VOA慢速英语2019--新词有助于恢复母语

New Words Help Bring Back Native Languages

Native Americans spoke¹ as many as 300 languages at one time in history. But centuries of conflict, forced removal and forced assimilation² killed half of the languages.

Bringing back a dead language is a big job, but making sure it survives is just as much work.

Jessie Little Doe Baird is a co-founder³ of the Wopanaak Language Reclamation⁴ Project. The award-winning linguist⁵ is also a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe⁶ in the American state of Massachusetts.

In the 1600s, Wopanaak, the language of her ancestors, was spoken by tens of thousands of people in southeastern New England. Baird said missionaries⁷ worked with the tribe to create written alphabets in order to translate the Bible and other books.

She said the Wampanoag people welcomed the idea of writing and soon “used it as a tool to protect themselves” during land deals and other situations.

“We have the largest collection of Native-written documents in North America,” she said.

Baird said her organization has been working for about 25 years to bring back the language that died out a century ago. It has put together around 12,000 words from those early documents.

Today, the Wampanoag have two expert linguists⁸ and a Wopanaak language school for small children, which Baird hopes will expand in the future.

Creating new words

For a language to survive, it has to be passed on to the next generation. And that means making the language likeable to young people by creating new words and phrases.

“The Wampanoag pretty much do what English speakers do,” Baird said. “Communities borrow words, and if somebody at some point decides that something is important, they will give it a name in that language.”

Some tribes⁹ would rather not borrow, said James Andrew Cowell. He is a linguist at the University of Colorado. Cowell is working to preserve Arapaho, an Algonquian language native to a large area between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.

Cowell is interested in keeping Arapaho culture and the structure of the language unbroken. He gives some examples.

In Arapaho, the word for computer translates as ‘It knows everything.’ And there is also a way to turn verbs into nouns. Cowell said, “So, ‘I am typing on the ‘It knows everything’ means ‘I am typing on the computer.’”

The word in Arapaho for Facebook is "gossip¹⁰," and for Twitter is "little gossip."

Community effort

Creating new words and expressions is not new to tribes, said Ben Black Bear. He is a member of the Sicangu Lakota Tribe and founder of the Lakota Studies Department at Sinte Gleska University in South Dakota.

“Back in the early 1900s when they first established the reservation,” he said, “we Lakota had to create words for all kinds of new things we had never seen until the Europeans came — wooden houses, clothing, the automobile¹¹.”

Often, the tribe did this by describing an item’s qualities.

“The apple did not exist in nature before we met the Europeans, so we had to create a word," Black Bear said. "When you bite into an apple, the inside is sort of like wet snow. So, we combined the words for wet snow (spanla) and fruit that has skin (tha) to come up with a new term, 'thaspan.'"

Today, Black Bear and other Lakota linguists meet every year for a summer language development program. In addition to taking a class in developing new words and expressions, the linguists debate and approve new words just as their ancestors did.

“Once we come up with a new term, we put it out there for the community,” he said. “If people like them, they’ll use them. It’s not up to us.”

More help to come

In 1990, the United States Congress passed the Native American Languages Act to provide money and programs to help tribes bring back their languages.

Recently, the National Endowment for the Humanities¹², a government agency, and the First Nations Development Institute, a nonprofit organization, announced financing¹³ to support language efforts in 13 tribes across the country.

Among the awards: The Wampanoag in Massachusetts will receive $90,000 to help expand their language school by another three school levels.

I’m Susan Shand. And I’m Alice Bryant.

Words in This Story

assimilation – n. the act of causing a person or group to become part of a different society or country

linguist – n. a person who studies language and the way languages work

alphabet – n. the letters of a language arranged in their usual order

translate – v. to change words from one language into another language

type – v. to write with a computer keyboard or typewriter

gossip – n. information about the behavior and personal lives of other people

reservation – n. an area of land in the U.S. that is kept separate as a place for Native Americans to live

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 assimilation   

n. 同化,同化作用,消化

参考例句：

• the rapid assimilation of new ideas 对新思想的迅速吸收
• "Grandma "pronounced as "grammar"is an example of assimilation. 把“grandma”读成“grammar”是语音同化的一个例证。

3 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

4 reclamation   

n.开垦；改造；（废料等的）回收

参考例句：

• We should encourage reclamation and recycling.我们应当鼓励废物的回收和利用。
• The area is needed for a land reclamation project.一个土地开垦项目要在这一地区进行。

5 linguist   

n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者

参考例句：

• I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家，后来成了作家。
• Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。

6 tribe   

n.部落，种族，一伙人

参考例句：

• This is a subject tribe.这是个受他人统治的部落。
• Many of the tribe's customs and rituals are as old as the hills.这部落的许多风俗、仪式都极其古老。

7 missionaries   

n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Some missionaries came from England in the Qing Dynasty. 清朝时，从英国来了一些传教士。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The missionaries rebuked the natives for worshipping images. 传教士指责当地人崇拜偶像。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

8 linguists   

n.通晓数国语言的人( linguist的名词复数 )；语言学家

参考例句：

• The linguists went to study tribal languages in the field. 语言学家们去实地研究部落语言了。 来自辞典例句
• The linguists' main interest has been to analyze and describe languages. 语言学家的主要兴趣一直在于分析并描述语言。 来自辞典例句

9 tribes   

n.部落( tribe的名词复数 )；（动、植物的）族；（一）帮；大群

参考例句：

• tribes living in remote areas of the Amazonian rainforest 居住在亚马孙河雨林偏远地区的部落
• In Africa the snake is still sacred with many tribes. 非洲许多部落仍认为蛇是不可冒犯的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 gossip   

n.流言蜚语，爱说长道短的人；vi.传播流言

参考例句：

• She broadcast the gossip all over the town.她将这个流言传遍全镇。
• They spread a lot of tacky gossip about his love life.关于他的爱情生活，他们散播了许多不堪的闲言闲语。

11 automobile   

n.汽车，机动车

参考例句：

• He is repairing the brake lever of an automobile.他正在修理汽车的刹车杆。
• The automobile slowed down to go around the curves in the road.汽车在路上转弯时放慢了速度。

12 humanities   

n.人文学

参考例句：

• Dalian University offers courses in science and in the humanities. 大连大学开设自然科学和人文科学课程。
• She has a background in humanities and modern languages. 她学过人文学科和现代语言。

13 financing   

n.筹措资金

参考例句：

• The main source of our outside financing is bank loan. 我们向外筹措资金的主要渠道是银行贷款。
• They live in a symbiosis with governments that they are financing. 他们与他们服务的政府互利共存。