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A Of all mankind's manifold creations, language must take pride of place. 人类各式各样的发明中，语言居于首位当之无愧。 Other inventions - the wheel, agriculture, sliced bread - may have transformed our material existence, but the advent of language is what made us human. 轮子、农业、切片面包等发明可能改变了我们的物质存在方式，但语言的到来却塑造了我们。 Compared to language, all other inventions pale in significance, since everything we have ever achieved depends on language and originates from it. 与语言相比，其他发明的意义都相形见绌，因为我们到目前为止取得一切成就都基于语言或源于语言。 Without language, we could never have embarked on our ascent to unparalleled power over all other animals, and even over nature itself. 没有语言，我们绝无可能激发无与伦比的力量凌驾于其他动物之上，甚至驾驭自然。

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B But language is foremost not just because it came first. 但语言的意义最为重要并非只是由于它的起源最早。 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'. 就语言而言，它是一个极为成熟的工具，但却基于一个非常巧妙简单的想法：“这一奇妙的发明由25到30个声音组成，可以构成无数种表达，虽然这些表达在我们的脑海中无一丝的相似性但它们能让我们将其所有秘密传达给他人，能将那些无法知悉我们所想象的语言的人了解它， 并洞悉我们灵魂中的各种蛛丝马迹”。 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. 这就是1660年法国凡尔赛宫附近的皇家修道院的知名语法学家们提炼出的语言的精华，自此之后任何发明的重要性都未曾超越过语言。 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. 即使如此，这些赞美词中依然有一点点瑕疵，因为对语言独特的成就的敬畏中依然存在一个简单但却非常重要的不一致性。 Language is mankind's greatest invention - except, of course, that it was never invented. 语言是人类最伟大的发明——除非，人类从未发明语言。 This apparent paradox is at the core of our fascination with language, and it holds many of its secrets. 这明显是一个以语言为中心的悖论，潜藏了众多秘密。

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C Language often seems so skillfully drafted that one can hardly imagine it as anything other than the perfected handiwork of a master craftsman. 通常，语言看上去如此精心雕琢以至于让人们很难想象它不是一个能工巧匠的完美作品。 How else could this instrument make so much out of barely three dozen measly morsels of sound? 仅仅采用三十多个简单的音节，语言究竟是如此创造出的这么多丰富多彩的词句呢？ In themselves, these configurations of mouth -p,fb,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. 这些音节，嘴巴发出的单音节——p,f,b,v,t,d,k,g,sh,a,e等等——不外乎一些随意吐出的声音、声响、任意的噪音，没有任何意义，没有表达的能力和没有解释的力量。 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. 但一旦匹配上语言机器的齿轮，按照某种顺序进行排列，这些无意义的气流便无所不能了：不仅可以感叹生存无休止的无聊，而且可以解释宇宙运行的基本秩序。

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D The most extraordinary thing about language, however, is that one doesn't have to be a genius to set its wheels in motion. 然而，语言最神奇之处莫过于即使是平凡人也可以启动语言的运行机制。 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. 语言机制人人都有——从亚热带稀疏草原上的前现代骑兵到城市郊区的后现代哲学家都有——它使人们将这些无意义的音调组合起来，成为各种各样微妙的感官，且表达毫无障碍。 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. 然而，恰恰是这种故作轻松使得语言成为其成功的一名受害者，因为人们在日常生活中将语言的成就视为了理所当然。 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. 语言的齿轮运作如此畅通以至于人们几乎从未想过要停下了思考使语言更加优美的资源和知识。 Language conceals art. 语言蕴藏了艺术。

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E Often, it is only the estrangement of foreign tongues, with their many exotic and outlandish features, that brings home the wonder of language's design. 通常来讲，正是有着异域风和古怪特点的异国腔调的差异会使人诧异于语言的奇妙。 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. 一些语言可以产生的最显著的特征是可以确立词语发音的长度，这样一个词语的表达英文却需要一个整句来表达。 The Turkish word şehirliliştiremediklerimizdensiniz, to take one example, means nothing less than 'you are one of those whom we can't turn into a town-dweller'. 比如说土耳其单词“sehirlilistiremediklerimizdensiniz”，意思不外乎是你不可能成为我们本地居民之一！ (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.) （此时你可能会想，这句话竟然是一个词，而不是多个词排列在一起——甚至这个词的各个部分甚至不能独立成词。）

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F And 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. 如果这词的发音听起来怪怪地，那想想苏美尔，5000多年前Euphrates河畔的人所说的一种语言，他们发明了书写文字因此能够记录历史。 A Sumerian word like munintuma'a ('when he had made it suitable for her') might seem rather trim compared to the Turkish colossus above. 苏美尔语言中的一个单词如“munintumaa”（when he made it suitable for her）可能看起来比上面的土耳其语更加简洁。 What is so impressive about it, however, is not its lengthiness but rather the reverse - the thrifty compactness of its construction. 然而，让人记忆如此之深的却不是它的长度，而是恰恰相反——构成的极度紧凑。 The word is made up of different slots, each corresponding to a particular portion of meaning. 该词由不同的空隙构成，且每个都对应特定的含义。 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. 这种流线型设计使得单个声音都要传达有用的信息，事实上，缺失某一个音节已被用来表达特定的意义。 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. 如果你问苏美尔人，这个单词中哪个音节对应了英文翻译中“when he had made it suitable for her”中的代词“it”；回答竟然是没有。 Mind you, a very particular kind of nothing: the nothing that stands in the empty slot in the middle. 注意，这是具有特殊含义的“没有”：“没有”指的是中间的空隙。 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. 该技巧是如此的微妙，即使是不发音，当如此小心翼翼地插入一个特定位置时，也被赋予了特定的功能。 Who could possibly have come up with such a nifty contraption? 除了苏美尔人，谁能创造出如此漂亮的玩意儿呢？