Whatever uncertainties the US and Britain face, their language still rules the world.
无论美国和英国面对怎样的不确定性，它们使用的语言仍主宰着这个世界。
No scientist can flourish without publishing in English. When Germans trade with Brazilians, or Frenchmen with Angolans, they probably do so in English.
任何一位科学家都得用英语发表其研究成果，否则就不可能扬名立万。当德国人与巴西人、或法国人与安哥拉人做生意时，他们或许还得使用英语。
Goldman Sachs has predicted that China’s economy could overtake America’s by 2027. Yet, far from insisting that the world master their language, the Chinese are busily learning English, adding an estimated 20m speakers a year. Walt Disney, the US media group, has opened a chain of English-language schools for children in China.
高盛(Goldman Sachs)预测中国经济将在2027年前超过美国。然而，中国人压根就没坚持让世界掌握自己的语言，而是埋头苦学英语，每年新增约2000万会说英语的中国人。美国传媒集团沃尔特·迪斯尼公司(Walt Disney)在中国开设了专门针对儿童学习英语的连锁学校。
Like empires, however, all lingua francas eventually fade. None has had English’s worldwide currency, but some have been very widespread. Europe’s elite once wrote in Latin. In 100AD, a Greek speaker could travel from Spain to the Hindu Kush, finding people who spoke his language all along the way, Nicholas Ostler writes in The Last Lingua Franca.
然而，与历史上的那些帝国一样，所有世界通用语最终都会没落。还没有哪种语言达到过英语这样的全球流行度，但某些语言也曾广泛用。欧洲的精英阶层曾用拉丁文来写作。尼古拉斯·奥斯特勒(Nicholas Ostler)在其著作《最后的通用语言》(The Last Lingua Franca)中写道：公元100年时，希腊的演说家从西班牙游历到兴都库什地区(Hindu Kush)，发现沿途各地使用的都是希腊语。
In this erudite, stimulating book, Ostler traces languages’ rise and fall and asks: what could end English’s rule? Its ascent began with the British empire’s planting of English speakers around the world. The US extended the language’s reach with its economic and military might, its world-ranking universities and its leading position in technology and popular entertainment.
在这本旁征博引、引人入胜的著作中，奥斯特勒追根溯源了各种语言的兴衰，并提出了这样的问题：谁会终结英语一统天下的局面？英语的崛起，源于大英帝国的臣民在全球各地开疆拓土。而后，美国凭借其经济和军事实力、国际一流的大学以及在科技与大众娱乐方面独领风骚的地位，进一步扩大了英语的影响力。
Can worldwide English survive an eclipse of US economic and military dominance? I suspect English will be the world’s lingua franca for as long as anyone reading these words is still alive, if only because learning a language is so difficult and time-consuming. If English is to have a successor as the world’s language, millions of schoolchildren need to start learning it – and, as we have seen, they are learning English.
随着美国在经济和军事上的主宰地位逐渐丧失，作为全球语言的英语能否躲过这一“劫”呢？我觉得，在我的读者在世之日，英语仍将是全球通用语言，原因就是学习语言既耗时又费力。如果真有另一种语言来承继英语作为全球通用语言的衣钵，成千上万的学子又得开始学习这门语言——而正如我们所看到的那样，这些孩子眼下正在学习英语。
Mr Ostler argues, however, that there are cases of lingua francas disappearing within a few decades. The most striking example is the collapse of German as the world’s leading scientific language. By 1910, more work in the natural sciences was published in German than in English. By the middle of the century, Germany’s position had collapsed. It was not just defeat in two world wars. When the Nazis came to power, they dismissed one- third of Germany’s professors – most of them Jewish. The emigration of many – primarily to the US, the UK and the then-British mandate of Palestine – ensured the primacy of English as the language of science.
但奥斯特勒辩称，有些通用语言在短短几十年时间里就没落了。其中最突出的例子，就是德语从世界主要科技用语的神坛上跌落下来。直到 1910年，自然科学著作更多地是用德语、而非英语出版。到了20世纪中叶，德国的地位一落千丈。原因不仅是它在两次世界大战中战败。也是因为，纳粹一上台，就开除了德国三分之一的教授——其中大多数是犹太人。其中许多人移居海外——主要移居到了美国、英国以及当时英国的托管地巴勒斯坦——这使英语成为了首要的科技用语。
Those were extraordinary circumstances. Latin as a cross-border language lasted far longer: two millennia. It was still being used for civil administration in parts of central and eastern Europe in the 19th century.
这些属于特殊情况。拉丁语被各国广泛使用持续的时间要长得多：大约2000年。19世纪时，中东欧地区仍有一些国家在民政管理方面使用拉丁语。
Will English survive as long? Mr Ostler points out that its popularity is skin deep. Of the estimated 1.1bn who speak it, 71 per cent have it as their second language. For all its popularity, English is not acquiring many new native speakers. The decision to learn a lingua franca is pragmatic. If the need changes, so does the language. With the emerging economies increasingly trading with each other, will they eventually ask why they are talking in a language that – with the partial exceptions of India and South Africa – does not belong to them? With China buying so much of the world’s resources, why are their suppliers not negotiating with them in Mandarin? As the old saw has it, you buy in your own language but you sell in your customer’s.
英语也会与拉丁语一样经久不衰吗？奥斯特勒指出，英语的流行根基并不牢固。据估计，在全球11亿用英语的人之中，大约71%把英语作为第二语言使用。尽管英语广泛使用，但新增的以英语为母语的人却不多。学习通用语纯粹是出于实用目的。一旦需求发生变化，要学习的语言也会随之改变。随着新兴经济体之间的贸易往来日趋密切，它们最终是否会诘问：为何相互间（印度与南非除外）使用的语言，并不是彼此的母语？中国从世界各地进口了这么多的资源，为何供应商不用普通话与其进行谈判呢？老话说得好：买东西的时候用自己的语言，卖东西的时候则用顾客的语言。
Mr Ostler writes that while Mandarin could be used more in trade between China and Africa, there is no record of a language becoming a lingua franca without first being that of an empire. Instead, he offers a more radical proposition: English will be the last lingua franca.
奥斯特勒接下来写道，虽然汉语在中非贸易中可能会用得越来越多，但在一个国家未晋身“帝国”之际，其语言成为全球通用语的情况尚未有所闻。相反，他提出了一个更为激进的观点：英语将成为最后的世界通用语。
What precipitated Latin’s decline was a communications revolution. With printing’s rise, newly confident bourgeoisies began to write in their own languages. Mr Ostler says machines may do the same to English. Everyone will speak their own language and their computers will translate it into others’.
通信革命是促成拉丁文衰落的根本原因。随着印刷术的兴起，刚建立起自信心的资产阶级开始用自己的语言写作。奥斯特勒表示，机器可能会给英语造成同样的影响。每人都说自己的母语，然后由电脑把它译成其它语言。
I am sceptical, having long regarded computer translation as one of the most reliable forms of contemporary comedy. Take the English section of this bilingual notice at a Chinese supermarket, featured onengrish.com, purveyor of entertaining English: “In case of dense smoke, use wet towel to cover your mouth and nose, bend over to evacuate.” At least we know what they meant. Ostler argues that machine translation is improving, although it does struggle with nuance and figurative language.
由于长期以来把电脑翻译视为一种最为稳靠的当代笑料，我本人对它持怀疑态度。诸位不妨读一下专门收集搞笑英语的onengrish.com网站上刊登的一则中国某超市中英文告示上使用的英语：“In case of dense smoke, use wet towel to cover your mouth and nose, bend over to evacuate”。至少我们还能明白它想表达什么意思。奥斯特勒辩称，机器翻译正在改进，不过在对付细微语义差别和形象语言时的确还很吃力。
Can we really imagine a world in which people speak into their computers and their opposite numbers puzzle at what comes out the other side? The spoken word also loses something in translation, but, through give and take, we can resolve misunderstandings. Speech is the essence of human interaction and conversation is at the root of business negotiation. We do not know what the next year will bring, but I suspect it will not include much evidence of English’s decline.
我们是否真能想象一下，将来的世界会是这番情景：大家都对着电脑讲话，而翻译出来的东西让对方一头雾水？这样说出来的话在翻译中也会有些“损耗”，但通过交换意见，双方能够消除误解。语言是人类交际的要素，交谈则是商业谈判的根本。我们无法预知明年会发生什么，但我猜想，应该不会出现太多表明英语日渐没落的证据。
译者/常和
