【精英翻譯】的部落格

Lost in translation: Papua New Guinea wins the language Olympics 譯海茫茫：巴布亞紐幾內亞摘下語言奧林匹克冠軍

精英翻譯社轉自http://iservice.ltn.com.tw/Service/english/english.php?engno=1265320&day=2019-01-31

◎孫宇青

With 841 living tongues and a creole lingua franca, Pacific nation Papua New Guinea is the undisputed world champion of linguistic diversity.

太平洋島國巴布亞紐幾內亞有841種現存語言，以及1種通用混合語，毫無疑問是全球語言最多元的國家。

The country is a linguist’s paradise with one in 10 of the world’s languages found here. The number of speakers of individual languages can range from a handful of people in the jungle to millions spread across provinces and terrains.

該國是語言學家的天堂，因為在此可找到全球10分之1的語言。每種語言的使用人數從叢林裡的一小群人，到橫跨各省分及地區的數百萬人皆有。

Experts point to the country’s relatively weak central government, deep valleys, almost impenetrable vegetation and roughly 600 islands to explain why it has such a bounty of languages.

專家指出，巴國中央政府權力較小，加上擁有深谷、幾乎無法通行的植被和將近600座島嶼，解釋了為何那裡存有大量語言。

Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu and English are the country’s three official languages. Papua New Guineans typically speak three to five languages, and understand many more dialects.

巴布亞皮欽語、希里摩圖語和英語是巴國3種官方語言。巴國人民通常會說3到5種語言，且能聽懂多種方言。

In fact, Tok Pisin is something of a linguistic sponge, soaking up words from languages as distant as Taiwanese and Zulu.

事實上，巴布亞皮欽語就像語言海綿一樣，吸納台語、祖魯語等遙遠語言的詞彙。