馬克·福賽思

Keith Kahn-Harriss charming conceit is that the warning message within is a skeleton key1 to the languages of the world. 基思·卡恩-哈里斯可愛的奇思妙想：健達奇趣蛋里的安全警示可以成為開啟多語言世界的“萬能鑰匙”。

Tucked inside with the cheap plastic toy Kinder Surprise Egg is a tiny sheet of paper that says： ‘WARNING， read and keep： Toy not suitable for children under three years. Small parts might be swallowed or inhaled. But the piece of paper does not just say it in English; it repeats the same message in 34 different languages and scripts.

廉價的塑料玩具健達奇趣蛋里塞著一張小紙片，上面寫著：“警告！請閱讀并保存。玩具內(nèi)含小零件，存在誤食吞咽或吸入風險，不適合三歲以下兒童使用。”紙片上并非只用英文寫了這段話，還以另外34種語言和文本傳遞同樣的信息。

Of course， any right-thinking chap will just crumple up this useless bit of paper and throw it in the bin. It is an amusing paradox of modern life that when youre unpacking a new purchase， you know， with terrible certainty， that the slip of paper that says something like ‘IMPORTANT！ PLEASE READ！ CONTAINS VITAL SAFETY INFORMATION！ is the one that you absolutely dont need to bother with. It will just tell you that the product should not be used to stab yourself in the eye， or be set alight and left in a petrol station. Every sensible fellow knows that. Fortunately， Keith Kahn-Harris， the author of The Babel Message， is not a sensible fellow.

當然，任何思維正常的人都會把這張沒用的紙片揉成一團，扔進垃圾桶?，F(xiàn)代生活中有一個有趣的悖論：當你打開新買物品的包裝，你十分確信自己完全不用理會那張帶有“重要提示！請閱讀！含有重要安全信息！”字樣的紙條。它無非是告訴你，不要用該產(chǎn)品戳眼睛，或者把它點燃了遺留在加油站內(nèi)。明白人都懂的。幸運的是，《巴別塔的信息》一書的作者基思·卡恩-哈里斯并不是一個明白人。

He collects these Kinder warning sheets. He obsesses over them. He tracks down versions new and old. And he has now written a 300-page book about them. Except， of course， that the book is not really about the warning message; it is about languages in general， the whole glorious worldwide mess of them.

他收集這些健達奇趣蛋的警示語小紙條，沉迷其中，研究各種新老版本，還專門寫了一本300頁的書。當然，這本書寫的其實并不是警示語本身，而是人類各種語言一總構(gòu)成的瑰麗世界。

The Kinder Surprise warning message is a conceit upon which to build a book. Its a very neat and charming one. There is a delicious humour implicit in every page， as Kahn-Harris shows what the warning would look like in hieroglyphics or ancient cuneiform. But it is also， strangely， a very clever and methodical conceit.

從健達奇趣蛋的警示語切入，策劃一本書，這樣的構(gòu)思簡單質(zhì)樸而又令人著迷。全書字里行間盡顯風趣幽默，作者還給出了象形文字或古代楔形文字版本的奇趣蛋警示語。不可思議的是，這種巧妙的構(gòu)思中倒也不乏機智與條理。

Too many books on language begin with the sublime. They tell you that you will never truly appreciate the wonders of Greek drama or Balinese poetry until you have spent a decade mastering every subtle detail and nuance of the language. This is both dispiriting for the general reader and unprovable. However， the Kinder Surprise warning message functions as a great leveller2. Languages can be compared in their ability to impart this simple bit of information. The results are truly odd. For example， I had no idea that Old Norse doesnt appear to have had a word for ‘year. Instead， a Viking would have been warned that the toy was not suitable for children with less than three winters.

有太多關(guān)于語言的書一開篇便說得無比玄妙。那些書里寫道，要想真正品讀希臘戲劇和巴厘語詩歌的美妙，你就要先花費10年時間來掌握相應(yīng)語言的種種微妙之處和細微差異。這種說法既讓普通讀者感到十分沮喪，又無法驗證真?zhèn)?。然而，健達奇趣蛋的警示語為我們降低了進入多語言世界的門檻，我們可以比較各種語言在傳達這種簡單信息方面的能力。其結(jié)果著實令人意外——比如，我以前不知道古北歐語中似乎沒有表示“年”的詞匯，因此，適用于維京人的警示語是“本玩具不適合年齡未滿三冬的兒童”。

Kahn-Harris applies this language test to everything. Thirty-four languages were not enough， so he has managed to obtain translations into many more—some of them real， such as Basque3 or Sumerian4， some artificial， such as Esperanto and Braille， and some fanciful， such as Klingon5 and Scots.

卡恩-哈里斯廣泛應(yīng)用這種比較不同語言的方法。34種語言還不夠，所以他設(shè)法找到了更多語種的譯文，其中一些是真實存在的語種（如巴斯克語和蘇美爾語），一些是人工創(chuàng)制的語種（如世界語和盲文），還有一些是并不實用的語種（如克林貢語和蘇格蘭英語）。

As the title suggests， this is a book about all languages and about all forms of language. The author cannot， therefore， know them all. And therein lies the final charm of the work. Kahn-Harris confesses at the outset that he speaks only a very few languages， and most of those badly. This is an advantage.

正如書名所示，這是一本關(guān)于所有語言和所有語言形式的書。因此，作者不可能全然了解這些語言。而這就是此書的終極魅力所在?？ǘ?哈里斯一開始就承認自己只懂區(qū)區(qū)幾種語言，而且大多掌握得不好。這反而是一個優(yōu)勢。

Many books on language have the air of a smug teacher telling you that you really should know as much as they do， or at least have kept practising the French that you learnt at GCSE6. But The Babel Message does the opposite. It is filled with a sense of wonder， gazing at languages that neither the writer nor reader understands. Though the author has corresponded with experts， who have explained how a translation into some obscure creole7 works， the book is about ‘the pleasures and possibilities of not understanding. It lingers upon the beauty of enigmatic alphabets， odd diacritics and the pleasant strangeness of the incomprehensible.

許多關(guān)于語言的書都流露出一種高高在上的說教感，預設(shè)讀者和作者一樣博學，或者最起碼一直在練習中學學過的法語?！栋蛣e塔的信息》卻與之相反，凝視那些作者和讀者都不懂的語言，連連稱奇。盡管作者與專家們通過信，后者解釋說某句話用晦澀的克里奧爾語（混合語）翻譯如何可行，這仍是一本展現(xiàn)“不理解的樂趣和可能性”的書。這本書傳遞出美的體驗，那種美來自神秘字母和奇特變音符，也來自難解字那令人愉悅的奇異感。

There is a lot to be said for gazing at what you do not understand. Not only is it a rather good metaphor for the human condition， but it makes us see things that we would not notice if our interest were purely utilitarian. Many a time I have sat on trains or planes in other countries wondering what a big red sign is warning me of， and ending only by admiring the font. （I also have a little collection of books that I have written translated into Thai， Korean， Japanese and other languages whose scripts I cant read. Its rather amusing to gaze at all the pretty symbols and think ‘I wrote that.）

凝視自己不理解的事物，這個話題有很多方面值得探討。這不僅是對人類處境的一個相當好的隱喻，而且能讓我們看到在純功利主義原則之下不會注意到的事物。我曾多次在異國的火車或飛機上琢磨某個大大的紅色標識是要警示什么，卻往往止步于對標識字體的欣賞。（我寫的一些書被翻譯成泰語、韓語、日語和其他我看不懂的語言，這些譯本我都收藏了?？粗切┢恋姆?，心里想著“這可是我寫的書”，這感覺相當有趣。）

The Babel Message ends up being a much better book for this. Kahn-Harris comes across as not a guide but a companion. And the central conceit of the whole book is， in the end， not so much a joke as a skeleton key to the world of languages. As he puts it， that little warning message， ‘a(chǎn) text that sets no pulses racing8， can help us knit together our common experience of the travails9 of life.

《巴別塔的信息》在這方面做得更好?？ǘ?哈里斯讓人感覺不是一名向?qū)В且晃煌?。歸根結(jié)底，整本書的核心構(gòu)想與其說是一個玩笑，不如說是一把打開多語言世界的萬能鑰匙。正如作者所說，那張警告字條寥寥數(shù)語，“不會讓人激動不已，卻能幫助人們共情對艱辛人生的體驗”。

1 skeleton key萬能鑰匙。

2 leveller使人人平等的事（或局面）。? 3 Basque巴斯克語，又稱歐斯卡拉語（Euskara），是生活于西班牙北部和法國西南部的巴斯克民族的語言，語系歸屬未定，使用拉丁字母。? 4 Sumerian蘇美爾語，古代西亞兩河流域蘇美爾民族的語言。約公元前4000年，蘇美爾人創(chuàng)造圖畫文字，約公元前3000年發(fā)展成楔形文字。? 5 Klingon克林貢語，20世紀美國科幻作品《星際迷航》中外星種族克林貢人使用的語言，由美國語言學家馬克·歐克朗為該科幻作品專門發(fā)明，后得到國際廣泛承認，并成為流行文化的一部分。

6 = General Certificate of Secondary Education普通中等教育證書考試。英國（不包含蘇格蘭）學生在14歲開始兩年（year 10—11）GCSE課程學習，包含英語、數(shù)學、設(shè)計與技術(shù)、語言、自然科學、宗教、通訊技術(shù)及體育等內(nèi)容，通過GCSE考試即可獲得英國普通初級中學畢業(yè)文憑。? 7 creole克里奧耳語，又稱混合語、混成語或混雜語言，形成于殖民地、民族融合地區(qū)等不同語言頻繁接觸的地區(qū)，混合了多種自然語言的詞匯和文法并逐漸成為當?shù)啬承┥鐣旱哪刚Z。

8 set someones pulse racing使激動。? 9 travails艱辛，煎熬。