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Narrator:Listen to part of a lecture in a linguistics class.
独白:听下面一段语言学的课程。
Professor:All right, so far we have been looking at some of the core areas of linguistics, like syntax, phonology, semantics, and these are things that we can study by looking at one language at a time, how sounds, and words, and sentences work in a given language.
教授:好的，一直到现在，我们的注意力都集中在语言学的核心领域，包括句法，词法，语义等一次只需要关注一门语言的领域，即语音、词汇和句子是如何在一门语言中协同工作的。
But the branch of historical linguistics, involves the comparison of several different languages, or the comparison of different stages of a single language.
但是，历史语言学与之前的教学内容有区别:它涉及到多种语言的共时比较，或者一门语言的历时发展研究。
Now, if you are comparing different languages, and you notice that they have a lot in common.
比如，假设我们现在要比较好几门语言，而且我们注意到他们之间的联系。
Maybe they have similar sounds and words that correspond to one another that have the same meaning and that sound similar.
可能，它们有相同的语音，某些词汇之间有相同的意义和读音。
Let's use a real-world example.
现在我们就用真实存在的语言来解释语言之间的联系吧！
In the 18th century, scholars who have studied the ancient languages, Sanskrit, Latin and Greek, noticed that these three languages had many similarities.
18 世纪，在研究过闪米特语、拉丁语和古希腊语的古典语言的语言学家们，注意到这三种语言之间有特别多的联系。
And there might be several reasons why languages such as these had so much in common.
而且，他们还提出几条理由来解释为何语言之间会有如此多的联系:
Maybe it happened by chance; maybe one language was heavily influenced by borrowed words from the other.
可能这是机缘巧合，可能其中一种语言受到另一种语言很深程度的影响，可能一种语言从另一种语言中借来了很多东西。
Or maybe, maybe the languages developed from the same source language long ago, that is, maybe they are genetically related, that was what happened with Sanskrit, Latin and Greek.
或者，这几种语言在很早以前是同一门语言，即它们在谱系上有相互关系。而最后一种解释，就是闪族语、拉丁语与希腊语之间的联系。
These languages had so many similarities that it was concluded that they must have all come from the same source.
这些语言之间额联系是如此之多，以至于学者们一致认为它们同出一源。
And talk about important discoveries in linguistics, this was certainly one of them.
当我们谈到语言学领域的重大进展时，无疑这就是其中一项。
The scholars referred to that source language as Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-European is a reconstructed language.
学者们把这三种语言称为“原始印欧语系”；它是一门经过构拟之后得出的语言，
Meaning, it is what linguists concluded a parent language of Sanskrit, Latin and Greek would have to be like.
即它就是语言学家们构拟出来的、三门语言共同有的母语；
And Proto-Indo-European branched out into other languages, which evolved into others, so in the end, many languages spoken all over the world today can trace their ancestry back to one language, Proto-Indo-European, which was spoken several thousand years ago.
正是因为它的存在，这三门语言之间才能有如此多的相似之处。并且，“原始印欧语系”还和其他的语言之间相互交叉，而这些语言又和别的语言相联系；总之，现今世界上流行的许多语言之间都可以溯源到一个共同的母语，即“原始印欧语”，它的使用时间大概是几千年之前。
Now, one way of representing the evolution of languages, showing the way languages are related to each other, is with the family tree model.
现今语言学界发展出一种标记语言进化，显示它们之间相互关系的方式，即语言家族谱系树。
Like a family tree that you might use to trace back through generations of ancestors, only it's showing a family of genetic all related languages instead of people.
它就像一张你可以用来追溯到数代人以前家谱图一样，它也可以告诉我们几门语言之间的相互关系。
A tree model for a language family starts with one language, which we call a mother language, for example, Proto-Indo-European.
这个模型的开端是一门共同的母语，譬如“原始印欧语”吧。
The mother language, is the line on the top of this diagram, over time, it branches off into new daughter languages, which branch into daughter languages of their own, and languages that have the same source, the same mother, are called sisters, they share a lot of characteristics, and this went on until we are looking at a big upside down tree languages like this.
这个母语位于整个族谱的顶端，随着时间的演变，它分裂成为几种新的语言，我们称之为“姊妹语”，它们之间有许多共同特征。这种分裂趋势不断演化，直到形成目前这张倒置的树图所展示的局面。
It is incomplete of course, just to give you an idea. So that's the family tree model, basically.
当然这张图是不完全的，只是给你们看一个大意。这大概就是树图的基本要领吧！
Now, the tree model is a convenient way of representing the development of a language family and of showing how closely related two of more languages are.
谱系树图是一种很直观的展示方式，它明白地告诉我们同属于一个家族的语言是如何发展的，两种语言之间的关系紧密程度如何。
But it is obviously very simplified, having a whole language represented by just one branch on a tree doesn't really do justice to all the variations within that language.
但它明显是很简略的；利用一个分支来表示一门语言，并不能表明它在演化中发生的全部变化。
You know, Spanish that spoken in Spain isn't exactly the same as Spanish that is spoken in Mexico, for example.
同学们，你们想一想西班牙语的例子吧！欧洲西班牙人说的西班牙语，与墨西哥人说的西班牙语是不同的。
Another issue is that languages evolve very gradually, but the tree model makes it look like they evolve over night, like there was a distinct moment in time when a mother language clearly broke off into daughter languages.
谱系图的另一个问题是，尽管事实上语言是渐变的，但是它展示出来的却是语言的变化都是一夜之间完成的，似乎存在一个显著的时间间隔，在此之前某几种语言属于同一种语言，在此之后它们就是独立的几种语言。
But it seems to me it probably wasn't quite like that.
但这在我看来，事实并非如此。
