【正文】 11 The AngloSaxons passed on to us their farming vocabulary, including sheep, ox, earth, wood, field and work. They must have also enjoyed themselves because they gave us the word laughter. 盎格魯－薩克遜人將他們的農(nóng)耕詞匯留傳給我們，包括sheep, ox, earth, wood, field 和work等。 10 New words came with the Germanic tribes the Angles, the Saxons, etc. that slipped across the North Sea to settle in Britain in the 5th century. Together they formed what we call AngloSaxon society. 新的詞匯隨日爾曼部落——盎格魯、薩克遜等部落——而來(lái)，他們?cè)?世紀(jì)的時(shí)候越過(guò)北海定居在不列顛。一些人向東遷徙形成了印度和巴基斯坦的各種語(yǔ)言，有些人則向西漂泊，來(lái)到歐洲氣候較為溫暖的地區(qū)。這些人使用同樣的詞表達(dá)“雪”、“蜜蜂”和“狼”，但沒(méi)有表示“?！钡脑~。 9 Identifying similar words, linguists have e up with what they call an IndoEuropean parent language, spoken until 3500 to 2000 . These people had mon words for snow, bee and wolf but no word for sea. So some scholars assume they lived somewhere in northcentral Europe, where it was cold. Traveling east, some established the languages of India and Pakistan, and others drifted west toward the gentler climates of Europe. Some who made the earliest move westward became known as the Celts, whom Caesar39。 8 Two centuries ago an English judge in India noticed that several words in Sanskrit closely resembled some words in Greek and Latin. A systematic study revealed that many modern languages descended from a mon parent language, lost to us because nothing was written down. 兩個(gè)世紀(jì)前，在印度當(dāng)法官的一位英國(guó)人注意到，梵文中有一些詞與希臘語(yǔ)、拉丁語(yǔ)中的一些詞極為相似。當(dāng)時(shí)不列顛的居民凱爾特人使用的那些語(yǔ)言流傳下來(lái)主要成了威爾士語(yǔ)。 7 When Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 ., English did not exist. The Celts, who inhabited the land, spoke languages that survive today mainly as Welsh. Where those languages came from is still a mystery, but there is a theory. 尤利烏斯丘吉爾原本可以說(shuō)：“We shall never give in,”但這正是英語(yǔ)迷人之處和活力所在，作家為了加強(qiáng)效果可以糅合來(lái)自不同背景的不同詞匯。我們決不投降。例如，在二戰(zhàn)期間，溫斯頓 5 Great speakers often use Old English to arouse our emotions. For example, during World War II, Winston Churchill made this speech, stirring the courage of his people against Hitler39。這些詞都來(lái)自英語(yǔ)的核心部分古英語(yǔ)或盎格魯－薩克遜英語(yǔ)。 size (tall, short)。 possession (mine, yours)。這種樂(lè)意包容的精神，這種不管源自何方來(lái)者不拒的精神，恰好解釋了英語(yǔ)為什么會(huì)這么豐富，解釋了英語(yǔ)緣何在很大程度上第一個(gè)成了真正的國(guó)際語(yǔ)言。這事兒我們不介意，法國(guó)人卻耿耿于懷。t bother us, but it does bother the French. Such is the glorious messiness of English. That happy tolerance, that willingness to accept words from anywhere, explains the richness of English and why it has bee, to a very real extent, the first truly global language. Walkman一詞非常耐人尋味，因?yàn)檫@個(gè)詞連英語(yǔ)也不是。 3 Walkman is fascinating because it isn39。但法國(guó)人不喜歡借用外來(lái)詞，因?yàn)樗麄冋J(rèn)為這樣會(huì)損害法語(yǔ)的純潔性。 so they invent a word, balladeur, which French kids are supposed to say instead but they don39。正因?yàn)槿绱耍袢沼⒄Z(yǔ)的詞匯量據(jù)估計(jì)超過(guò)一百萬(wàn)，而其它主要語(yǔ)言的詞匯量都要小得多。 The Glorious Messiness of EnglishRobert MacNeil 1 The story of our English language is typically one of massive stealing from other languages. That is why English today has an estimated vocabulary of over one million words, while other major languages have far fewer. 英語(yǔ)中絢麗多彩的雜亂無(wú)章現(xiàn)象羅伯特羅伯特Some languages resist the introduction of new words. Others, like English, seem to wele them. Robert MacNeil looks at the history of English and es to the conclusion that its tolerance for change represents deeply rooted ideas of freedom. 有些語(yǔ)言拒絕引入新詞。另一些語(yǔ)言，如英語(yǔ)，則似乎歡迎新詞的引入。麥克尼爾回顧英語(yǔ)的歷史，得出結(jié)論說(shuō)，英語(yǔ)對(duì)變化的包容性體現(xiàn)了根深蒂固的自由思想。麥克尼爾 我們的英語(yǔ)的歷史是典型的大量竊取其它語(yǔ)言的歷史。 　2 French, for example, has only about 75,000 words, and that includes English expressions like snack bar and hit parade. The French, however, do not like borrowing foreign words because they think it corrupts their language. The government tries to ban words from English and declares that Walkman is not desirable。t. 例如，法語(yǔ)只有約75,000個(gè)單詞，其中還包括像snack bar（快餐店）和 hit parade（流行唱片目錄）這樣的英語(yǔ)詞匯。法國(guó)政府試圖逐