評論
打印
The Welsh language
威爾士語
Dragonian measures
龍之旋律
Government meddling has created a new Welsh dialect
政府干預創(chuàng)造了一種新威爾士方言
Pay attention if you want a good job
要想得到好工作可得注意啦
IN THE Blue Boar, a pub so local that the landlord is surprised to hear its sign is missing, Roy Thomas picks up a text from his grandson. It contains the word “brechdanau”, meaning sandwiches. A Welsh speaker, Mr Thomas knows the word, but only because he has read it in old books. “I'll probably text back in English,” he says. “Otherwise I'll make a mistake.”
在一家名為Blue Boar的地方酒吧里，店主對于其店名正在逐漸喪失含義而感到吃驚。羅伊·托馬斯從他孫子的課本里挑出了一段文章，里面包含著“brechdanau”這個單詞，意為“三明治”。作為一名講威爾士語的人，托馬斯知道這個詞的意思，但僅僅因為他曾在舊書里看過。他說：“我也許會將它改成英語，不然我會犯錯的。”
Wales's native language is in decline. Between 2001 and 2011 the proportion of people in the principality who speak it fell from 21% to 19%, with the steepest decline in its rural northern and western heartland. Native Welsh-speakers continue to leave for work, to be replaced, in those beautiful districts, by English retirees. But a new kind of Welsh language is rising, giving hope to some and perplexing others.
威爾士的本土語言正在衰落。在2001年到2011年間，講方言的人比率從21%降到了19%，以北部農(nóng)業(yè)區(qū)和西部中心區(qū)衰落最為明顯。當?shù)卣f威爾士方言的人不斷離開家鄉(xiāng)外出工作，取而代之的是，英格蘭退休者們來到了這些美麗的區(qū)域。但一種新的威爾士方言正在崛起，這讓一些人燃起了希望，也讓一些人困惑不解。
Welsh identity is linked to the Welsh language—far more than, say, Scottishness is linked to Gaelic—and the devolved government has done much to promote it. Almost a quarter of primary schoolchildren in Wales are now taught mostly in Welsh, and the proportion is steadily rising. Civil-service and media jobs often require it. As a result, the language is holding on, and sometimes even growing, in traditionally Anglophone south Wales, particularly in and around Cardiff, where politics and the media are clustered.
威爾士的身份認同與威爾士語是聯(lián)系在一起的—這種聯(lián)系比蘇格蘭語與蓋爾人之間的聯(lián)系更加緊密——當?shù)卣矠榘l(fā)揚威爾士語做出了不小的努力。在威爾士，近四分之一的小學生接受的是威爾士語教學，這個比例還在穩(wěn)步上升。市政服務和媒體工作也通常會對這方面有要求。其結果就是在傳統(tǒng)的以英語為母語的南威爾士地區(qū)，這種語言延續(xù)下來了，有時還呈回暖趨勢，尤其是在政治、媒體聚集的加的夫。
But the Welsh that can be heard in schools and that is spoken by the sports commentators on the Blue Boar's small television set is different from the kind that many native speakers grew up with. A standardisation centre at Bangor University has added new words, such as “cyfrifiadur” for computer. Old words that had fallen out of use in many parts, like “brechdanau”, have been revived. Grammar is more English and less complicated.
但是人們在學校聽到的、在Blue Boar酒吧的小電視機聽到體育評論員講的威爾士語和本地人從小聽到大的威爾士語還有些不同。班戈大學的標準化中心在其中加入了新的單詞，比如說表示電腦的“cyfrifiadur”。一些地方不再使用的古詞，比如“brechdanau”，已重新進入使用。語法方面也更近英語化，不再那么復雜了。
The new Welsh also sounds different. The second syllable of “tadau” (fathers) now has an a-sound in the north and an e-sound in the south. But in the 16th century it sounded something like the English “die”, and this is the way the new speakers have it. This is also the way the word is read out loud: written Welsh emerged when the Bible was translated in 1588, and preserves the ancient pronunciation.
新的威爾士語在發(fā)音方面也不一樣了。“tadau”的第二個音節(jié)如今在北方有個“a”的音，在南方有“e”的音。而在16世紀，這個音聽起來像是英語的“die”，這是新一代講威爾士語的人所采取的讀音。這也是官方讀音：在1588年翻譯圣經(jīng)時出現(xiàn)了書面威爾士語，保留了古老的讀音。
Not everybody is delighted with the new lingo. “So bloody fake”, mutters the Blue Boar's landlord at the television, while local comedians like Daniel Glyn mock the clunky phrases on stage: “I can speak English and Welsh, but neither of them proper, bach.” Jonathan Snicker of St John's College, Oxford, says the change breaks the link between older villagers and the urbane young, who can struggle to understand each other.
并不是每個人都樂于接受新的方言。電視里地方喜劇演員丹尼爾·格林在臺上嘲弄笨拙的語句說：“我能說英語和威爾士語，但兩種都不好，伙計。”看到這一幕時，Blue Boar酒吧的店主嘟噥道：“簡直虛偽做作！”牛津圣約翰大學的喬納森·思尼克說這種變化割斷了老一輩村民和生活在城市的年輕人之間的聯(lián)系，他們需要費一番勁才能理解對方。
But Colin Nosworthy, a spokesman for the Welsh Language Board, points out that the birth of a new dialect is a good sign for a language. “Better a slack Welsh than a slick English,” he says—and many agree. Efforts are being made to spread the new dialect to a belt above Swansea, where Welsh is doing particularly badly. S4C, the Welsh-language broadcaster, is moving from Cardiff to Carmarthen taking Welsh-speakers with it. This year's Eisteddfod, a cultural festival, is in nearby Llanelli.
但威爾士語言委員會的發(fā)言人科林·諾維斯指出，一種新方言的誕生對一種語言來說是一個好的跡象。他說：“半拉子威爾士語總比流暢的英語好。”很多人都同意這一點。各方正在付諸努力將新方言傳播到斯旺西海灣一帶，那里的威爾士語很不得到重視。威爾士語廣播S4C正在從加的夫轉移到喀麥登，追隨它的還有一批講威爾士語的人。今年的文化盛會詩歌音樂比賽會將在拉內(nèi)利附近舉行。
There are worse ways of trying to preserve a language, some of which are also being tried in Wales. A planned nuclear power station in Anglesey has run into opposition from people who worry that many of the 6,000 construction jobs would go to non-Welsh speakers, diluting the language. Protests from the same quarters have held up the building of 8,000 homes in Gwynedd. A few awkward phrases from schoolchildren seems like a relatively small price to pay.
在保留語言方面有很多糟糕的方法，而威爾士正在嘗試其中一些。一原計劃在安格爾西島建設的核電站遭到了人們的抵制，他們認為這項需6，000人的建筑工作大部分將由不講威爾士語的人完成，這將削弱威爾士語。同一季度的抗議使得格溫內(nèi)思郡8,000住宅的建設計劃擱淺了。這么看來學生的幾句不正宗詞句似乎代價相對較小。
