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The world's language is Globish 主宰世界的环球语

May 27th 2010 | From The Economist print edition





Globish: How the English Language Became the World’s Language. 环球语：英语是如何成为世界语言的



By Robert McCrum. W.W. Norton; 310 pages; $26.95. Viking; £20. Buy from Amazon.com,Amazon.co.uk



ENGLISH is what matters. It has displaced rivals to become the language of diplomacy, of business, of science, of the internet and of world culture. Many more people speak Chinese—but even they, in vast numbers, are trying to learn English. So how did it happen, and why? Robert McCrum’s entertaining book tells the story of the triumph of English—and the way in which the language is now liberated from its original owners.



英语是什么。它已经在外交，商务，科学，互联网和世界文化的舞台上取代了对手成为世界语言。世界上最多的人说的是中文，但即使是他们，也有相当数量的群体在努力学英语。那这些都是怎么发生，为什么发生的呢？罗伯特•麦克拉姆的那本有趣的书向读者讲述了一条英语从它最初的使用者那里走向解放的崛起之路。



The author’s knack for finding nuggets enriches what might otherwise seem a rather panoramic take on world history from Tacitus to Twitter. Take the beginnings of bilingualism in India, for






example, which has stoked the growth of the biggest English-speaking middle class in the new Anglosphere. That stems from a proposal by an English historian, Thomas Macaulay, in 1835, to train a new class of English speakers: “A class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect.” At a stroke, notes Mr McCrum, English became the “language of government, education and advancement, at once a symbol of imperial rule as well as of self-improvement”. India’s English-speaking middle class is now one of the engines of that country’s development and a big asset in the race to catch up with China.



作者的能力在于，能以从塔西佗到推特，这段不同视角的跨度中发掘金块，从而以全景的面貌的丰富了世界历史。作者的开篇以使用双语的印度为例，描述了这个国家的中产阶级在新盎格鲁集团中，是世界上增长最快并且最大的英语使用者组群。然而，这源于英国历史学家、托马斯·麦考利的一项提案。在1835年，他在培训一个新的英语学习班时说“在人类的等级分化中，印度以前是以血统和肤色来判定的，而英国人则是以品味，主张，品行和智慧来决定的”。就在麦考利先生评价后，一转眼的功夫，“一旦这门帝国般语言有了自我的修缮的能力，英语便会主宰政府，教育和社会的进步。”在印度，使用英语的中产阶级现在不仅是国家发展的引擎，同时也是在与中国竞争时巨大的资产优势。



Bit by bit, English displaced French from diplomacy and German from science. The reason for this was America’s rise and the lasting bonds created by the British empire. But the elastic, forgiving nature of the language itself was another. English allows plenty of sub-variants, from Singlish in Singapore to Estglish in Estonia: the main words are familiar, but plenty of new ones dot the lexicon, along with idiosyncratic grammar and syntax.

英语逐渐地在外交上代替了法语，在科学上代替了德语。这些现象是由于美国的崛起和大英帝国一手缔造的永久镣铐。而作为语言所特有的灵活和包容的天性又是另一方面的原因。英语能容忍大量的次级变体，从新加坡的新加坡式英语到爱沙尼亚的爱沙尼亚式英语。虽然其主要的词汇是相近的，但有大量冲破了语法和句法限制的新生词汇已经出现在词典上了。

Mr McCrum hovers over this point, but does not nail it. English as spoken by non-natives is different. The nuanced, idiomatic English of Britons, North Americans, Antipodeans (and Indians) can be hard to understand. Listen to a Korean businessman negotiating with a Pole in English and you will hear the difference: the language is curt, emphatic, stripped-down. Yet within “Globish”, as Mr McCrum neatly names it, hierarchies are developing. Those who can make jokes (or flirt) in Globish score over those who can’t. Expressiveness counts, in personal and professional life.

虽然麦考利先生只停留在了他的观点上，但是并没有钉死它。对于非英语语系的使用者的来说，英语是不同于其母语的。细微的差别实是，北美人和印度人可能难以听懂英国英语的习语。听一听韩国商人和波兰人用英语的谈判，你就会知道一些不同：这门语言风格是简短，明确而又下拉式的。虽然麦考利先生优美地命名它为“环球语”，但其等级制度仍在发展。谁都可以对环球语开玩笑（或是调侃），但却没人敢造次地评价环球语。无论是在个人或是专业领域，环球语表现还都是可圈可点的



The big shift is towards a universally useful written Globish. Spellchecking and translation software mean that anyone can communicate in comprehensible written English. That skill once






required mastery of orthographical codes and subtle syntax acquired over years. The English of e-mail, Twitter and text messaging is becoming far more mutually comprehensible than spoken English, which is fractured by differences in pronunciation, politeness and emphasis. Mr McCrum aptly names the new lingo “a thoroughfare for all thoughts”. Perhaps he should have written that chapter in Globish, to show its strengths—and limitations.



对于环球语来说，最大的转变是其正朝着广泛并实用的书面体的方向发展。拼写检查和翻译软件的使用，意味着任何人都可以通过书面英语的方式，来理解并相互交流，英语曾经需要精通的拼法准则和微妙的句法，而这些技能得需要很多年的积累。在电子邮件、推特和短信的使用中，英语正变得比口语还容易理解，并且不用过分纠结于发音，文雅的措词和重音上。麦考利先生贴切地形容的环球语是“所有思维的通道”。或许，他应该写一篇关于环球语文章，来列举一下它的优点和缺陷。

References

塔西佗

普布里乌斯•克奈里乌斯•塔西佗(Publius Cornelius Tacitus)

塔西佗(Tacitus，约A.D.55～120年)是古代罗马最伟大的历史学家，他继承并发展了李维的史学传统和成就，在罗马史学上的地位犹如修昔底德在希腊史学上的地位

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