世界小史 第103期:太陽

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 　　"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。”你說。如果他們?nèi)颊f不同的語言，他們怎么用同一種文字區(qū)分呢？

　　Well, Chinese writing is special.

　　中國文字非常特殊。

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

　　即使說出來的話你一句也聽不懂，你也能讀懂這種文字。

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

　　這真神奇！不，一點兒也不，其實它非常簡單。

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

　　人們寫的不是言語，而是事物。如果你想寫"太陽"，你可以畫一幅圖。

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

　　然后你在任何語言里都可以讀懂它：英語中的sun,法語中的soleil或像中國人那樣讀jih。

　　Everyone who knows the sign will know what it means.

　　每一個認識這個符號的人總是都能讀懂這個意思的。

　　Similarly, with the sign for "tree".

　　相同的，有了“樹”的符號。

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

　　你就又簡簡單單地用幾筆畫一棵樹。

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

　　在中國話里它的發(fā)音為"mu"，但你不必知道這個符號，便可猜出這是一棵樹。

　　"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。”你會說，“我看到的東西，你就能把它們畫出來，可是如果想寫"白"呢？

　　Do you just paint a blob of white paint?

　　你會把白的顏料涂上去嗎？

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

　　或者如果你想寫”東方”，那又怎么辦呢？“東方”是畫不出來的！