AOf all mankind's manifold creations, language must take pride of place. Other inventions - the wheel, agriculture, sliced bread - may have transformed our material existence, but the advent of language is what made us human. Compared to language, all other inventions pale in significance, since everything we have ever achieved depends on language and originates from it. Without language, we could never have embarked on our ascent to unparalleled power over all other animals, and even over nature itself.
A 在人类所有各种各样的创造品中，语言必定占有最重要的地位。其他发明——车轮、农耕、切片面包——也许彻底改变了我们的物质生活，但语言的进步才是真正使得我们称其为人的关键所在。与语言相比，所有其他发明在重要性上都会黯然失色，因为我们所取得的一切成就都有赖于语言并且源自于它。如果没有语言，我们人类永远不可能登上凌驾所有其他动物、甚至驾驭大自然本身的高高位置。
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BBut language is foremost not just because it came first. In its own right it is a tool of extraordinary sophistication, yet based on an idea of ingenious simplicity: 'this marvellous invention of composing out of twenty-five or thirty sounds that infinite variety of expressions which, whilst having in themselves no likeness to what is in our mind, allow us to disclose to others its whole secret, and to make known to those who cannot penetrate it all that we imagine, and all the various stirrings of our soul'. This was how, in 1660, the renowned French grammarians of the Port- Royal abbey near Versailles distilled the essence of language, and no one since has celebrated more eloquently the magnitude of its achievement. Even so, there is just one flaw in all these hymns of praise, for the homage to language's unique accomplishment conceals a simple yet critical incongruity. Language is mankind's greatest invention – except, of course, that it was never invented. This apparent paradox is at the core of our fascination with language, and it holds many of its secrets.
B 但是语言之所以地位至高无上，并不仅仅因为它的先来先到。就其本身而言它是一种极其精密复杂的工具，然而其基础理念却又简单纯粹得令人称奇：“这项奇妙的发明利用二十五或三十种发音组合出了那样无穷无尽的表达方式，这些发音自身虽然与我们心中所想并无相似之处，却使得我们可以借此向其他人展露出心中的全部秘密，令那些原本无法透视我们心灵的他人知晓我们全部的想象意念，以及我们灵魂中所有的震颤悸动。”这就是在：1660年，位于凡尔赛附近Port-Royal修道院中那些著名的法语语法大师们所用来精炼地阐释语言精髓的措辞，自那以来再也没有其他人能用更加雄辩的方式来高度赞颂语言所取得成就的辉煌灿烂、举足轻重了。即便如此，在所有这些赞颂之词中还是存在着一个问题，因为对于语言之独一无二成就的敬辞掩盖了一个简单却又至关重要的不一致性。语言是人类最伟大的发明——只除了，当然了，它根本不是被发明的。这种显而易见的悖论正是我们惊叹着迷于语言的核心原因，它包含着语言自身的许多秘密。
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CLanguage often seems so skillfully drafted that one can hardly imagine it as anything other than the perfected handiwork of a master craftsman. How else could this instrument make so much out of barely three dozen measly morsels of sound? In themselves, these configurations of mouth – p, f, b, v, t, d, k, g, sh, a, e and so on – amount to nothing more than a few haphazard spits and splutters, random noises with no meaning, no ability to express, no power to explain. But run them through the cogs and wheels of the language machine, let it arrange them in some very special orders, and there is nothing that these meaningless streams of air cannot do: from sighing the interminable boredom of existence to unravelling the fundamental order of the universe.
C 语言通常看起来如此匠心机巧、精密完善，除了将它视作某个天才大师的完美设计之外简直无法再做他想。如若不然，这个工具是如何能用捉襟见肘的二三十个细碎音素拼凑出如此丰富意义的?如果单凭它们自己，这些不同口部形状所发出来的声音——p, f, b, v, t, d, k, g, sh, a, e等等——只不过是些随意的吞吐之声，没有任何含义的偶然声响，没有能力表达思想，没有力量解释说明。但是把它们送进语言机器的齿轮转动之中，让它用一些非常特殊的顺序将它们排列组合一番，就没有什么是这些原本毫无意义的气流所不能做到的了：从叹息生活那看似没完没了的无聊平淡，到破解宇宙的基本秩序。
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DThe most extraordinary thing about language, however, is that one doesn't have to be a genius to set its wheels in motion. The language machine allows just about everybody - from pre-modern foragers in the subtropical savannah, to post-modern philosophers in the suburban sprawl - to tie these meaningless sounds together into an infinite variety of subtle senses, and all apparently without the slightest exertion. Yet it is precisely this deceptive ease which makes language a victim of its own success, since in everyday life its triumphs are usually taken for granted. The wheels of language run so smoothly that one rarely bothers to stop and think about all the resourcefulness and expertise that must have gone into making it tick. Language conceals art.
D 然而，语言的最为非比寻常之处，在于任何人都不需要天赋异禀才能让它的齿轮开始运转。语言机器允许每个人——无论是亚热带稀树草原上过着原始生活的狩猎采集者，还是城郊杂户区里的后现代哲学家——都能将这些无意义的声音联系起来，进行无穷无尽的组合以表达各种微妙的感受，并且全程显然不费吹灰之力。然而正是这种具有欺骗性的看似轻而易举性使得语言成了其自身成功的受害者，因为在日常生活中它的种种辉煌成就通常被人们视作了理所应当。语言的机轮转动得如此平顺，以至于我们很少会费心去停下来思考一下：要让它顺利运转，其背后必定是动用了多少随机应变与精密技巧。语言掩盖住了艺术。
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EOften, it is only the estrangement of foreign tongues, with their many exotic and outlandish features, that brings home the wonder of language's design. One of the showiest stunts that some languages can pull off is an ability to build up words of breath-breaking length, and thus express in one word what English takes a whole sentence to say. The Turkish word ,sheirlili,stiremediklerimizdensiniz, to take one example, means nothing less than 'you are one of those whom we can't turn into a town-dweller'. (In case you were wondering, this monstrosity really is one word, not merely many different words squashed together - most of its components cannot even stand up on their own.)
E 通常，只有当遭遇了陌生的外来语言，体会了它们的许多稀奇古怪和不同之处，我们才开始意识到语言的设计精妙之处。有一些语言能够展示出来的最今人叹为观止的特色之一，是能够搭建起某些长得无法一口气读完的单词，由此用一个单词就能表达英语需要用一整个句子才能说出来的意思。举一个例子来说明，土耳其词汇sehirmisriremediklerirnizdensiniz表示的意思是“你就是这样一个我们怎么都没法改造成乡镇人的家伙。”(请不要疑惑，这个看着吓人的字眼真的只是一个单词，而并非是许多不同的词汇被强行挤压在了一起——这个单词中的许多组成部分甚至不能独立构成某一个词。)。
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FAnd if that sounds like some one-off freak, then consider Sumerian, the language spoken on the banks of the Euphrates some 5,000 years ago by the people who invented writing and thus enabled the documentation of history. A Sumerian word like munintuma'a ('when he had made it suitable for her') might seem rather trim compared to the Turkish colossus above. What is so impressive about it, however, is not its lengthiness but rather the reverse - the thrifty compactness of its construction. The word is made up of different slots, each corresponding to a particular portion of meaning. This sleek design allows single sounds to convey useful information, and in fact even the absence of a sound has been enlisted to express something specific. If you were to ask which bit in the Sumerian word corresponds to the pronoun 'it' in the English translation 'when he had made it suitable for her', then the answer would have to be nothing. Mind you, a very particular kind of nothing: the nothing that stands in the empty slot in the middle. The technology is so fine-tuned then that even a non-sound, when carefully placed in a particular position, has been invested with a specific function. Who could possibly have come up with such a nifty contraption?
F 如果上面那个例子听起来像是某个例外性的怪胎，那么请考虑一下苏美尔语，讲这种语言的人们在大约5000年前住在幼发拉底河两岸，他们发明了书写并由此开创了书面的历史记载。像munintuma’a(当他为她把它准备合适了以后)这样的一个苏美尔词汇若是与上面那个庞然大物的土耳其字眼相比，可能会显得相当简洁。然而，它之所以如此令人惊叹，并非它的冗长而是恰恰相反——正是其语义构建的紧凑简约。这个单词由不同的片段组成，每个片段对应一部分语义。这种先进流畅的设计使得单个发音也可以传达出有用信息，而且实际上即使某个没有发出来的音都可以用以表达某些特定含义。如果你要问，在一个可以翻译成英语句子“当他为她把它准备合适了以后”的苏美尔单词中，哪一个部分对应于“它”这个意思，那么答案只能是“没有”。不过你要注意了，这是一种非常特定性的没有：是位于单词片段之间的空白之处的没有。也就是说，这门语言技术己经如此精编细制，甚至是一个没有发出来的声音，当它被仔细放置在某个特定位置的时候，都被赋予了一个具体的功能。究竟是什么人发明了这样一项奇妙的装置呢?