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第一段
1 .Right, everyone, let’s make a start.
好了，各位，我们开始吧。
2 .Over the past few sessions, we’ve been considering the reasons why some world languages are in decline, and today I’m going to introduce another factor that affects languages, and the speakers of those languages, and that’s technology and, in particular, digital technology.
在过去的几次课程中，我们一直在考虑一些世界语言衰落的原因，今天我要介绍另一个影响语言和使用这些语言的人的因素，那就是技术，特别是数字技术。
3 .In order to illustrate its effect, I’m going to focus on the Icelandic language, which is spoken by around 321,000 people, most of whom live in Iceland – an island in the North Atlantic Ocean.
为了说明它的影响，我将重点介绍冰岛语，大约有32.1万人说冰岛语，其中大多数人生活在北大西洋的一个岛屿——冰岛
4 .The problem for this language is not the number of speakers – even though this number is small.
这种语言的问题不在于说这种语言的人的数量——尽管这个数字很小。
5 .Nor is it about losing words to other languages, such as English.
也不是因为其词汇被英语等其他语言替代。
6 .In fact, the vocabulary of Icelandic is continually increasing because when speakers need a new word for something, they tend to create one, rather than borrowing from another language.
事实上，冰岛语的词汇量在不断增加，因为当说话者需要一个新词来表达某事时，他们往往会创造一个新词，而不是从另一种语言中借用。
7 .All this makes Icelandic quite a special language – it’s changed very little in the past millennium, yet it can handle twenty-first-century concepts related to the use of computers and digital technology.
所有这些都使冰岛语成为一门特殊的语言——在过去的千年里，冰岛语几乎没有什么变化，但它却能处理与计算机和数字技术使用有关的21世纪的概念。
8 .Take, for example, the word for web browser … this is vafri in Icelandic, which comes from the verb ‘to wander’.
例如，网页浏览器这个词在冰岛语中是vafri，来自动词“徘徊”。
9 .I can’t think of a more appropriate term because that’s exactly what you do mentally when you browse the internet.
我想不出一个更合适的词，因为这正是你浏览互联网时的心理活动。
10 .Then there’s an Icelandic word for podcast – which is too hard to pronounce! And so on.
冰岛语中有一个词是播客的意思，这个词很难发音!如此种种。
11 .Icelandic, then, is alive and growing, but – and it’s a big but – young Icelanders spend a great deal of time in the digital world and this world is predominantly English.
因此，冰岛语其实是有生命力的，并且在不断发展。 但是，不容忽视的是，冰岛的年轻人会花大量时间沉浸于数字世界，而在这个世界中，英语才是主流语言。
12 .Think about smartphones.
想想智能手机。
13 .They didn’t even exist until comparatively recently, but today young people use them all the time to read books, watch TV or films, play games, listen to music, and so on.
直到最近才被发明出来，但今天的年轻人一直在使用它们来读书，看电视或电影，玩游戏，听音乐，等等。
14 .Obviously, this is a good thing in many respects because it promotes their bilingual skills, but the extent of the influence of English in the virtual world is staggering and it’s all happening really fast.
显然，这在很多方面都是一件好事，因为这可以提升他们的双语技能，但英语在虚拟世界中的影响力是惊人的，而且发展速度非常快。
15 .For their parents and grandparents, the change is less concerning because they already have their native-speaker skills in Icelandic.
对他们的父母和祖父母来说，这种变化不太令人担忧，因为他们已经掌握了以冰岛语为母语的技能。
16 .But for young speakers – well, the outcome is a little troubling.
但是对于年轻人来说——嗯……这结果有些令人担忧。
17 .For example, teachers have found that playground conversations in Icelandic secondary schools can be conducted entirely in English, while teachers of much younger children have reported situations where their classes find it easier to say what is in a picture using English, rather than Icelandic.
比如教师们发现，在冰岛的中学操场上，学生们可以完全用英语进行交流。而教授低龄儿童的老师则表示，相比于使用冰岛语，班里的孩子们觉得用英文描述图片的内容更容易。
18 .The very real and worrying consequence of all this is that the young generation in Iceland is at risk of losing its mother tongue.
所有这一切的真实而令人担忧的后果是，冰岛的年轻一代面临着失去母语的风险。
第二段
1 .Of course, this is happening to other European languages too, but while internet companies might be willing to offer, say, French options in their systems, it’s much harder for them to justify the expense of doing the same for a language that has a population the size of a French town, such as Nice.
当然，其他欧洲语言也面临这种情况。尽管互联网公司可能会在他们开发的系统中提供法语选项，但对于使用者只有法国尼斯城人口那么少的小语种，公司会认为没必要花同样的钱将它（和法语一样）加入到系统当中。
2 .The other drawback of Icelandic is the grammar, which is significantly more complex than in most languages.
冰岛语的另一个缺点是语法，它比大多数语言要复杂得多。
3 .At the moment, the tech giants are simply not interested in tackling this.
目前，科技巨头对解决这个问题根本不感兴趣。
4 .So, what is the Icelandic government doing about this?
那么，冰岛政府在做什么呢?
5 .Well, large sums of money are being allocated to a language technology fund that it is hoped will lead to the development of Icelandic sourced apps and other social media and digital systems, but clearly this is going to be an uphill struggle.
嗯，他们投资了一大笔钱成立了一个语言技术基金，希望它能引导以冰岛语为源的应用程序和其他社交媒体和数字系统的发展，但显然这将是一场艰苦的斗争。
6 .On the positive side, they know that Icelandic is still the official language of education and government.
积极的一面是，他们知道冰岛语仍然是教育和政府的官方语言。
7 .It has survived for well over a thousand years and the experts predict that its future in this nation state is sound and will continue to be so.
它已经存在了一千多年，专家预测，它在这个国家的地位依然稳固，并将继续如此。
8 .However, there’s no doubt that it’s becoming an inevitable second choice in young people’s lives.
然而，毫无疑问，它正不可避免地成为年轻人生活中的第二选择。
9 .This raises important questions.
这引出了一些重要的问题。
10 .When you consider how much of the past is tied up in a language, will young Icelanders lose their sense of their own identity?
一种语言与（一个地方的）传统和历史有着密切联系。考虑到这一点，冰岛的年轻人会不会（因为失去母语能力而）失去他们自身的认同感？
11 .Another issue that concerns the government of Iceland is this.
另一个与冰岛政府有关的问题是。
12 .If children are learning two languages through different routes, neither of which they are fully fluent in, will they be able to express themselves properly?
如果孩子通过不同的途径学习两种语言，其中任何一种他们都不能完全流利掌握，他们能正确地表达自己吗?