes of antiquity.有许多关于古代英雄的传说。

6 rendering   

n.表现，描写

参考例句：

• She gave a splendid rendering of Beethoven's piano sonata.她精彩地演奏了贝多芬的钢琴奏鸣曲。
• His narrative is a super rendering of dialect speech and idiom.他的叙述是方言和土语最成功的运用。

7 obsolete   

adj.已废弃的，过时的

参考例句：

• These goods are obsolete and will not fetch much on the market.这些货品过时了，在市场上卖不了高价。
• They tried to hammer obsolete ideas into the young people's heads.他们竭力把陈旧思想灌输给青年。

8 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

9 invaluable   

adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的

参考例句：

• A computer would have been invaluable for this job.一台计算机对这个工作的作用会是无法估计的。
• This information was invaluable to him.这个消息对他来说是非常宝贵的。

10 sift   

v.筛撒，纷落，详察

参考例句：

• Sift out the wheat from the chaff.把小麦的壳筛出来。
• Sift sugar on top of the cake.在蛋糕上面撒上糖。

11 archaeology   

n.考古学

参考例句：

• She teaches archaeology at the university.她在大学里教考古学。
• He displayed interest in archaeology.他对考古学有兴趣。

12 perilous   

adj.危险的，冒险的

参考例句：

• The journey through the jungle was perilous.穿过丛林的旅行充满了危险。
• We have been carried in safety through a perilous crisis.历经一连串危机，我们如今已安然无恙。

13 stereotypes   

n.老套，模式化的见解，有老一套固定想法的人( stereotype的名词复数 )v.把…模式化，使成陈规( stereotype的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Such jokes tend to reinforce racial stereotypes. 这样的笑话容易渲染种族偏见。
• It makes me sick to read over such stereotypes devoid of content. 这种空洞无物的八股调，我看了就讨厌。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

14 aesthetic   

adj.美学的，审美的，有美感

参考例句：

• My aesthetic standards are quite different from his.我的审美标准与他的大不相同。
• The professor advanced a new aesthetic theory.那位教授提出了新的美学理论。

15 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

16 lengthy   

adj.漫长的，冗长的

参考例句：

• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。
• The professor wrote a lengthy book on Napoleon.教授写了一部有关拿破仑的巨著。