PBS高端访谈:当一种语言消失时,这个世界会失去什么?

 　　JUDY WOODRUFF: And finally tonight: to languages around the world at risk of being lost.

　　That's the subject of a new documentary premiering on some PBS stations this week and now streaming online.

　　Jeffrey Brown has our look.

　　NARRATOR: You are listening to a song sung in a language called Amurdak, a language spoken in northern Australia. There is virtually only one person left on our planet who speaks Amurdak.

　　His name is Charlie Mangulda.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: A language nearly gone from an aboriginal² community on Australia's Goulburn Islands.

　　The new PBS documentary “Language Matters” explore tongues around the globe at risk of being lost forever and what is lost with them.

　　GWYNETH LEWIS, National Poet of Wales: We are being narrowed and homogenized by the loss of languages that we're not even aware of.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: Predictions are dire³ that, by the end of this century, more than half of the world's 6,000 languages will be gone.

　　BOB HOLMAN, Host, “Language Matters”: Every language has poetry, although it's very different from culture to culture. And as I began to learn about how these languages are disappearing, that kind of poetry is also going. The entire inner life of a people is disappearing when their language vanishes.

　　Is that your language?

　　JEFFREY BROWN: Bob Holman, in fact, came to this project as a poet, one long interested in oral traditions, including contemporary hip-hop. He and filmmaker David Grubin traveled from Australia to Wales to Hawaii looking at languages on the brink⁴ and how some people are fighting to bring them back.

　　I talked with Holman recently at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington.

　　BOB HOLMAN: Each of these languages holds a little piece of information or a lot of information, can hold information about medicines and health, can hold information about the constellations⁵ in the sky.

　　And that's information that, if you lose the language, you lose that connection with that place, with that way of thinking, with tens of thousands of years of that language's lineage.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: One cause of the loss of languages, of course, lives around the globe increasingly interconnected through technology, the economy, and the dominance of a few languages, including online.

　　BOB HOLMAN: Everybody wants to join in on the conversation in the bully⁶ languages, but there's no reason why you…

　　JEFFREY BROWN: The bully languages? Is that what you call it?

　　BOB HOLMAN: Well, it seems these — English and Mandarin⁷ and Spanish are gobbling up languages, as people decide they need to have this in order to assimilate into a culture.

　　But if you — instead of feeling awkward about speaking another language, if you were respected for who you are, and if that became part of the fabric⁸ — we talk about a multicultural⁹ fabric, but it seems that we have to have our multi cultures in English. And it just sounds so much more delightful¹⁰, offers so many more opportunities if you begin to hear the real deal.

　　JUDY WOODRUFF: At the same time, according to anthropologist¹¹ Joshua Bell of the Natural History Museum's Recovering Voices Project, technology has opened up new ways to preserve new languages.

　　JOSHUA BELL, Curator, Recovering Voices Project, Smithsonian Natural History Museum: A lot of people talk about how the Internet, cell phones are reducing people's linguistics¹³ range, et cetera.

　　The flip¹⁴ side of that is actually communities are increasingly using these tools to create spaces for themselves. So you will see specific Cherokee language, for example, Facebook, apps for smartphones where actually communities are engaging in linguistic¹² revitalization.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: In the film, Holman shows how even languages seemingly vulnerable can continue to exist in the right conditions.

　　BOB HOLMAN: It's extraordinary. We were on Goulburn Islands in Australia, an island that has 400 people and 10 different languages. How did this happen?

　　JEFFREY BROWN: Four hundred people and 10 languages?

　　BOB HOLMAN: Exactly.

　　And, in Australia, there are languages that are quite stable with only 70 speakers or 500 speakers, you know. How does this happen? This happens because it's not a big deal for these people to learn these languages. It's what their parents did and their parents' parents did.

　　And for them, to learn the language of another people is a sign of respect. And that's exactly what the movement now, the language movement, is trying to say. To respect the mother tongues of each other is the way that we can keep languages alive.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: A large-scale example of this has unfolded in Wales. Holman visited an annual Welsh language festival to see how the small country, part of the United Kingdom, has managed to create equal footing for its native language alongside English, giving it a place in schools, in bars, even in hip-hop.

　　Holman attempted to learn enough Welsh to recite his own people in a live competition.

　　What's the key to a language surviving?

　　BOB HOLMAN: A language survives if you have the choice to learn it, if it's available for you to live your life in some way with your language as part of you. In Wales, you have a choice of whether to go to an English medium school or to a Welsh medium school. And in this way, children can learn in the language that they are speaking at home.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: But couldn't you make the argument that it would be better if we all spoke¹ the same language, that we all understood each other? There would be — well, there would be more understanding in the world.

　　BOB HOLMAN: Well, I love that argument, and it makes so much sense, until you understand what understanding is.

　　You know, language is much more than communication. When we talk about it on the surface, that's what it is. But language is the way we think. And it's the way it's been handed down through generations. If you begin to think in another language, that's fine.

　　But if you have to lose the way that your family has been speaking, that's not so fine. That's losing who you are. And when we lose who we are, that's when we become this homogenized consumer of life, rather than a citizen who comes from a place and knows who you are.

　　JEFFREY BROWN: And that's a conversation this documentary wants to facilitate in any language.

　　I'm Jeffrey Brown for the PBS NewsHour.

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 aboriginal   

adj.（指动植物）土生的，原产地的，土著的

参考例句：

• They managed to wipe out the entire aboriginal population.他们终于把那些土著人全部消灭了。
• The lndians are the aboriginal Americans.印第安人是美国的土著人。

3 dire   

adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的

参考例句：

• There were dire warnings about the dangers of watching too much TV.曾经有人就看电视太多的危害性提出严重警告。
• We were indeed in dire straits.But we pulled through.那时我们的困难真是大极了，但是我们渡过了困难。

4 brink   

n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿

参考例句：

• The tree grew on the brink of the cliff.那棵树生长在峭壁的边缘。
• The two countries were poised on the brink of war.这两个国家处于交战的边缘。

5 constellations   

n.星座( constellation的名词复数 )；一群杰出人物；一系列（相关的想法、事物）；一群（相关的人）

参考例句：

• The map of the heavens showed all the northern constellations. 这份天体图标明了北半部所有的星座。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His time was coming, he would move in the constellations of power. 他时来运转，要进入权力中心了。 来自教父部分

6 bully   

n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮

参考例句：

• A bully is always a coward.暴汉常是懦夫。
• The boy gave the bully a pelt on the back with a pebble.那男孩用石子掷击小流氓的背脊。

7 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

8 fabric   

n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织

参考例句：

• The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
• I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。

9 multicultural   

adj.融合多种文化的，多种文化的

参考例句：

• Children growing up in a multicultural society.在多元文化社会中长大的孩子们。
• The school has been attempting to bring a multicultural perspective to its curriculum.这所学校已经在尝试将一种多元文化视角引入其课程。

10 delightful   

adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的

参考例句：

• We had a delightful time by the seashore last Sunday.上星期天我们在海滨玩得真痛快。
• Peter played a delightful melody on his flute.彼得用笛子吹奏了一支欢快的曲子。

11 anthropologist   

n.人类学家，人类学者

参考例句：

• The lecturer is an anthropologist.这位讲师是人类学家。
• The anthropologist unearthed the skull of an ancient human at the site.人类学家在这个遗址挖掘出那块古人类的颅骨。

12 linguistic   

adj.语言的，语言学的

参考例句：

• She is pursuing her linguistic researches.她在从事语言学的研究。
• The ability to write is a supreme test of linguistic competence.写作能力是对语言能力的最高形式的测试。

13 linguistics   

n.语言学

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• Linguistics is a scientific study of the property of language.语言学是指对语言的性质所作的系统研究。

14 flip   

vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的

参考例句：

• I had a quick flip through the book and it looked very interesting.我很快翻阅了一下那本书，看来似乎很有趣。
• Let's flip a coin to see who pays the bill.咱们来抛硬币决定谁付钱。