CHAPTER 7 Languages
第七章 语言:从两种变几十种
THERE WERE TWO UNIVERSAL languages in the Roman Empire: Latin in the west and Greek in the east. Greek, though in a somewhat different form, is still spoken—in Greece itself and by Greeks settled around the eastern Mediterranean and in the wider Greek diaspora. No territory on Earth now has Latin as its common language. Latin is regularly described as a dead language; if that is so, it has been an unusually lively corpse.
罗马帝国境内有两种通用语言:西边是拉丁语，东边 为希腊语。直到今天，希腊本土、地中海以东的希腊聚落, 以及散居于各地的希腊社群依然在说希腊语，虽然它的形 态略有改变。然而，全球已经没有任何地区以拉丁语作为 通用语言了。拉丁语常被人描述为一种死的语言，如果真 是这样,它可说是一具非比寻常的活尸。
Latin was at first spoken only by the people in Rome and the small tract of country around Rome. It expanded as Roman rule expanded, and after hundreds of years, it was being spoken throughout the western empire. The division between the Latin west and the Greek east ran through what is now Serbia. So Latin became the language of a good part of the Balkans, all of Italy, France, and Spain, but not of Britain. Though the Romans went to Britain, the Celtic language of the Britons survived. Everywhere else in the west, the local languages gradually disappeared and the people took up Latin.
一开始，只有罗马人和罗马城周遭一小方围的乡村说 拉丁语;随着罗马扩疆展域,数百年后它已成为整个西罗 马帝国通行的口头语言。西边的拉丁语和东边的希腊语 是以当今的塞尔维亚为界,因此,拉丁语虽是整个意大利、 法国、西班牙以及大半个巴尔干半岛的通用语，但未及于 181 182 大不列颠。虽然罗马人也曾登堂入室侵入不列颠,但不列 颠的凯尔特语存活了下来；至于西边其他地区的本地方 言，在大家都开始说拉丁语后全都慢慢消失了。
Rome itself sensibly did not have a language policy, which is the most self-defeating act of public policy. It is extremely hard to suppress a language and install another in its place. No one in the ancient world would have contemplated it. Rome was an inclusive empire in that it allowed the leaders of the societies it had conquered to remain leaders and to become part of the Roman elite, to become generals and even emperors. Eventually, in 212, all peoples in the empire were declared to be citizens and, hence, protected by the law. So it is a tribute to the Roman Empire that after three or four hundred years, the local languages disappeared. Latin was the language of administration, of law, of the army, of trade, and it eventually had a quiet victory.
罗马本身并没有一套明确的语言政策——语言政策 是最容易自取其败的公共政策。在某个地区压制本土语 言以另一套取而代之简直难如登天，在古代，从来没人想 过要这样做。罗马是个包容性强的帝国，它不但容许被征 服社会的领袖继续担任该区的领袖，而且让他们跻身罗马 精英阶级，升任将军甚至登基称王。如此这般，时至公元 212年，帝国境内所有民族都已归化为国民,受到它的法令 保护。三四百年之后，各种地方语言一概消失，这对罗马 帝国不啻是一种礼赞。拉丁语最后打了一场无声的胜仗, 就此成为罗马行政、法律、军事、商业的唯一语言。
The Latin spoken in the further reaches of the empire was not formal Latin, the Latin of scholars, lawyers, and politicians, the Latin you learn at school or at a university. It was the Latin spoken by soldiers, local administrators, and traders, and even before the empire broke up there were regional variations. The Latin being spoken in Italy could well have been different from the Latin spoken in France. Once the empire broke up, Latin evolved into a number of separate languages, which are known as Romance languages, that is, languages in the manner of the Romans, just as Romanesque architecture is descended from Roman forms of architecture.
学者、律师、政治人物以及你在中学、大学里学的是标 准拉丁语，而罗马帝国偏远疆域所说的并不是这样的拉丁 语。这种拉丁口语通用于士兵、地方行政官员和商家之 间,即使在罗马帝国分裂之前,便已因地而异，随区域而有 多种变化。在意大利说的拉丁口语跟在法兰西说的可能 就不一样。罗马帝国分裂后，拉丁语衍变成多种不同语 言，通称为罗曼语系（Romance Languages，又称罗马语系、 拉丁语系），意指沿自罗马人的语言,就像罗马式建筑乃承 袭自罗马的建筑形式一样。
The chief Romance languages are French, Italian, and Spanish. Consider the word for horse in each: In French it is cheval, in Spanish caballo, in Italian cavallo. There is no sign here of the Latin word for horse, which was equus. In English we have horse, which comes from the German, but we also have equestrian, a horse rider or matters to do with horses, which comes from equus. Often, the Latin words in our language are more formal words. From horse we have horsey; we might say someone is a horsey person, but it is more polite to say an equestrian or someone interested in equestrian events. In Latin, there was a slang word for a horse, caballus, something like a nag, and it is from that word that the Romance words for horse come: cheval (French), caballo (Spanish), cavallo (Italian). The Spanish and Italian forms in this case are much closer to the original than the French.
•拉丁语:多变不敌简便
罗曼语系最主要的语言是法文、意大利文和西班牙文。举“马”这个单词为例,法文是“cheval”，西班牙文是 “caballo”，意大利文是“cavallo”，完全看不到拉丁文的影 子——拉丁文的马是“equus”。英文的马“horse”是从日耳曼语演变而来，但英文里也有个“equestrian”，意思是骑马的人或与马相关之事，这个单词的词源即是“equus” 。 英文中的拉丁词汇通常是比较标准的拉丁文。从 "horse"又衍生出" horsy”这个单词;说一个人爱马或热爱 与马相关的事物可以用“horsy”，但用“equestrian”更礼貌。 拉丁文中有个俚词“caballus”，有点像英文说的马儿（gee-gee,nag）,而罗曼语系的马 "cheval（法文）、"caballo” （西班牙文）、“cavallo”（意大利文），即是由此词演变而来。 就这个单词而言，西班牙文和意大利文远比法文更贴近源头。
The French are very careful about their language. The French Academy deliberates on what English words they will allow into the language: Is T-shirt or bulldozer acceptable? And will it be la T-shirt or le T-shirt, depending on whether Tshirt is to be masculine or feminine (something that English does not bother with)? It would not be wise to point out to the French that the language they are protecting is a debased form of Latin.
法国人对自己的语言是很讲究的。法国国家学院对 于允许纳入法文的英文可是精挑慎选：t-shirt（T恤）和 bulldozer（推土机）可以接受吗？还有,"shirt该是阴性或 183 184 阳性——是la t-shirt还是le t-shirt呢？（是阳性，英文就不必伤这个脑筋。 ）要是你对一个法国人明说，他们小心翼翼保护的语言其实是源自拉丁文,那你就太不聪明了。
拉丁文是词尾变化丰富的语言，换句话说，一个单词在一句话里的意思要看这个单词的词尾变化而定。举例来说，拉丁文的“年”是annus（英文的annually即从该词变来，比yearly稍微正式一些），“主人”或“上帝”是dominus。 如果我们用拉丁文说“上帝的年度”，这两个词的词尾都要变化，成为anno domini。 anno意为年度中，domini意为上帝。今天我们的历法以AD计算年份,就是这两词的缩写，意思是从耶稣基督诞生那年算起。
Latin is a highly inflected language, that is, the meaning a word has in a sentence depends on the ending of the word (its inflection). The Latin word for year is annus (from which we get annually, slightly more formal than yearly). The Latin word for master or lord is dominus. If we want to say in Latin in the year of our lord, the endings of annus and dominus change to anno domini. Anno means in the year; domini means of the lord. It is from anno domini that we get the abbreviation AD in calendars that count years from the birth of Jesus Christ. Because it is an inflected language, Latin does not have to call on words like in or of. There are just two words, anno domini, for our six words, in the year of the lord, which is one reason why Latin is good for mottos— because it is so succinct. You do not have little fussy words in between the main words. Nor does Latin need a definite article the or an indefinite article an. Annus means the year or a year.
拉丁文是词尾变化丰富的语言，换句话说，一个单词在一句话里的意思要看这个单词的词尾变化而定。举例来说，拉丁文的“年”是annus（英文的annually即从该词变来，比yearly稍微正式一些），“主人”或“上帝”是dominus。 如果我们用拉丁文说“上帝的年度”，这两个词的词尾都要变化，成为anno domini。 anno意为年度中，domini意为上帝。今天我们的历法以AD计算年份,就是这两词的缩写，意思是从耶稣基督诞生那年算起。 拉丁文本身就饶富词尾变化，无须借助in或of这类 的介词。英文的“公元”由六个单词组成:in the year of the lord；拉丁文只需两个单词:armo domini,这就是拉丁文适合当座右铭的原因之一-如此言简意赅。你不会在关键词之间发现拉拉杂杂的赘词。拉丁文里也不需要定冠词the或不定冠词a, an。 annus既是指特定的一年（the year），也可指任何一年（a year）。
The order of the words in a Latin sentence does not matter. Domini anno still means in the year of the lord. In English if you switch word order you change the meaning or get no meaning: In the lord of the year or of the lord in the year.
在拉丁文中，词的排列顺序无关紧要;domini anno的意思依旧是上帝的年度。如果是英文，把顺序调换不是意思改变（如：in the lord of the year）就是根本毫无意义了(如：of the lord in the year) 。
Latin did have words for in, at, and of, which you could use for emphasis. But as Latin was spoken by people who were not quite clear about all the rules, they would increasingly use the words for in, at, and of and not worry about changing the word endings. Gradually Latin moved from a language where endings changed to one where prepositions—in, at, of—were regularly used and the word stayed the same. This explains why Romance languages do not inflect their nouns, and hence, word order is crucial.
不过，拉丁文还是有类似英文in,at,of的这些单词, 你可以用它们来强调语气。由于说拉丁语的人对这些规 则并不是很清楚，反而越来越常用in, at, of这些词，不再去管词尾如何变化，久而久之，拉丁文就从一种词尾变化多端的语言，演变成一种频繁使用介词(也，at, of)而关键词的词形维持不变的语言。这就是罗曼语系的名词词尾没有变化,而词的排列顺序攸关紧要的原因。
In Latin, there was no word for the but if you wanted to speak emphatically you could say “I want to buy that apple” or “Give me that peach.” The word for that was ille or illa, depending whether the noun it preceded was masculine or feminine. The amateur speakers of Latin used ille or illa more and more and again didn’t worry about changing the word endings. Then ille and illa were shortened in French to become le and la, which have to be placed before every noun. In Spanish, the shortening produced el and la; in Italian il and la. Think of all the shouting and pointing by the amateur Latin speakers that gave the Romance languages their definite article.
拉丁文当中没有定冠词the,但如果你要强调某样东 西，你可以说“我要‘那个'苹果"或"把'那个'桃子给我”。 “那个”的拉丁文是ille或ilia,视它修饰的名词是阴性或阳 性而定。后来拉丁文说得不道地的人越来越常用ille或 ilia而不管词尾变化，于是在法文中就缩短成le和la,意大 利文是il和Ia,西班牙文是el和la,冠在所有名词的前面。 那些在罗曼语系中加入定冠词的拉丁语半吊子，想来可是真够得意的。
pics. The languages of Europe.
In the fifth century, Germans invaded what is now France, Spain, and Italy, and yet these people speak a language derived from Latin. How can this be so? It is time to look at the language map of Europe. Most of the languages spoken are part of a larger language family, either Romance, Germanic, or Slavonic. A few countries are loners that have a language not closely connected to any other. Such are the Greeks, the Albanians, the Hungarians, and the Finns.
5世纪，日耳曼蛮族入侵当今的法国、西班牙、意大利, 然而日耳曼语系没跟着人侵，这些人说的语言却是从拉丁语演变而来。怎么会这样呢？来看看欧洲的语言图谱。 我们当今说的语言大多隶属于某个庞大语系,可能是罗曼语系、日耳曼语系，也可能是斯拉夫语系。但有少数 几个国家是独行客，跟其他所有语言都无甚关联,例如希腊语、阿尔巴尼亚语、匈牙利语和芬兰语。
In Western Europe, Germanic languages prevail in the north and Romance in the south. Two countries are mixed: Belgium has a Germanic language in the north and a Romance language in the south. In Switzerland, a Germanic language is spoken in the north and Romance in the two southern corners. In addition to these minor Romance languages, we must now include Portuguese alongside the big three (French, Spanish, and Italian) and, a surprise, in Eastern Europe, Romanian. That country lies to the north of the River Danube, which was usually the border of the Roman Empire. The Romans extended their control north of the river in a great bulge for a hundred years, but that would not seem a long enough exposure to Latin for it to have become the base for Romanian. This has led to the suggestion that the Romanians lived south of the river, where they had a long exposure to Latin, and later moved north, not a suggestion that the Romanians are happy with.
•哪种语系的地盘大?
在西欧，日耳曼语系通行于北方，罗曼语系通行于南 方。有两个国家则兼容并蓄：比利时北部说日耳曼语系, 南部说罗曼语系;瑞士北部说日耳曼语系,南部两隅说罗 曼语系。除了这些居于少数的罗曼语系语言，我们还得把 沿着三大国（法国、西班牙、意大利）边缘说的葡萄牙语也 加进去，令人意外的是，东欧的罗马尼亚语也是。罗马尼 亚坐落于多瑙河之北，是往昔罗马帝国惯常的边界。曾有 百年之久，罗马帝国的统治触角大大延伸至多瑙河之北, 但这段时间似乎还不够长，并不足以让拉丁语在当地潜移 默化，变成罗马尼亚语的基石。有人因此暗示（罗马尼亚 人很不喜欢这个暗示），指罗马尼亚人原本是住在该河以 南,对于拉丁文曾有长久的浸淫，北移是后来的事。
In most of Central and Eastern Europe, the languages are Slavonic: in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and the former Yugoslavia. This introduces the Slavs, who lived beyond the Germans and who invaded the Eastern Roman Empire in the sixth and seventh centuries and settled in the Balkans. Some of the Slavs remained in areas that had never been part of the empire: Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. After they settled in Europe, the Slavs were Christianized: the Poles from the west, so they became Roman Catholic; most of the people in the Balkans from Constantinople, so they became Greek Orthodox.
中欧和东欧大部分地区，包括波兰、斯洛伐克、捷克、 保加利亚和过去的南斯拉夫，说的是斯拉夫语系。这得提 到斯拉夫人，这个民族比日耳曼蛮族住得更远,6世纪到7 世纪入侵东罗马帝国后就定居在巴尔干半岛。有些斯拉 夫人依然住在从来不曾被归入该帝国疆域的地区，如波 兰、斯洛伐克和捷克。斯拉夫人在欧洲落地生根后，纷纷 皈依为基督徒;波兰人靠近西方,因此信奉罗马天主教；巴 尔干半岛上的住民泰半来自君士坦丁堡，因此信奉希腊 正教。
Latin (and its Romance offshoots), Greek, and the Slavonic and Germanic languages are all descended from a common origin, a language that has been given the name Indo-European. Linguists attempt to construct some of its elements by working back from the commonalities in the languages it spawned. They argue about where the IndoEuropeans were located—somewhere to the east. They had a word for snow; their word for sea seemed to relate to an inland sea. The language is Indo-European because the Indian language Sanskrit and Iranian are also descended from it.
拉丁语（以及罗曼语系的徒子徒孙）、希腊语、斯拉夫 187 188 语和日耳曼语系全都承袭自同一根源，一种称为印欧语系 的语言。语言学家追溯它所繁衍出来的诸多语言,试图从 这些语言的共通点建构出它的一些基本元素。他们对于 印欧民族的定居地意见不-----总之是东方某处。他们 的语言里有“雪”这个单词，他们的海似乎意指内陆的海。 之所以称为“印”欧语系，是因为印度的梵文和伊朗语也是从它衍生而来。
The discovery or the construction of this language only happened in the eighteenth century. Until then, the study of languages in Europe had assumed that they were all descended from Hebrew, because that was the language the Jews spoke, and by implication, it was the language of Adam and Eve, the first people. Hebrew is a different language altogether from European languages—it is not descended from Indo-European—and so the pursuit of Hebraic origins was a complete dead end. But in the era of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, scholars could throw off the Biblical framework and develop new theories. The breakthrough was made by William Jones, an English judge residing in India. He noticed similarities in the basic vocabulary of Sanskrit and European languages—the words for numbers, parts of the body, and family members. Here are the words for brother:
•欧洲语言的祖先:印欧语系
这个发现,或者说这个语言的建构工作，迟至18世纪才得以实现。在此之前，欧洲的语言研究一直以为这些语 言一概脉承自希伯来语，因为这是耶稣说的语言，也被《圣 经》暗示是最早的两个人亚当和夏娃说的语言。希伯来语 和所有的欧洲语言截然不同，它不是源自印欧语系，因此, 追溯希伯来语言的源头彻底走入了死胡同。 直到18世纪，拜启蒙运动之赐，学者抛去了《圣经》框 架的束缚，发展出新的理论。威廉琼斯(William Jones), 住在印度的一个英籍法官，做出了这个突破。他注意到, 梵文的基本词汇和欧洲多种语言颇为类似，像是数字、身体部位、家庭成员。举“兄弟”这个单词为例:
Brother (English)
Bhratar (Sanskrit)
Broeder (Dutch)
Bruder (German)
Phrater (Greek)
Brat (Russian)
Brathair (Irish)
Brother （英文） Bhratar（梵文）
Broeder（荷兰文）
Bruder（德文） Phrater（希腊文） Brat（俄文）
Brathair （爱尔兰文）
Jones judged that these similarities were more than accidental and surmised that these languages had a common ancestor that no longer existed. So the reconstruction of Indo-European began.
琼斯认为这些类同点绝非巧合，推断它们有个共同的祖先，只是如今已不复存在。印欧语系的重建工作于焉发端。
Two European countries—Hungary and Finland—have languages that are not descended from Indo-European. The two languages are related. Their speakers arrived in two separate movements from Asia. The Finns arrived in prehistoric times; the Hungarians were latecomers, horsemen marauding widely in the ninth and tenth centuries at the same time that the Norsemen came plundering from the sea. They were persuaded to settle in the Danube Valley and they became Christian.
有两个欧洲国家的语言,匈牙利和芬兰，并不是源自 印欧语系,这两国的语言是有关联的。说这些语言的人分别于两个不同的时期从亚洲迁徙至欧洲;芬兰人是史前时代来到此间;匈牙利人来得较晚——在9世纪和10世纪维京人从海路登陆欧洲进行掠夺的同时,他们也骑着马来此打家劫舍。他们后来被劝服,不但在多瑙河谷安顿下来, 且皈依为基督徒。
The previous map displays the language distribution at present. It would not have looked very different immediately after the Slav and German invasions. The German invasion of the Roman Empire led to some change in language distribution but, as we have seen, Latin in its Romance form survived in France, Italy, and Spain. The extent of the change can be seen on the next map, which more closely displays the present-day boundary between Germanic and Romance languages. The boundary of the Roman Empire was the Rhine river. What the map displays is how far across the Rhine the Germanic languages advanced. Not very far, as you see.
图7-1 呈现出欧洲目前的语言分布。如果跟斯拉夫 人和日耳曼人几次侵略之后的情形比较，并没有太大的不 同；日耳曼蛮族入侵罗马帝国确实使得语言分布产生若干 变化，但一如我们前面所了解，拉丁语借着罗曼语系的形 式,在法国、西班牙、意大利存活了下来。
pics. The boundary between Germanic and Romance languages.
It is a puzzle to know why the new language boundary took the form it did. In Belgium, the line that divides the language groups is in open countryside. There are no natural features, a river or a mountain range. You are driving along a straight road; the village to your right will speak a Romance language (Walloon) and the village to your left a Germanic language (Flemish). This language boundary has not changed in 1,500 years. There is a suggestion that there might have been a Roman defensive line running straight west to east, a barrier to keep the Germans who were already across the Rhine from going further. It might have stopped them here, but obviously the Germans got around it further east.
新的语言分界何以是今天这等模样，犹是一团迷雾。在 比利时，不同语言的分界线是划在开放空旷的乡村地带，全 无河流或山脉等天然屏障。你开车沿着一条路直走,就此楚 河汉界:右边的村庄说罗曼语系（瓦隆语,WaUoon），左边说 日耳曼语系（弗拉芒语,Flemish）。一千五百年来，这条语言 的分界不曾改变。有人因此推论，罗马或许设有一条由西到 东的国防线作为屏障，以阻遏已穿越莱茵河的日耳曼蛮族更 越雷池一步。日耳曼蛮族或许在这里遭到阻断，但他们显然绕道而行，更进一步地深入了东边。
Broadly speaking, you can see that the strip of territory between the Rhine and the language border is roughly 50– 100 miles wide until it narrows in the mountain country to the south. In this territory the German settlement was dense enough for the Germanic language to supplant Latin or incipient Romance. The Germans went right through Western Europe, into Spain, across into north Africa. But in all those places, the language remained Latin/Romance, which indicates much less dense German settlement than in the borderlands.
你可以看到,大体而言,莱茵河与这条语言分界之间的 宽度约莫是一百到一百五十公里，直到南部山区才变得短窄。在这个区块里，日耳曼聚落稠密，日耳曼语言因此取代 了拉丁或是才萌芽的罗曼语言。日耳曼蛮族曾经穿越整个西欧,长驱直入西班牙,渡海进入北非,可是这些地方说的依然是拉丁或罗曼语系，表示此区的日耳曼聚落要比罗马边界地区稀散许多。
When France expanded as the great power of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it pushed its boundaries north and east but the language map didn’t change. The people in the eastern border country of France are still German-speaking. In the north of the country near the Atlantic coast, the people speak the Germanic language Flemish. The map shows there are some other areas of France where French is not spoken. In the southwest near the Spanish border, there are Basque-speaking people who claim independence from both France and Spain. Basque is not an Indo-European language; no one quite knows where it comes from. On the western peninsula of Britanny, the Breton language is a Celtic survival. When the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes invaded Britain, some of the Britons in England crossed the Channel to Brittany and the people here still speak Breton, though the area of Breton-speakers is contracting.
17和18世纪，法国以强国之姿辟疆展域，东边和北边 的疆土虽然大为推进，但语言图谱并无改变。住在法国东部 边境的人依然说日耳曼语，北边接近大西洋沿岸也还是说属 于日耳曼语系的弗拉芒语。地图显示,法国还有其他一些地 区也不说法语;靠近西班牙边境的西南地带，这里的居民要 求从法国和西班牙独立出来，他们说的是巴斯克语 (Basque) o巴斯克语不属于印欧语系，它源自何处不得而 知。(见图7-2) 在布列塔尼半岛(peninsula of Britanny)西边，居民说 的布列塔尼语(Breton)是幸存下来的一种凯尔特语。当初 盎格鲁、萨克森和朱特族侵略不列颠，一些英国人渡过海峡来到布列塔尼，直到今天此地住民说的还是布列塔尼 语，虽然说这种语言的地区已越缩越小。
As they advanced into France, the Germans no longer supplanted Latin/Romance, but they contributed some German words to the evolving language, particularly those concerned with kings and government and with the feudal system; that is, the terminology of the new ruling class. The words for shame and pride in French come from the German, very important concepts to the German warriors.
登堂入室进入法国后，日耳曼蛮族并没有将当地的拉 丁或罗曼语系语言根除殆尽，但这个语言一直在演化,而他 们也贡献了一些日耳曼词汇进去，尤其是关于国王、政府、封建制度的语汇，也就是新的统治阶级常用的专有名词。
It is in England that the Germanic languages had a complete victory, which is to be expected, given the overrunning of the native Britons by the invading Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. Then, in the ninth and tenth centuries, there was a second invasion of England by people speaking a Germanic language, the Norsemen, or Danes. The basic vocabulary and grammar of English emerged with the melding of these Germanic tongues. In the process, English lost the inflections of its German origins.
在英国，日耳曼语系则是获得全面的胜利，从本地英 国人饱受盎格鲁、萨克森和朱特族这些侵略民族倾轧来 看，这应是意料中事。9世纪到10世纪，英国二度遭到外 族侵略，这次是维京人来犯，说的也是一种日耳曼语。随 着这些日耳曼方言的交融，英文的基本词汇和语法于焉而 生，而在演变的过程中，英文失去了它日耳曼语源的词尾 变化。
In 1066, there was a third invasion of England, this time by the Norman French, led by Duke William. The Normans were originally Norsemen from the north encouraged to settle in France by the king to put a stop to their marauding. They spoke their own version of French, which, being a Romance language, still carried a lot of Latin. England’s new ruling class continued to speak Norman French for several centuries until this too was melded into English, which resulted in a huge increase in the vocabulary of English. There were now two or more words for almost everything. To the English king and kingly were added royal, regal, and sovereign. English has a vocabulary several times larger than German and French—it is, after all, an amalgam of German and French.
1066年,英国三度被侵，这回领军来袭的是法国诺曼底的 威廉公爵。诺曼人的祖先是斯堪的纳维亚的北欧人，当初 受国王感召定居于法国，金盆洗手不再烧杀掳掠。他们说 的是自己一套独特的法语，属于罗曼语系,但夹杂许多拉 丁文。此后数百年间，英国这个新的统治阶级继续说诺曼 法语，但最后也和英语熔于一炉，导致英文语汇大量增加。 如今的英文,几乎所有东西都有两个以上的词汇，举“国 王”和“国王的”为例，英文本是king、kingly,后来加入了 royal、regal、sovereign。数量上，英文词汇要比法文和德文 多出数倍——它毕竟是法文和德文的混合加总。
Here is a table summarizing the evolution of languages in Western Europe and England after the fall of the Roman Empire.
西欧和英国在罗马帝国灭亡后的语言演变，归纳于上页。
Latin had disappeared as the language of ordinary people but it survived as the language of learning, literature, and the church. This is why so many Latin words passed into all European languages. Since churchmen and scholars were still speaking and writing Latin, it was a living language, and hence, subject to change—or, by purist standards, it was being degraded. There was a chance that even in these circles Latin would go the way of Romance. The first restoration job on Latin was undertaken at Charlemagne’s direction. The old Latin manuscripts were copied and efforts made to make the current use of Latin match the classical original.
•拉丁文不敌罗曼史
拉丁口语已在平民间消失,不再是他们的通用语言, 但它依然作为学术、文学、教会的专用语言流传下来，使众 多的拉丁词汇能开枝散叶,流传到所有的欧洲语言里。当 时的教会和学术人士依然说写拉丁文，它因此是种活的语 言，也因此会有变异一依照纯粹主义者的标准,不啻就 是品质降格。而即使在这些领域，拉丁文也有可能步罗曼 语系的后尘。拉丁文的第一次重建工作，是奉查理大帝的 谕令，他指示学者抄写古拉丁文手稿，努力让当时使用的 拉丁语文与古典原文的意涵相符。
Since Latin was the language of learning and literature, learning and literature became extremely remote. If you wanted to be educated, you had first to learn a foreign language. In the Middle Ages, the majority of the people were illiterate, which is common enough. What is most unusual is that the rich and powerful were also illiterate because they did not know Latin. So oral culture of song and story ran right through society. The jester or the minstrel kept the lord in his castle amused; there was no chance that the lord could retire with a book. Tradition and custom were all-important because so little of the world could be understood and managed by writing. When European nobles and knights arrived in the Holy Land on crusade, the Muslim gentlemen were astounded that they were so crude and unlettered.
由于拉丁文是学术和文学的专用语言，学术和文学变 得遥不可及。你若要接受教育，得先学会仿若外国语的拉 丁文。中世纪时期，绝大多数的人是文盲,不识字者比比 皆是，但最不寻常的是,即使那些有钱有势的人也是文盲, 因为他们不懂拉丁文。因此,贯穿于整个社会的是以歌谣 和故事传世的口述文化。贵族领主在城堡里养弄臣或艺 人来娱乐自己，要这些领主拿本书静静细读，门儿都没有。 传统和习俗的角色无比吃重，因为要靠文字记载来了解世 事、学习待人接物有如痴人说梦。十字军东征时期，当欧 洲的贵族和骑士来到圣地,穆斯林的士绅阶级莫不目瞪口 呆,因为这些人是如此的粗野不文。
Gradually, a literature in the vernacular language emerged; that is, it was written in the first language of all the people and not in Latin. The first stories in France were called romans, after the language in which they were written. It was a way of dismissing them—it’s a trashy local work—it’s a roman. Roman then became the French word for story. Because the stories were about knights, their heroic deeds and their love for beautiful maidens, the subject of the stories was identified as Romance. This explains the odd double meaning of Romance, as a language derived from Latin and the subject treated in trashy novels.
慢慢地，一种以地方语言创作的文学,也就是以全民 母语而非拉丁文书写的文学日渐勃兴。法国最早的传奇 故事称为romans,即是以这些故事所用的语言为名。这其 实是种贬抑——如果你说这是一本roman,意谓它是一本 不入流的本土作品0 roman这个词后来演变成法文中的 “故事”。由于内容总不外乎骑士、英雄事迹和俊男美女的 爱情，这样的故事就被定位为浪漫小说（romance）。这就 解释了 romance（罗曼史）这个词的双重意涵:既是一种从拉丁文演变而来的语言，也是一种毫无深度可言的小说主题。
The second great restoration job on Latin was undertaken in the Renaissance. Scholars despised the Middle Ages because, among other things, the Latin was so degraded and impure. Their aim was to write in the Latin of the great classical authors. Petrarch, the pioneer scholar of the Renaissance, scoured Europe searching for a copy of Cicero’s letters. When he found them he composed, in perfect Latin, a letter to Cicero himself. Noblemen and gentlemen were now being educated—and in Latin, not because it was the language of the church and theological dispute, but so that they could read the classics and write in the Latin of the classical age. Until the twentieth century, Latin was at the center of secondary and tertiary education. I myself had to pass Latin in order to enroll in college. University graduation ceremonies were conducted in Latin and the terminology of degrees is still frequently in Latin: ad eundem gradum to the same degree, cum laude with honors (praise), summa cum laude with highest honors, and honoris causa by reason of honor (for honorary degrees).
拉丁文第二度的大规模重建，发生在文艺复兴时期。 学者专家瞧不起中世纪，别的不说,拉丁文被掺入许多杂 质、水准低落得可以即是原因之一。这些学者以能书写古 典时代文豪的拉丁文为职志。文艺复兴时期第一个发出 复兴古典文化号召的学者彼特拉克（Francesco Petrarca）, 为了找寻古罗马文学家、雄辩家西塞罗（Cicero）的一份信 札手稿，走遍整个欧洲。寻获这些信后，他以无懈可击的 拉丁文，模仿西塞罗风格,亲自写了一封信给西塞罗，表示 致敬。 当时的名门贵族、士绅阶级已普遍接受教育，他们用 拉丁文学习，不是因为它是教会专用、涉及神学争议的语 言，而是为了能够阅读经典,用古典时代的拉丁文写作。 在20世纪之前，拉丁文一直是中等及高等教育的重心。 我自己就是这样，必须通过拉丁文考试才获准进入大学。 大学毕业典礼以拉丁文进行，当今学位的专有名词也常是 拉丁文:ad eundem gradum意为“以同等学力"，cum laude 意为“以优异成绩”（赞辞），summa cum laude“最优等”， honoris causa“颁予荣誉”（指荣誉学位）。
Latin was a great bond between educated men across Europe (girls did not study Latin). It gave them a common second language, a social bond, and a sort of code they could drop into. In the English House of Commons, a speaker would quote a famous classical saying in the Latin and not translate it. If you did not understand it, you should not be there. Sexual terms that could not appear in print could be printed in Latin so that ordinary people could not understand them and be corrupted. So just when a book got interesting it turned foreign. English still bears the marks of this—genitalia for sex organs is Latin; so is pudenda, a wonderful example of Latin succinctness and of puritanical attitudes to sex: It too refers to the sex organs, particularly women’s, and means literally “matters that are shameful.”
拉丁文是整个欧洲饱学男士（女性不读拉丁文）之间 的强韧系带。它是他们共同的第二语言，既是一种社会连 结，也算是一种通关密码。在英国的下议院，发言者每每 出口成章，以拉丁文引用一段经典名言而不 译。如果你 听不懂，那代表你不该出现在那里。关于“性”的字眼不宜 印成白纸黑字，但用拉丁文印出来就可以，这样平民百姓 就看不懂，也就不会被带坏。如此这般，你看一本书正看 得津津有味，突然就出现了外星文。 如今的英文还是带有这样的斧凿痕迹:“性器官”用拉 丁文genitalia（生殖器）代替;还有pudenda,要突显拉丁文的简要精练以及对“性”的严峻心态,这个词是佳例;这个 词也是指“性器官”，尤其是女性的性器(女阴)，以词面翻 译，意思是“令人羞愧的事物”。
At the same time as the Renaissance revival of Latin, the vernacular languages gained new status and respect—first, because of the invention of printing in the 1450s. The first books to be printed were the classical authors, but the demand for them was limited. Printers gained a wider market when they issued books in the local language or translations of the classics. Shakespeare, who it is said had little Latin and less Greek, learned his classical history from North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, which appeared in 1579, when Shakespeare was fifteen. That gave him the material for Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. Second, the Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century wanted the people to read the Bible for themselves, so it had to be translated into the local language. Luther’s first task was to translate the Bible into German. For Protestants, Latin ceased to be the language of holy things.
•莎士比亚不懂拉丁文
文艺复兴运动试图恢复拉丁文的荣光,但地方语言在 同一时期也获得了崭新的地位和尊重。首要原因，是拜 1450年代的近代印刷术发明之赐。第一批被印成白纸黑 字问世的书,是古典作家所著的经典古籍，可惜乏人问津。 后来印刷商用当地语言发行书籍或将经典翻译出来，读者 市场因此扩大。大家都说莎士比亚不谙拉丁文更不识希 腊文，他之所以熟知古典历史,是因为读过普鲁塔克(Pl» tarch)的《希腊罗马名人传》(L加es of the Noble Grecians and Rmmuls),而莎士比亚读的是诺斯(Thomas North) 1579年 的英译本，当时莎翁年仅十五岁。莎剧《恺撒大帝》(九历m Czesw)和《安东尼与克莉奥佩特拉》(4就叫＜ and Cleopa-皿)便是取材自它。 第二个原因,16世纪的宗教改革人士希望民众自己能 读《圣经》，因此将它翻译成当地语言。马丁 •路德被赋予 的第一个任务便是将《圣经》译成德文。对新教徒而言，拉 丁文已不再是神圣事务的代表语言了。
Original books continued to be written in Latin and so were immediately accessible to educated men throughout Europe. Copernicus, who first posited the sun at the center of the universe; Kepler, who formulated laws of the planets’ motion; and Newton, who completed the Scientific Revolution, all wrote in Latin. But after the seventeenth century, scientists and philosophers wrote in their local language and their works had to be translated to reach a wider audience.
There was one late flowering of Latin that still survives, the system for naming plants that was developed by the Swedish botanist Linnaeus in the eighteenth century. He had learned Latin at school and read in Latin Aristotle’s works classifying the natural order. His system gives in Latin two names to plants: their genus and their species. Discoverers of plants are rendered into a Latin form if they are to be part of the plant’s name. Joseph Banks, who was the botanist on Cook’s great voyage, is immortalized in the name Banksia, the shrubby Australian plant with bottlebrush flowers.
拉丁语系还有一朵开得很晚但迄今犹存的花,那就是 18世纪瑞典植物学家林奈（Carolus Linnaeus）所创,以拉丁 文命名植物的系统。林奈于在学期间学会了拉丁文，也读 过亚里士多德以拉丁文分类自然生物的著作。这套系统 给予植物两个拉丁学名，一是属名，一是种名。植物的发 现者之名必须被翻译成拉丁文，才能成为该植物名称的一 部分。当年随着航海家库克船长出航大探险的英国植物 学家乔瑟夫•班克斯（Joseph Banks）,即是以Banksia（山龙眼）这种开着瓶刷子花的常绿性灌木之名，永垂不朽。
When Christianity began, the universal language in the west was Latin. It became the language for the governing of the church, for the arguments over its doctrines, for the pronouncements of the faith, and for the conduct of church services. It was not like Arabic, a holy language, which was the language of the prophet Muhammad. Jesus spoke in Aramaic and his words were recorded in the common Greek of the eastern Mediterranean. The language of the Old Testament was Hebrew. But Latin brought all the faithful together and it continued to be the language of Catholic worship until the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) authorized the use of the local language. The encyclicals of the pope continued to be issued in Latin. Pope Paul VI declared the church’s teaching on contraception and abortion in Humanae Vitae (1968; Of Human Life). Some of the faithful continued church services in Latin, almost as an underground rite. The previous pope, Benedict XVI, was more favorably inclined to the use of Latin in the mass, but in 2021, Pope Francis reimposed Benedict’s restrictions on celebrating the mass in Latin.
•耶稣不说拉丁文，但
基督教发物之后,拉丁文是西方通用的语言。这种语 言变得唯它独尊,是为了教会治理方便,为了超越教义争 议、传扬信仰，也为了教堂仪典的进行。它和阿拉伯文不 同，阿拉伯文是先知穆罕默德说的话，是一种神的语言。 耶稣说的是阿拉姆语（Aramaic）,他的教诲被人以通行于 东地中海地区的普通希腊文记录下来。《旧约》用的语言 是希伯来文。但拉丁文凝聚了所有的信徒，在梵蒂冈第二 届大公会议（1962至1965年）宣布可用本地语言进行礼仪 之前,它一直是天主教弥撒的专用语言。教皇通谕一直是 以拉丁文发表。1968年,教皇保罗六世便是以《人类生命 通谕》（加呗曲曲oe）发布教廷对节育和堕胎的训示。有 些虔诚教徒继续以拉丁文进行教堂礼仪，恍如地下社团仪 式一般。现任教皇本笃十六世也比较偏爱用拉丁文做弥撒。
Like the idea of the Roman Empire, Latin has been a long time dying.
拉丁语，跟罗马帝国的概念一样，已经气若游丝很 久了。
