評論
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Narrator:Listen to part of a lecture in a linguistics class.
獨白:聽下面一段語言學的課程。
Professor:All right, so far we have been looking at some of the core areas of linguistics, like syntax, phonology, semantics, and these are things that we can study by looking at one language at a time, how sounds, and words, and sentences work in a given language.
教授:好的，一直到現在，我們的注意力都集中在語言學的核心領域，包括句法，詞法，語義等一次只需要關注一門語言的領域，即語音、詞匯和句子是如何在一門語言中協同工作的。
But the branch of historical linguistics, involves the comparison of several different languages, or the comparison of different stages of a single language.
但是，歷史語言學與之前的教學內容有區別:它涉及到多種語言的共時比較，或者一門語言的歷時發展研究。
Now, if you are comparing different languages, and you notice that they have a lot in common.
比如，假設我們現在要比較好幾門語言，而且我們注意到他們之間的聯系。
Maybe they have similar sounds and words that correspond to one another that have the same meaning and that sound similar.
可能，它們有相同的語音，某些詞匯之間有相同的意義和讀音。
Let's use a real-world example.
現在我們就用真實存在的語言來解釋語言之間的聯系吧！
In the 18th century, scholars who have studied the ancient languages, Sanskrit, Latin and Greek, noticed that these three languages had many similarities.
18 世紀，在研究過閃米特語、拉丁語和古希臘語的古典語言的語言學家們，注意到這三種語言之間有特別多的聯系。
And there might be several reasons why languages such as these had so much in common.
而且，他們還提出幾條理由來解釋為何語言之間會有如此多的聯系:
Maybe it happened by chance; maybe one language was heavily influenced by borrowed words from the other.
可能這是機緣巧合，可能其中一種語言受到另一種語言很深程度的影響，可能一種語言從另一種語言中借來了很多東西。
Or maybe, maybe the languages developed from the same source language long ago, that is, maybe they are genetically related, that was what happened with Sanskrit, Latin and Greek.
或者，這幾種語言在很早以前是同一門語言，即它們在譜系上有相互關系。而最后一種解釋，就是閃族語、拉丁語與希臘語之間的聯系。
These languages had so many similarities that it was concluded that they must have all come from the same source.
這些語言之間額聯系是如此之多，以至于學者們一致認為它們同出一源。
And talk about important discoveries in linguistics, this was certainly one of them.
當我們談到語言學領域的重大進展時，無疑這就是其中一項。
The scholars referred to that source language as Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-European is a reconstructed language.
學者們把這三種語言稱為“原始印歐語系”；它是一門經過構擬之后得出的語言，
Meaning, it is what linguists concluded a parent language of Sanskrit, Latin and Greek would have to be like.
即它就是語言學家們構擬出來的、三門語言共同有的母語；
And Proto-Indo-European branched out into other languages, which evolved into others, so in the end, many languages spoken all over the world today can trace their ancestry back to one language, Proto-Indo-European, which was spoken several thousand years ago.
正是因為它的存在，這三門語言之間才能有如此多的相似之處。并且，“原始印歐語系”還和其他的語言之間相互交叉，而這些語言又和別的語言相聯系；總之，現今世界上流行的許多語言之間都可以溯源到一個共同的母語，即“原始印歐語”，它的使用時間大概是幾千年之前。
Now, one way of representing the evolution of languages, showing the way languages are related to each other, is with the family tree model.
現今語言學界發展出一種標記語言進化，顯示它們之間相互關系的方式，即語言家族譜系樹。
Like a family tree that you might use to trace back through generations of ancestors, only it's showing a family of genetic all related languages instead of people.
它就像一張你可以用來追溯到數代人以前家譜圖一樣，它也可以告訴我們幾門語言之間的相互關系。
A tree model for a language family starts with one language, which we call a mother language, for example, Proto-Indo-European.
這個模型的開端是一門共同的母語，譬如“原始印歐語”吧。
The mother language, is the line on the top of this diagram, over time, it branches off into new daughter languages, which branch into daughter languages of their own, and languages that have the same source, the same mother, are called sisters, they share a lot of characteristics, and this went on until we are looking at a big upside down tree languages like this.
這個母語位于整個族譜的頂端，隨著時間的演變，它分裂成為幾種新的語言，我們稱之為“姊妹語”，它們之間有許多共同特征。這種分裂趨勢不斷演化，直到形成目前這張倒置的樹圖所展示的局面。
It is incomplete of course, just to give you an idea. So that's the family tree model, basically.
當然這張圖是不完全的，只是給你們看一個大意。這大概就是樹圖的基本要領吧！
Now, the tree model is a convenient way of representing the development of a language family and of showing how closely related two of more languages are.
譜系樹圖是一種很直觀的展示方式，它明白地告訴我們同屬于一個家族的語言是如何發展的，兩種語言之間的關系緊密程度如何。
But it is obviously very simplified, having a whole language represented by just one branch on a tree doesn't really do justice to all the variations within that language.
但它明顯是很簡略的；利用一個分支來表示一門語言，并不能表明它在演化中發生的全部變化。
You know, Spanish that spoken in Spain isn't exactly the same as Spanish that is spoken in Mexico, for example.
同學們，你們想一想西班牙語的例子吧！歐洲西班牙人說的西班牙語，與墨西哥人說的西班牙語是不同的。
Another issue is that languages evolve very gradually, but the tree model makes it look like they evolve over night, like there was a distinct moment in time when a mother language clearly broke off into daughter languages.
譜系圖的另一個問題是，盡管事實上語言是漸變的，但是它展示出來的卻是語言的變化都是一夜之間完成的，似乎存在一個顯著的時間間隔，在此之前某幾種語言屬于同一種語言，在此之后它們就是獨立的幾種語言。
But it seems to me it probably wasn't quite like that.
但這在我看來，事實并非如此。
