双语译文 厉害了！直立人可能涉海

厉害了，我的祖先...

A new theory suggests that Homo erectus was able to create seagoing vessels – and must have used language to sail successfully

一种新的理论表明直立人能够制造出海船只，而且一定曾使用过语言使得航行顺利。

具体情况如何，请看以下报道——

作者：Nicola Davis

原文链接：

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/20/homo-erectus-may-have-been-a-sailor-and-able-to-speak

They had bodies similar to modern humans, could make tools, and were possibly the first to cook. Now one expert is arguing that Homo erectus might have been a mariner – complete with sailing lingo.

直立人的身体和现代人相似，可以制造工具，也可能是第一个会做饭的人种。现有专家认为，直立人可能出过海——还会航海术语。

Homo erectus first appeared in Africa more than 1.8m years ago and is thought to be the first archaic human to leave the continent.

直立人最早出现于180多万年前的非洲，被认为是第一个离开非洲大陆的古人类。

H. erectus fossils have turned up not only in Southern Europe, but as far afield as China and Indonesia. Some argue that the mysterious hominid Homo floresiensis, discovered on the island of Flores, could be descended from H. erectus – although others disagree.

直立人化石不仅出现在南欧，远在中国和印度尼西亚也有他们的踪迹。虽存争议，但有人认为，在弗洛雷斯岛发现的神秘类人弗洛勒斯人（Homo floresiensis）可能是直立人的后裔。

          

“Oceans were never a barrier to the travels of Erectus. He travelled all over the world, travelled to the island of Flores, across one of the greatest ocean currents in the world,” said Daniel Everett, professor of global studies at Bentley  University, and author of How Language Began. “They sailed to the island  of Crete and various other islands. It was intentional: they needed craft and they needed to take groups of twenty or so at least to get to those places.”

丹尼尔·埃弗雷特（ Daniel Everett）是本特利大学从事全球研究的教授，也是《语言的起源》（How Language Began）一书的作者。他说：“海洋从来就不是直立人旅行途中的阻碍。他们（直立人）周游世界，穿越世界上最大的洋流之一，来到弗洛雷斯岛。这些直立人曾前往克里特岛和众多其他的岛屿。这是有备而来的：为抵达目的地，他们需要技艺，而且至少要带二十人左右的团队。” 

While Everett is not the first to raise the controversial possibility that H. erectus might have fashioned some sort of seagoing vessel, he believes that such capabilities mean that H. erectus must also have had another skill: language.

埃弗雷特（Everett）并不是第一个提出“直立人可能制造出了某种海船”这样富有争议论题的人，但他相信这种能力意味着直立人必须掌握另一种技能：语言。

“Erectus needed language when they were sailing to the island  of Flores. They couldn’t have simply caught a ride on a floating log because then they would have been washed out to sea when they hit the current,” said Everett, presenting his thesis at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Austin. “They needed to be able to paddle. And if they paddled they needed to be able to say ‘paddle there’ or ‘don’t paddle.’ You need communication with symbols not just grunts.”

在奥斯汀举行的美国科学促进协会会议上，埃弗雷特就其论文进行汇报，“他们在驶往弗洛雷斯岛的过程中需要语言。他们不可能只是简单地在浮动圆木上漂流，因为如果这样当他们遇到洋流就会被冲到海里去。”

“他们得会划桨。如果他们划船的话，他们得会说 ‘划船’或‘别划了’。沟通过程需要用一些有意义的代号，而不仅仅是含浑不清的声音。”  

It is unknown when language emerged among hominids; some argue that it is a feature only of our own species, Homo sapiens, which suggests a timing of no earlier than 200,000 years ago. But Everett believes it goes back further than that.

人类语言何时出现还不得而知；有人认为语言是我们智人独有的一个特征，这意味着语言的诞生不早于20万年前。但埃弗雷特·贝尔认为，语言早在这之前就已经诞生了。

链接：

https://www.theguardian.com/info/2017/may/16/guardian-business-today-sign-up-financial-news-email

Everett says that H. erectus would have been unable to make the same range of sounds as we do, not least because they lacked the version of a gene necessary for speech and language to develop – known as FOXP2 – found in modern humans and Neanderthals, although it is not clear whether Neanderthals had language. But he argues that as few as two sounds are needed for a language, and that it is likely H.erectus could make more than that.

埃弗雷特说，直立人也许并不能和我们发出相同的声音，尤其是因为他们缺乏说话和语言发展所必需的基因——FOXP2。这个基因存在于现代人和尼安德特人体内，虽然并不清楚尼安德特人是否有语言。但他认为，一种语言至少只需要两种声音，而直立人可能会发出更多种。

“They had what it took to invent language – and language is not as hard as many linguists have led us to believe. If you have symbols in a linear order then you have a grammar,” said Everett. “Homo erectus spoke and invented the Model T Ford of language. We speak the Tesla form, but their Model T form was not a proto-language it was a real language.”

埃弗雷特（Everett）说，“他们拥有发明语言所需的条件--语言并不像许多语言学家说的那样难。”。有一串线性顺序的符号，就有了语法规则。”“直立人发明并使用的语言就像福特T型，而我们说的就像特斯拉。但他们的语言不是原始语，而是一种真正的语言。”

“Everybody talks about Homo erectus as a stupid ape-like creature, which of course describes us just as well, and yet what I want to emphasise is that Erectus was the smartest creature that had ever walked the Earth,” he said.

他说，“人们都把直立人说成是愚蠢的类人猿，这种说法的对象当然也包括了我们。但我想强调的是，直立人是地球上有史以来最聪明的动物。 ”

The theory received mixed reactions from others. Kevin Laland, professor of behavioural and evolutionary biology at the University of St Andrews, said he agreed with Everett. “The important thing to recognise is that language did not appear in modern form all at once, but gradually evolved from a protoculture comprising just a handful of words with little grammatical structure. Certainly, it is highly plausible that Homo erectus had a protolinguistic capability,” he said, adding that work by his own team hinted it was possible. “Our experiment suggests that it would have been very difficult for knowledge of how to manufacture Homo erectus’s Acheulian stone tools to spread without a simple form of language. The study also demonstrates that stone toolmaking would had created a selection pressure favouring increased linguistic capabilities,” he said.

其他人对这个理论反响各异。圣安德鲁斯大学行为和进化生物学教授凯文·拉兰德（Kevin Laland）表示，他同意埃弗雷特的观点。他说，“我们需要认识到，现代语言的形成并非一蹴而就，而是从一种由少数几个单词组成的、语法结构较简单的原始文化中逐渐演化而来的。当然，直立人很可能具备原始语言能力。”而且他的团队也暗示了这种可能性的存在。“我们的实验表明，如果连简单的语言交流都没有，直立人制造阿丘利亚石器的知识将难以传播。这项研究还表明，石器制造还会产生物竞天择的生存压力，定向提高该人种的语言能力 。”  

But others say that there is little evidence that H. erectus was a sophisticated seafarer, let alone had a language. “I don’t accept that, for example, [Homo] erectus must have had boats to get to Flores,” said Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. “Tsunamis could have moved early humans on rafts of vegetation.”

但也有人说，鲜有证据表明直立人在涉海方面有丰富经验，更不用说掌握一种语言了。伦敦自然历史博物馆的人类起源研究负责人克里斯·斯特林格（Chris Stringer）说，“我不认可这种理论，比如说，直立人必须有船才能到达弗洛雷斯。也许是海啸促使早期人类以植物作筏（开始远航）。”  

That said, Stringer notes that Homo heidelbergensis, another extinct relative of ours that lived between 700,000 and 300,000 years ago, might have been capable of some sort of chat. “I think [Homo] heidelbergensis had a complex enough life to require speech, though not at the level of modern human language. With [Homo] erectus, I’m not so sure,” said Stringer, adding that the ability of H. erectus to make and use tools is not, as some have argued, convincing evidence. “Chimps and crows make and use tools without a human kind of language,” he said.

斯特林格指出，这表明，人类另一个生活在约70万年到30万年前的“亲戚”海德堡人，或许能够进行某种对话。斯特林格说，“我认为海德堡人的生活已经复杂到需要使用语言，尽管这种语言还达不到现代人类语言的水平。但我不太确定直立人是否也会使用语言，”他还说，直立人制造和使用工具的能力并不像一些人所认为的那样，是他们掌握语言的有力证据。他表示，“黑猩猩和乌鸦在没有人类这样的语言的情况下也能制造和使用工具。”  

初译：韩建松

审校：张赢月

定稿：何源初译译文地道，语言通顺。审校调整了个别词的译法，打磨了一些细微的地方，推敲了情态助动词、逻辑词等在上下文中的译法。1.  must have used language to sail successfully

初译为“而且曾使用过语言使得航行顺利”。审校认为“must have done”表示对过去的猜测，因此定稿改为“一定曾使用过......”。情态助动词虽然在句子中占的比例不大，有的时候可以忽略，但在本句中略去不妥。原句有猜测意味，是作者在表达自己的观点，允许读者讨论和反驳，如果省去must不译，则变观点为一种既定的事实。

2.  –although others disagree.

初译把although译为“但是”，审校认为让步和转折表达的意思不同，因此这里不宜译成“但是”，因此，定稿改为“虽然”。在原文中，although带的这一句是插入语，有顺便一提的意味，句子的中心和重点还是前半句，如果把although翻译成“但是”，句子中心后移，“但是”带起的内容会成为整个句子的重点。

3. Oceanswere never a barrier to the travels of Erectus.

初译为“海洋从来就不是直立人旅行途中的阻碍。”，审校认为“是”无法达意，改为“不足以成为”。“不足以”一般和“只”、“仅仅”、“单”等连用，表达仅仅主语自己没法完成某事，还需要其它的角色的参与。而“是”相比于“不足以”更为绝对和强硬。因此，定稿改为“是”。

4. Theyneeded to be able to paddle.

“need to”表示需要做或者客观要求不得不做..,翻译成要会划桨，或者得会划桨就可。

5. You need communication withsymbols not just grunts.

审校批注：symbol表示Letters that have a fixed meaning 初译的处理就可以。

6. language is not as hard asmany linguists have led us to believe

初译将加粗部分直译，审校认为该部分可以模糊化处理，否则过于欧化。因此定稿为“语言并不像许多语言学家说的那样难”

5. It is highlyplausible that...

Plausible: Seemingly or apparently valid, likely, or acceptable; credible: a plausible excuse.

如审校稿译成“很可能”即可。

6. A sophisticated seafarer

Sophisticated: worldly wise, not naive. 初译“在涉海方面有丰富经验”很妥帖。1.it would have been very difficult for knowledge of how to manufacture Homo erectus’s Acheulian stone tools to spread without a simple form of language.

如果没有简单的语言进行交流[Transyes1] ，直立人制造阿丘利亚石器的知识将将难以传播。

批注：“如果连简单的语言交流都没有，”这样译会不会更能凸显simple一词的含义

2.Tsunamis could have moved early humans on rafts of vegetation.

也许是海啸使得早期人类不得不以植物作筏（开始远航）[Transyes1] 。

批注：个人理解是直立人并不是有组织地航行，而是海啸所迫，直立人不得不逃亡。。（存疑）The study also demonstrates that stone toolmaking would had created a selection pressure favouring increased linguistic capabilities.

Selection pressure 和 increased应该怎样理解和翻译？

    关注 有译思