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The consequences of eating are of abiding interest to British travellers of old.
用餐后的感受一直是舊時英國旅行者感興趣的問題。
After the food, Leek’s Italian offers the regretful: “I feel qualmish, sick.”
吃完飯后，利克用意大利語表達(dá)了失望：“我感到不安、惡心。”
No destination is without its particular intestinal anxiety.
不同旅行的目的地都有其獨(dú)特的“腸道焦慮”。
“After vomiting his food,” explains one physiologically intriguing entry in an old Korean manual, “his constipation was relieved.”
“在嘔吐之后，”很久以前的韓語手冊中一條有趣的生理學(xué)條目寫道，“他的便秘緩解了。”
A 1903 medical phrasebook for Luganda, a Bantu language, offers the unexplained but authoritative: “Keep everything you vomit.”
1903年，一本班圖語系盧甘達(dá)語的醫(yī)學(xué)術(shù)語手冊中寫到了一句原因不明但看起來十分篤定的話：“把你的嘔吐物都留下。”
To judge by these publications, the Briton abroad must have cut a strange figure.
從這些出版物來判斷，海外的英國人一定塑造了什么奇怪的形象。
Many position themselves as aids to conversation.
許多常用語手冊對自己的定位是“對話的助手”。
The 1909 “Manual of Palestinian Arabic”, for example, explains that its sample sentences “will, it is hoped, be useful to the traveller in his hotel” and “may conceivably be of use in daily life”.
例如，1909年的《巴勒斯坦阿拉伯語手冊》表示其例句“或許能幫助旅行者順利住店”，并“相信其可以在日常生活中使用”。
The book’s phrases include: “We reached the precipice and saw him fall down”; “He died before we found him”; and the gnomic “Gargle twice daily.”
這本書中提到的常用語包括：“我們到了懸崖邊，看到他摔了下去”；“他在我們找到他之前就死了”；以及發(fā)人深省的“每天刷兩次牙”。
Conversation will have hung heavy in the foyers of Jerusalem.
對話會在耶路撒冷的門廳里緩慢進(jìn)行。
Books from the colonial era are unintentionally telling.
殖民時代的書籍無意中證明了這一點(diǎn)。
History books tend to concentrate on the obvious moments of imperial brutality - on war and rebellion.
歷史書籍往往會關(guān)注帝國的殘暴時刻——戰(zhàn)爭和叛亂。
Phrasebooks offer the chance to eavesdrop on quieter colonial cruelties in the drawing rooms of empire.
常用語書籍則讓我們可以有機(jī)會窺見帝國的客廳里更平靜的殖民暴行。
“Hold your tongue!”
“閉嘴！
barks one phrase in a 1908 “Hindustani Self-Taught” manual.
1908年的一本《印度斯坦語自學(xué)手冊》中有一句話叫道。
“Beat that lazy boy” snaps an entry in another guide.
另一本指南書中有一句寫道：“打敗那個懶漢”。
Many phrasebooks remained in use for a surprisingly long time.
許多常用語書流傳了很長時間。
When Elisabeth Kendall, the mistress of Girton College, Cambridge, studied Arabic at Oxford University in the early 1990s, she did so using grammar books that dated back to 1859 (“The cow’s tongue is long” was a typical phrase).
上世紀(jì)90年代初，劍橋大學(xué)吉頓學(xué)院的女教師伊麗莎白·肯德爾在牛津大學(xué)學(xué)習(xí)阿拉伯語時，使用的是可追溯到1859年的語法書(“牛的舌頭很長”是一個常用短語)。
She retains a linguist’s affection for their methodology.
作為語言學(xué)家，她喜歡這些作者編寫書籍的方法。
Some phrases may have lacked practical utility but often illustrated “a grammatical construction in the simplest possible way” - and they were memorable.
有些短語可能缺乏實用價值，但往往“以最簡單的方式說明了一種語法結(jié)構(gòu)”，并且令人記憶深刻。
Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, agrees.
哈佛大學(xué)心理學(xué)教授史蒂文·平克對此表示贊同。
A language, he says, “is not a list of phrases”.
他說，一門語言“不是一系列短語的組合”。
The impracticality of some entries may have been intentional so “speakers would not be locked into canned expressions in stereotyped situations”.
有些詞條可能是故意寫得很不切實際，這樣“在說話時就不會因為刻板印象而拘于格式化的表達(dá)”。
The fading genre of the phrasebook is unlikely to be missed.
常用語手冊不會靜悄悄地消亡。
But something will be lost when it is gone.
但隨著它的消失，其它一些東西也會跟著逝去。
Poetry, Robert Frost supposedly said, is what gets lost in translation.
據(jù)說羅伯特·弗羅斯特曾說過，詩就是在翻譯中喪失掉的東西。
Read these books’ dislocated phrases and poetry can be found in it, too.
這些書中錯位的短語間也可以找到詩意。
“Owing to the road being slippery I nearly fell / Ten years ago / Come here,” runs one T.S.Eliotish section in a 1894 Tai-Khamti Grammar.
“由于路滑，我差點(diǎn)摔倒/十年前/來這里，”這是1894年《坎底傣語文法》中T.S.艾略特風(fēng)格的一小部分內(nèi)容。
The last words go to entries in an English-Kashmiri manual: “I am now composing a grammar/ I don’t exactly comprehend this…/ It is time to conclude.”
最后這句話出現(xiàn)在一本英語-克什米爾語手冊中：“我現(xiàn)在正在編寫語法規(guī)則/并不能完全理解……/是時候結(jié)束了。”
