十分鐘瞭解英語歷史
The History of English in Ten Minutes. Chapter six. English and Empire or the sun never set on the English language.十分鐘瞭解英語歷史。第六章,英語和帝國或曰英語的太陽永不落。
With English making its name as the language of science, the Bible and Shakespeare, Britain decided to take it on tour. 隨著英語作為科學、聖經和莎士比亞的語言一舉成名,英國決定讓它開始世界巡演。
Asking only for land, wealth, natural resources, total obedience to the crown and a few local words in return. 而他們要求的回報是土地、財富、自然資源、對英王的忠誠,以及一些當地詞彙。
They went to the Caribbean looking for gold and a chance to really unwind – discovering the ‘barbeque’, the ‘canoe’ and a pretty good recipe for rum punch. They also brought back the word ‘cannibal’ to make their trip sound more exciting. 他們去加勒比尋找黃金以及真正放鬆的機會,於是發現了“燒烤”、“獨木舟”和朗姆潘趣酒的釀造秘訣。他們還帶回“食人者”這個詞,讓這一旅程聽上去更加驚心動魄。
In India there was something for everyone. ‘Yoga’ – to help you stay in shape, while pretending to be spiritual. If that didn’t work there was the ‘cummerbund’ to hide a paunch and - if you couldn’t even make it up the stairs without turning ‘crimson’ – they had the ‘bungalow’.在印度,有些適合每個人的詞彙。“瑜伽”——讓你保持身材的同時還自稱有精神上的作用。如果無效,至少還有個“寬腰帶”來隱藏大肚子。如果你上個臺階都能累到把臉漲得“通紅”,他們還有“平房”。
Meanwhile in Africa they picked up words like ‘voodoo’ and ‘zombie’ – kicking off the teen horror film. 同時,他們在非洲學會了“伏都教”和“殭屍”這類詞,直接導致了後來的青少年恐怖電影風潮。
From Australia, English took the words ‘nugget’, ‘boomerang’ and ‘walkabout’ - and in fact the whole concept of chain pubs. 英國人從澳洲拿來了“炸雞塊”、“飛去來器”和“徒步旅行”——實際上是連鎖酒吧的.整體概念。
Between toppling Napoleon (1815) and the first World War (1914), the British Empire gobbled up around 10 millions square miles, 400 million people and nearly a hundred thousand gin and tonics, leaving new varieties of English to develop all over the globe.在推翻拿破崙(1815年)和第一次世界大戰(1914年)之間,大英帝國吞併了大約1千萬平方英里的土地,4億人口,近10萬的杜松燒酒和補品,使得英語新興變種的發展遍及全球。