给语言学习者：你不知道的9个英语冷知识

 　　1. It is the only major language without an academy to guide it.

　　英语是唯一没有学术机构加以规正的大语种。

　　L’Académie fran?aise, based in Paris, is in charge of overseeing the French language. For Spanish there is the Real Academia Espa?ola. German has the Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung. There is no equivalent to L’Académie for English. Of the 10 most-widely spoken languages in the world, only English has no academy guiding it.

　　法兰西文学院位于巴黎，负责审查法语。对于西班牙语，有西班牙皇家学院，德语有标准德语德语正字法协会。而英语则没有相应的文学院。世界十大使用最为广泛的口语中，唯有英语没有学术研究院引领。

　　2. More than 1 billion people are learning English as you read this.

　　你读这篇文章的时候，有超过10亿的人正在学英语。

　　According to the British Council, around 1 billion people around the world were learning English in 2000. This figure is now likely to be significantly higher.

　　据英国文化委员会的调查数据显示，在2000年，全球有10亿左右的人正在学习英语。如今这个数字很可能有了更为显著的提高。

　　3. 96 of the 100 most common English words are Germanic.

　　英语中100个最常用词中96个来自日耳曼语。

　　Of the hundred most frequently used words in English, 96 have Germanic roots. Together, those 100 words make up more than 50% of the Oxford² English Corpus, which currently contains over 2 billion words found in writing around the world.

　　100个使用频率最高的英语词汇中，96个有日耳曼语词根。总的来说，牛津英语语料库词汇有超过一半由这100个词汇组成——目前涵盖世界各地书面语中超过20亿的词汇。

　　Surprised? The most frequently used words are the meat and bones of the language, the essentials that make communication work, including I, you, go, eat, and so on.

　　吃惊吗？使用频率最高的词汇是一门语言的骨架，这些要素让人们成功沟通，比如“我”、“你”、“去”、“吃”等等。

　　4. But most words that have entered the language since 1066 have Latin origins.

　　不过自1066年之后的大部分英语词汇都有拉丁词根。

　　The Renaissance³, which started in Italy and reached England via France, was a massive source of new vocabulary. New ideas, or old ideas rediscovered, started flooding out of the southern cities but there were no words to describe them in English. So the language adopted or adapted the Latin words. During the Renaissance, the English lexicon⁴ roughly doubled in size.

　　起源于意大利，席卷法国再蔓延至英国的文艺复习带来了海量新词。新的点子也好，旧的想法也罢，被人们重新发现，不断从南部的意大利城市中奔涌而出，而英语中却没有相应词汇用以描述。于是英语就采用、改写了拉丁词汇。文艺复兴时期，英语的词汇几乎翻了一倍。

　　5. For more than a century, the English aristocracy couldn’t speak English.

　　有一个世纪多的时间，英国贵族不会说英语。

　　William the Conqueror⁵ tried to learn English at the age of 43 but gave up. Within 20 years of the Normans taking power in England, almost all of the local religious institutions were French-speaking. There is little to suggest that aristocrats⁶ themselves spoke¹ English. It isn’t until the end of the 12th Century that we have evidence of the children of the English aristocracy with English as a first language.

　　英国国王威廉一世曾在43岁时尝试学习英语，但半途而废。诺曼人控制英国的20年里，大部分的地方宗教机构都说法语。鲜有证据显示英国的贵族自己会说英语。证据显示，直到12世纪末，才有英语贵族子女以英语为第一语言。

　　6.That is why Latin words sound more prestigious⁷ than Germanic ones.

　　这就是为什么拉丁词汇比日耳曼词汇听上去更高大上。

　　Think about the difference between a house (Germanic) and a mansion⁸ (French), or between starting something and commencing, between calling something kingly or regal. English has a huge number of close synonyms⁹, where the major difference is the level of formality or prestige. The prestigious form is almost always the Latin one.

　　想想看"house"("房子"，日耳曼词汇）与"mansion"("宅邸"，法语词汇）的差异，及"starting(开始)"与"commencing(肇始)"的不同、“kingly(皇家气质)"与"regal(君威)"的区别。英语中有大量意思贴近的同义词，其主要差异在于其正式与高级程度。高级形式几乎都是拉丁词汇。

　　7. The concept of “correct” spelling is fairly recent.

　　“正确”拼写是相当新近的概念。

　　Shakespeare, for example, was liberal in his spellings of words, often using multiple variants¹⁰ within a single text; his name itself has been spelt in many different ways over the centuries.

　　例如莎士比亚，在拼写单词就非常随意，常在同一文本中使用数种变体；数世纪以来，其名字也有多种不同的拼法。

　　8. One man is largely responsible for the differences between American and British spelling.

　　美式英语和英式英语拼写上的差异很大程度上因一人而起。

　　Noah Webster, whose name you still find on the front of many American dictionaries, was a patriotic¹¹ man. Between 1783 and 1785, he produced three books on the English language for American schoolchildren. During his lifetime, 385 editions of his Speller were published. The modern US spelling of color was initially¹² spelt in the British way, colour, but this changed in later editions.

　　在美国的许多词典封面上你还能找到一个人的名字，一位富有爱国心的美国人——诺亚·韦伯斯特。在1783至1785年间，韦伯斯特为美国的学龄儿童创作了三本关于英语的书籍。韦伯斯特一生中，其拼写教材出了385版。现代美式英语中“color（颜色）”一词起初是英式的拼写方式，但在后来的版本中，这些词的拼写方式发生了变化。

　　9. -ize is not an American suffix-ize.

　　并不是美式英语中的后缀。

　　There is a popular belief that words such as popularise/ize, maximise/ize and digitise/ize have different spellings in British and American English.

　　人们普遍认为，popularise/ize（普及）、maximise/ize（最大化）、digitise/ize（数字化）等词在英式英语和美式英语中拼写方式不同。

　　Look at that z – isn’t it snazzy? It’s got to be American, hasn’t it?

　　看看这个Z——不是很时髦吗？它一定是美式英语，不是吗？

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 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

3 renaissance   

n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴

参考例句：

• The Renaissance was an epoch of unparalleled cultural achievement.文艺复兴是一个文化上取得空前成就的时代。
• The theme of the conference is renaissance Europe.大会的主题是文艺复兴时期的欧洲。

4 lexicon   

n.字典，专门词汇

参考例句：

• Chocolate equals sin in most people's lexicon.巧克力在大多数人的字典里等同于罪恶。
• Silent earthquakes are only just beginning to enter the public lexicon.无声地震才刚开始要成为众所周知的语汇。

5 conqueror   

n.征服者，胜利者

参考例句：

• We shall never yield to a conqueror.我们永远不会向征服者低头。
• They abandoned the city to the conqueror.他们把那个城市丢弃给征服者。

6 aristocrats   

n.贵族( aristocrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Many aristocrats were killed in the French Revolution. 许多贵族在法国大革命中被处死。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• To the Guillotine all aristocrats! 把全部贵族都送上断头台！ 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

7 prestigious   

adj.有威望的，有声望的，受尊敬的

参考例句：

• The young man graduated from a prestigious university.这个年轻人毕业于一所名牌大学。
• You may even join a prestigious magazine as a contributing editor.甚至可能会加入一个知名杂志做编辑。

8 mansion   

n.大厦，大楼；宅第

参考例句：

• The old mansion was built in 1850.这座古宅建于1850年。
• The mansion has extensive grounds.这大厦四周的庭园广阔。

9 synonyms   

同义词( synonym的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• If you want to grasp English, you must carefully discriminate synonyms. 如果你想掌握好英语，你必须仔细区分同义词。
• Study the idioms and synonyms l wrote down before your test. 学考试前我给你写的习惯用语和同义字。

10 variants   

n.变体( variant的名词复数 )；变种；变型；（词等的）变体

参考例句：

• Those variants will be preserved in the'struggle for existence". 这些变异将在“生存竞争”中被保留下来。 来自辞典例句
• Like organisms, viruses have variants, generally called strains. 与其他生物一样，病毒也有变种，一般称之为株系。 来自辞典例句

11 patriotic   

adj.爱国的，有爱国心的

参考例句：

• His speech was full of patriotic sentiments.他的演说充满了爱国之情。
• The old man is a patriotic overseas Chinese.这位老人是一位爱国华侨。

12 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。