世界小史 第103期:太阳

 　　"But wait a minute!" you say. If they all spoke¹ different languages, how could using the same script make any difference?

　　“但等一下。”你说。如果他们全都说不同的语言，他们怎么用同一种文字区分呢？

　　Well, Chinese writing is special.

　　中国文字非常特殊。

　　You can read and understand it even if you don't know a single word of the spoken language.

　　即使说出来的话你一句也听不懂，你也能读懂这种文字。

　　That must be magic! No, absolutely not, it is really quite simple.

　　这真神奇！不，一点儿也不，其实它非常简单。

　　Instead of writing words you write things. If you want to write "sun", You make a picture.

　　人们写的不是言语，而是事物。如果你想写"太阳"，你可以画一幅图。

　　Then you can read it in any language: sun in English, soleil in French, or jih in Mandarin² Chinese.

　　然后你在任何语言里都可以读懂它：英语中的sun,法语中的soleil或像中国人那样读jih。

　　Everyone who knows the sign will know what it means.

　　每一个认识这个符号的人总是都能读懂这个意思的。

　　Similarly, with the sign for "tree".

　　相同的，有了“树”的符号。

　　Again it is quite easy, just a couple of strokes.

　　你就又简简单单地用几笔画一棵树。

　　In Mandarin it is pronounced 'mu', but you hardly need to know the sign to guess it is a tree.

　　在中国话里它的发音为"mu"，但你不必知道这个符号，便可猜出这是一棵树。

　　"All right," you say, I can see that works quite well for things you can draw, but what if you want to write "white"?

　　“是呀。”你会说，“我看到的东西，你就能把它们画出来，可是如果想写"白"呢？

　　Do you just paint a blob of white paint?

　　你会把白的颜料涂上去吗？

　　And what if you want to write "East"? You can hardly draw a picture of "East"!

　　或者如果你想写”东方”，那又怎么办呢？“东方”是画不出来的！

 

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。