來源于《圖書和藝術》版塊
Johnson
《約翰遜》語言專欄
The Roman way
羅馬精神
Latin is dead—yet, as Italian (and French, and Spanish), it lives on
拉丁語已經消亡了，但是，它仍然以意大利語(法語和西班牙語)的形式存在
Cicero, the Roman statesman whose prose is thought to represent the peak of style in Latin, was also a bit of a snob about it. Few others, he complained in a tome written in 46bc, used the language properly any more. His gripes would be worse today. At a recent mass at the Vatican attended by your columnist, some of the Latin used by Pope Francis was impeccable. But much of it was downright dismal; it would have been incomprehensible to Cicero. Strangely, the pope’s remarks were translated into several other species of terrible Latin.
西塞羅是羅馬政治家，其散文被認為時拉丁語風格頂峰的代表，他本人對此也有點自命不凡。他在一部寫于公元前46年的大部頭著作中抱怨說，很少有人再正確地使用這種語言了。要是今天他可能抱怨更多。在本專欄作家最近在梵蒂岡參加的一次彌撒上，方濟各教皇使用的一些拉丁語是無懈可陳的。但大部分情況下拉丁語的使用不盡人意；這對西塞羅來說是無法理解的。奇怪的是，教皇的話被翻譯成其他幾種糟糕的拉丁語。
That is because the pope’s dismal Latin is also known as “Italian”. Francis’s native language, Spanish, is another kind of deformed Latin. The French in which his interpreter greeted some of the faithful is yet another variety.
這是因為教皇所講的沒落的拉丁語也被稱為“意大利語”。弗朗西斯的母語西班牙語是另一種變形的拉丁語。他的翻譯問候一些忠實的信徒時使用的法語，這是另一種變體。
Family trees of languages typically show Spanish, French and Italian descending from Latin in the same way that you are descended from your mother. But this is misleading. There was no birth of Italian, nor any definitive death of Latin. Instead, there were centuries of infinitesimal changes. Those who noticed them would, like Cicero, have considered them mistakes. But most people didn’t care, which is how such tweaks took hold, and spread. As they accumulated, Latin did not create Italian and its sister languages. It became them.
語言的家譜通常顯示，西班牙語、法語和意大利語是從拉丁語演變而來的，如同你是你母親的后裔一樣。但這是一種誤導。沒有意大利語的誕生，也沒有確切的拉丁語的消亡。然而，卻經歷了幾個世紀的微小變化。那些注意到它們的人，會像西塞羅一樣，認為它們是錯誤的。但大多數人并不在意，這就是這種調整是如何生根發芽并傳播開來的。隨著變化的累積，并不是拉丁語創造了意大利語和姊妹語言。而是演變成了這些語言。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
評論
打印
