【正文】 出英語詞匯，宣稱Walkman（隨身聽）一詞有傷大雅，因此他們?cè)炝藗€(gè)新詞balladeur讓法國兒童用——可他們就是不用。t even English. Strictly speaking, it was invented by the Japanese manufacturers who put two simple English words together to name their product. That doesn39。嚴(yán)格地說，該詞是由日本制造商發(fā)明的，他們把兩個(gè)簡單的英語單詞拼在一起來命名他們的產(chǎn)品。由此可見英語中絢麗多彩的雜亂無章現(xiàn)象。 4 How did the language of a small island off the coast of Europe bee the language of the planet more widely spoken and written than any other has ever been? The history of English is present in the first words a child learns about identity (I, me, you)。 the body (eye, nose, mouth)。 and necessities (food, water). These words all e from Old English or AngloSaxon English, the core of our language. Usually short and direct, these are words we still use today for the things that really matter to us. 歐洲沿海一個(gè)彈丸小島的語言何以會(huì)成為地球上的通用語言，比歷史上任何一種其他語言都更為廣泛地被口頭和書面使用？英語的歷史體現(xiàn)在孩子最先學(xué)會(huì)用來表示身份（I, me, you）、所屬關(guān)系（mine, yours）、身體部位（eye, nose, mouth）、大小高矮（tall, short），以及生活必需品（food, water）的詞匯當(dāng)中。這些詞通常簡短明了，我們今天仍然用這些詞來表示對(duì)我們真正至關(guān)重要的事物。s armies positioned to cross the English Channel: We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. 偉大的演說家常常用古英語來激發(fā)我們的情感。丘吉爾作了如下的演講來激勵(lì)國民的勇氣以抵抗屯兵英吉利海峽準(zhǔn)備渡海作戰(zhàn)的希特勒的軍隊(duì)：“我們要戰(zhàn)斗在海灘上，我們要戰(zhàn)斗在著陸場上，我們要戰(zhàn)斗在田野和街巷，我們要戰(zhàn)斗在群山中?！?6 Virtually every one of those words came from Old English, except the last surrender, which came from Norman French. Churchill could have said, We shall never give in, but it is one of the lovely and powerful opportunities of English that a writer can mix, for effect, different words from different backgrounds. Yet there is something direct to the heart that speaks to us from the earliest words in our language. 這段文字中幾乎每個(gè)詞都來自古英語，只有最后一個(gè)詞——surrender 是個(gè)例外，來自諾曼法語。而演說中使用古英語詞匯具有直接撥動(dòng)心弦的效果。凱撒在公元前55年入侵不列顛時(shí)，英語尚不存在。這些語言的起源至今仍是個(gè)不解之謎，但有一種理論試圖解開這個(gè)謎。系統(tǒng)的研究顯示，許多現(xiàn)代語言起源于一個(gè)共同的母語，但由于沒有文字記載，該母語已經(jīng)失傳。s armies found in Britain. 語言學(xué)家找出了相似的詞，提出這些語言的源頭是他們稱之為印歐母語的語言，這種語言使用于公元前3500年至公元前2000年。因此有些學(xué)者認(rèn)為，他們生活在寒冷的中北歐某個(gè)地區(qū)。最早西移的一些人后來被稱作凱爾特人，亦即凱撒的軍隊(duì)在不列顛發(fā)現(xiàn)的民族。他們共同形成了我們稱之為盎格魯－薩克遜的社會(huì)。他們的日子一定過得很開心，因?yàn)樗麄兞魝鹘o我們laughter一詞?；浇桃?00至500個(gè)希臘語、拉丁語詞匯豐富了盎格魯－薩克遜詞匯，如angel（天使）, disciple（門徒） 和 martyr（殉難者）等。他們也給英語帶來了許多以sk開頭的詞匯，如sky 和 skirt。其他留傳下來的這類同義詞組有：wish 和 want，craft 和 skill，hide 和 skin。 14 Another flood of new vocabulary occurred in 1066, when the Normans conquered England. The country now had three languages: French for the nobles, Latin for the churches and English for the mon people. With three languages peting, there were sometimes different terms for the same thing. For example, AngloSaxons had the word kingly, but after the Normans, royal and sovereign entered the language as alternatives. The extraordinary thing was that French did not replace English. Over three centuries English gradually swallowed French, and by the end of the 15th century what had developed was a modified, greatly enriched language Middle English with about 10,000 borrowed French words. 另一次新詞的大量涌入發(fā)生在1066年，諾曼人征服英國的時(shí)候。由于三種語言相互競爭，有時(shí)同一事物就出現(xiàn)了不同的名稱。不同尋常的是，法語沒有取代英語。 15 Around 1476 William Caxton set up a printing press in England and started a munications revolution. Printing brought into English the wealth of new thinking that sprang from the European Renaissance. Translations of Greek and Roman classics were poured onto the printed page, and with them thousands of Latin words like capsule and habitual, and Greek words like catastrophe and thermometer. Today we still borrow from Latin and Greek to name new inventions, like video, television and cyberspace. 大約在1476年，威廉印刷術(shù)把歐洲文藝復(fù)興運(yùn)動(dòng)中涌現(xiàn)的大量新思想傳入英國。今天我們?nèi)越栌美?、希臘語命名新的發(fā)明創(chuàng)造，如video, television 和 cyberspace（虛擬空間）等。英國的學(xué)者擔(dān)心英語會(huì)失控，有人想成立一個(gè)有權(quán)威的學(xué)會(huì)，決定哪些詞匯合適，哪些詞匯不合適。 17 That