科学家揭秘哪些是英语中最古老的词汇
<P> Some of the oldest words in Englishhave been identified, scientists say.</P><P> 科学家们相信，他们找到了英文中最古老的文字。</P>
<P> Reading University researchers claim "I", "we", "two" and"three" are among the most ancient, dating back tens of thousandsof years.</P>
<P> 雷丁大学的研究人员认为，"我"、"我们"、"二"和"三"是英文中最古老的词汇，它们的历史可以追溯到四万年前。</P>
<P> Their computer model analyses the rate of change of words in Englishand the languages that share a common heritage.</P>
<P> 科研人员们通过一个计算机模型，对英文词汇变化和消失的几率进行了分析测算，并展现出语言的普遍发展历程。</P>
<P> The team says it can predict which words are likely to becomeextinct--citing "squeeze", "guts", "stick" and"bad" as probable first casualties.</P>
<P> 研究预测，"挤"、"胆量"、"木棍"和"坏"将很可能成为最先被废弃和绝迹的词汇。</P>
<P> "We use a computer to fit a range of models that tell us howrapidly these words evolve," said MarkPagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University ofReading.</P>
<P> 雷丁大学进化生物学家马克·佩格尔说："我们利用计算机模型测算出这些词的发展速率。"</P>
<P> At the root of the Reading University effort is a lexicon of 200 words that is not specific toculture or technology, and is therefore likely to represent</P>
<P> concepts that have not changed acrossnations or millennia.</P>
<P> 雷丁大学的研究进行的基础是一个包含约200个词汇的词汇库，库中的词汇大多是一些表达人类对事物共同感知、不易因习俗和科技而改变的词，而非那些随着科技和时代进步应运而生的新词。</P>
<P> "We have lists of words that linguists have produced for us thattell us if two words in related languages actually derive from acommon ancestral word," said ProfessorPagel.</P>
<P> 佩格尔教授说："我们开发这个词汇库首先需要让语言学专家来告诉我们，不同语系的两个词汇是否会存在一个共同的出处。"</P>
<P> "We have descriptionsof the ways we think words change and their ability to change intoother words, and those descriptions can be turned into amathematical language," he added.</P>
<P> 佩格尔教授补充说道："我们掌握了词汇改变以及它们转变成其它词汇的信息，之后我们把这些信息转变成数学语言。"</P>
<P> What the researchers foundwas that the frequency with which a word is used relates to howslowly it changes through time, so that the most common words tendto be the oldest ones.</P>
<P> 研究人员还发现，词汇的使用频率和其生命力紧密相关，越是普通的词汇，存在的时间也越长久。</P>
<P> For example, the words "I" and "who" are among the oldest, alongwith the words "two", "three", and "five". The word "one" is onlyslightly younger.</P>
<P> 比如，"我"、"谁"、"二"、"三"和"五"的历史就非常久远，而"一"则略微年轻一点。</P>
<P> The word "four" experienced a linguistic evolutionary leap that makes itsignificantly younger in English and different from otherIndo-European languages.</P>
<P> 英文数字"四"由于经历过一次语言上的进化过程，所以更为年轻一些，它和其它欧印语种的发音也大为不同。</P>
<P> Meanwhile, the fastest-changing words are projected to die outand be replaced by other words much sooner.</P>
<P> 与之相比，变化速度越快的词汇，消亡以及被其它词汇取代的速度也越快。</P>
<P> For example, "dirty" is a rapidly changing word; currently thereare 46 different ways of saying it in the Indo-European languages,all words that are unrelated to each other. As a result, it islikely to die out soon in English, along with "stick" and"guts".</P>
<P> 例如，"脏"就是一个变化迅速的词汇，欧印语系中表达"脏"的方式共有46种，而且每种听上去都很不相同。所以，这个词和"木棍"、"胆量"一样，很可能很快就在英文中消失。</P>
<P> "If you've ever played 'Chinese whispers', what comes out theend is usually gibberish. Yetour language can somehow retain its fidelity," Professor Pagelsaid.</P>
<P> 佩格尔教授说："玩过'传话'游戏的人都知道，同样的一句话从第一个人传到最后一个人时通常已经面目全非了。由此看来，语言对我们还是很忠诚的。"</P>
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