会讲50种语言是一种什么样的体验？
《经济学人》讣告赏析每周四如约而至。文章顺序：先发《经济学人》讣告原文，后做原创赏析。建议先看原文。Enjoy!
Kenneth Locke Hale, a master of languages, died on October 8th 2001, aged 67
1. SOMETIMES Kenneth Hale was asked how long it would take him to learn a new language. He thought ten or 15 minutes would be enough to pick up the essentials if he were listening to a native speaker. After that he could probably converse; obviously not fluently, but enough to make himself understood. To those whose education, however admirable in other respects, had provided only rudimentary language skills, Mr Hale seemed a marvel.
2. And so he was. He had a gift. But he was also an academic, a teacher of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was aware that many otherwise clever people are dunces at learning a second language. He sought to find laws and structures that could be applied to all languages. As well as studying the common languages, French, Spanish and so on, the search took him into many linguistic byways, to the languages of native Americans and Australian aborigines and the Celtic fringes of Europe. As many of these languages had no written grammar or vocabulary, and indeed were spoken by few people, Mr Hale picked them up orally. His tip for anyone who pressed him for advice on learning a language was to talk to a native speaker. Start with parts of the body, he said, then common objects. After learning the nouns, you can start to make sentences and get attuned to the sounds. Still, there was much more to language than that. Noam Chomsky, like Mr Hale a teacher of linguistics at MIT, wrote:
Language is really weird. Although speaking a language is for normal humans an effortless task, there is nothing else in the natural world that even approaches its complexity... Although children receive no instruction in learning their native language, they are able to fully master it in less than five years. This is all the more confusing as language is much more computationally complex than, say, simple arithmetic, which often takes years to master... It is often hypothesised that language is an innate human faculty, with its own specialised system in our brain.
3. Some students of linguistics believe that such a system, if it exists, is normally shut down in the brain at the age of 12. But for Mr Hale it was around this age that his interest in language was just starting.
In cowboy boots
4. Kenneth Hale's childhood was on a ranch in Arizona and he started his education in a one-roomed school in the desert. Many years later, lecturing at MIT, he still felt most comfortable in cowboy boots. On his belt was a buckle he had won at a rodeo by riding bulls, and he had the slightly bowed legs of a horseman. His students were impressed that he could light a match with his thumbnail.
5. Mr Hale had discovered his talent for language when playing with Indian friends who taught him Hopi and Navajo. Learning languages became an obsession. Wherever he travelled he picked up a new tongue. In Spain he learnt Basque; in Ireland he spoke Gaelic so convincingly that an immigration officer asked if he knew English. He apologised to the Dutch for taking a whole week to master their somewhat complex language. He picked up the rudiments of Japanese after watching a Japanese film with subtitles. He sought to rescue languages that were dying out. One Indian language at its last gasp was spoken by the Wopanaak, the tribe that greeted the Pilgrim Fathers in 1620. It is now spoken again by several thousand people around Cape Cod. A Wopanaak who studied under Mr Hale is preparing a dictionary of her language. “Ken was a voice for the voiceless,” said Noam Chomsky.
6. Mr Hale could converse in about 50 languages, perhaps a world record, although he was too modest to claim one. But some tongues, such as Australia's Lardil, died with its last seven speakers. Mr Hale was the last person on earth to speak some languages. Hundreds are disappearing, he said. “They became extinct, and I had no one to speak them with.”
7. How much did Kenneth Hale contribute to an understanding of the apparently innate human capacity for speech? He made a number of what he called “neat” discoveries about the structure of language, and had an instinctive sense of what all languages had in common. After his retirement from MIT in 1999, he said he would “really get down to work”, an ambition he was unable to achieve. And linguistics itself is a fairly recent discipline. He is likely to be remembered by “The Green Book of Language Revitalisation”, which he helped to edit and which was published shortly before he died. It was warmly welcomed, especially by those who may be a touch aggrieved by the spread of English, which is blamed for brutally sweeping other languages aside.
8. A scholarly argument surfaces from time to time about the desirability of keeping alive languages that, in medical parlance, are brain dead. Occasionally the argument turns nationalistic. For example, is what Mr Hale called the “revitalisation” of Welsh merely a nuisance in Britain where, obviously, English is the working language? Kenneth Hale had an indignant answer to that question. “When you lose a language,” he told a reporter, “you lose a culture, intellectual wealth, a work of art. It's like dropping a bomb on a museum, the Louvre.”
赏析部分
这篇文章的作者 Keith Colquhoun 给写作对象 Kenneth Hale 贴了个看似简单的标签：a master of languages. 说一个人牛其实不必绞尽脑汁想大词，一个「master」足矣。我马上会联想到叶问，寿司之神小野次郎，张小龙。
第一段：
一个会讲50种语言的人一定是在融会贯通之后掌握了关于语言最本质的东西。开头段就交代了他学一门语言有多快：10-15分钟，看完这篇推文的功夫 Kenneth 可能已经学会缅甸语了。这里写作的启示是：避免用空洞的副词和形容词，让具体的事实说话。第一段结尾处的「marvel」概括全段，引起第二段。
第二段：
开头接连两个短句，每句4词。短句最适合用来表达和强调观点，掷地有声，让人印象深刻。值得好好体会。「gift」和上文「marvel」广义上同义。
「byway」一词用的是比喻义：语言的穷乡僻壤自然是小语种；「fringes」亦表边缘，和前面的「common languages」相对应。
「find laws and structures that could be applied to all languages」不能错过，稍微一想就知道其实是「融会贯通」的同义表达。例句：He（最好想一个你知道的程序猿） is a coding genuis. He always looks for laws and structures that could be applied to all coding languages. 第七段的第二句其实也是同样的意思。
「press for」用词精准，写出了提问者的殷切和期望，比「ask for」要高一级。后者只是表达了一个动作，前者写出了提问者的饥渴。例如沃伦巴菲特来北京国贸大饭店开讲，有听众在提问环节问投资秘诀，这时候用「press for」效果尽出。
「Still, there was much more to language than that. 」这个句型很好用，比如「听了那么多道理，依旧过不好这一生。」用英文可以这么讲：It's easier said than done. There is much more to life lessons than that.
第三段：
上一段引用乔姆斯基对语言的描述恰到好处，为第三段递进段做好了铺垫。别人的「语言系统」关闭的时候，Kenneth 的才刚刚打开，还有什么比这更能说明他是一个天才。
第四段：
从这段几个细节可以看得出 Kenneth 非常接地气。ranch in Arizona（地理上相当于云贵）, a one-roomed school, desert, cowboy boots, buckle, rodeo（牛仔竞技会）, bulls, bowed legs, horseman, light a match with his thumbnail. 虽然只是事实描写，但其实为下文他探访各国，以接地气的方式学习外语埋下了伏笔。
第五段：
这段出现了七种语言的名字：Hopi, Navajo, Basque, Gaelic, Dutch, Japanese, Wopanaak，用生动的事例展示出了 Kenneth 过人的天赋。关键是其中的 Basque 是一种和其他任何语言都没有关联的语言。
如果读的仔细的话，会发现「pick up」一词全文出现4次，这段出现两次。这个词很有意思，字面意思是捡起，引申为在没有正规教育的情况下掌握的意思。学语言和捡起一支笔一样毫不费力，可见 Kenneth 的天赋和才能。当然可以注意下描写他学习每一种语言用的不同表达，此所谓 phrasal/syntactic variety.
「Wherever he travelled he picked up a new tongue」中的「wherever」其实比「pick up」表达的层次更深：随便到哪里旅行，都能学会。不服不行。
段尾引用语言学泰斗乔姆斯基对 Kenneth 的评价，「a voice for the voiceless」承接了上文的「He sought to rescue languages that were dying out」，也引出了下面更多关于濒危语种的描述，引用得恰到好处。而且，这里我们看到的，不仅是一个受造物者眷顾的语言天才，还是一个具有人格魅力的英雄人物。
第八段：
第一句应该属于可以现学现用的句型。比如：
A scholarly argument surfaces from time to time about the desirability of genetically modified food.
An ethical argument appears from time to time about the virtues of helping out strangers in unsure circumstances.
A linguistic argument emerges from time to time about whether language shapes thinking, or vice versa.
结尾句明显是 Keith 在翻关于 Kenneth 的采访报道时读到的，把无形的语言和有形的卢浮宫做类比，「dropping a bomb」非常震撼，发人深思。
关于这个版块有啥问题欢迎在评论区留言。也欢迎推荐《经济学人》历来的讣告人物。
下期预告：美国50年代「垮掉的一代/beat generation」之父，诗人，文学运动领袖 Allen Ginsberg.
题图：J D Sloan.
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