语言之死

任何東西的逝去和消亡都会让人感伤，语言也不例外。对于那些母语是濒危语言的人来说，语言的消亡使他们承受着巨大的痛苦和不公。但对于其他人来说，保护少数民族语言似乎并没有那么大的意义。我们应该如何看待这种矛盾？我们又该怎样理解语言消亡所带来的感伤？

The year 2010 saw the death of Boa Senior， the last living speaker of Aka-Bo， a tribal language native to the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. Tales of language extinction are invariably tragic. But why， exactly？ Aka-Bo， like many other extinct languages， did not make a difference to the lives of the vast majority of people. Yet the sense that we lose something valuable when languages die is familiar. Just as familiar， though， is the view that preserving minority languages is a waste of time and resources. I want to attempt to make sense of these conflicting attitudes.

The simplest definition of a minority language is one that is spoken by less than half of some country or region. This makes Mandarin—the world’s most widely spoken language—a minority language in many countries. Usually， when we talk of minority languages，we mean languages that are minority languages even in the country in which they are most widely spoken. That will be our focus here. We’re concerned especially with minority languages that are endangered， or that would be endangered were it not for active efforts to support them.

The sorrow we feel about the death of a language is complicated. Boa Senior’s demise1 did not merely mark the extinction of a language. It also marked the loss of the culture of which she was once part. There is， in addition， something melancholy2 about the very idea of a language’s last speaker； of a person who suffered the loss of everyone to whom he was once able to chat in his mother tongue.

Part of our sadness when a language dies has nothing to do with the language itself. Thriving majority languages do not come with tragic stories， and so they do not arouse our emotions in the same ways. Unsurprisingly， concern for minority languages is often dismissed as3 sentimental. Researchers on language policy have observed that majority languages tend to be valued for being useful and for facilitating4 progress， while minority languages are seen as barriers to progress， and the value placed on them is seen as mainly sentimental.

Sentimentality， we tend to think， is an exaggerated emotional attachment to something. It is exaggerated because it does not reflect the value of its object. We all treasure such things—a decades-old rubber， our children’s drawings， a long-expired train ticket from a trip to see the one we love—that are worthless to other people. The same might be true of minority languages： their value to some just doesn’t warrant5 the society-wide effort required to preserve them.

There are a couple of responses to this. First， the value of minority languages is not purely sentimental. Languages are scientifically interesting. There are whole fields of study devoted to them—to charting their history， relationships to other languages， relationships to the cultures in which they exist， and so on. Understanding languages even helps us to understand the way we think. Some believe that the language we speak influences the thoughts we have， or even that language is what makes thought possible.

Second， let’s take a closer look at sentimental value. Why do we call some ways of valuing “sentimental”？ We often do this when someone values something to which they have a particular personal connection. Things that have personal value are valued much less by people who do not have the right sort of personal connection to them. This sort of value is behind the thriving market in celebrity autographs， and it is why parents around the world stick their children’s drawings to the fridge.

Historical and cultural significance is part of why we value languages. Katrina Esau， aged 84， is one of only three remaining speakers of N|uu， a South African “click”language.6 For the past decade， she has run a school in her home， teaching N|uu to local children in an effort to preserve it.

Even people who are unsympathetic to efforts to support minority languages are， I imagine， less baffled by Esau’s desire to preserve N|uu than they would be by a campaign for the creation and proliferation of a completely new artificial language.7 The reason why it’s better to preserve currently existing natural languages than to create new ones is because of the historical and personal value of the former. These are exactly the sort of values associated with sentimentality.

Minority languages， then， are valuable. Does that mean that societies should invest in supporting them？ Not necessarily. The value of minority languages might be outweighed by the value of not supporting them. There’re two reasons： the burden that supporting minority languages places on people， and the benefits of reducing language diversity.

While we might value minority languages for similar reasons that we value medieval castles， there is an important difference in how we can go about preserving the two types of thing. We can preserve a castle by paying people to maintain it. But we can’t preserve a minority language by paying people to carry out maintenance. Instead， we must get people to make the language a big part of their lives， which is necessary if they are to become competent speakers. Often this involves legislation to ensure that children learn the minority language at school.

Some parents think that it would be better for their children to learn a useful majority language rather than a less useful minority language. However， for native English speakers， the most commonly taught majority languages—French， German， Spanish， Italian—are not as useful as they first seem. Because English is so widely spoken， even an English-speaking monoglot8 can make himself understood pretty well when visiting these countries. If he decides to invest effort in learning one of these languages， he can expect relatively little return on his investment in terms of usefulness.

In that case， why is it so widely seen as a good thing for English-speaking children to learn majority languages such as French， German and Spanish？ I think it is the same reason that many claim it’s a good thing to learn a minority language： to gain an insight into an unfamiliar culture， to be able to signal respect by speaking to people in the local language， to hone9 the cognitive skills one gains by learning a language， and so on.

Finally， let’s consider a very different reason to resist the view that we should support minority languages. Language diversity is a barrier to successful communication. The advantages to adopting a single language are clear. It would enable us to travel anywhere in the world， confident that we could communicate with the people we met. We would save money on translation and interpretation. Scientific advances and other news could be shared faster and more thoroughly.

It would be difficult， however， to implement a lingua franca peacefully and justly.10 The history of language death is a violent one. It would， then， be difficult to embrace a lingua franca without harming speakers of other languages. Given the injustices that the communities of minority language speakers have suffered in the past， it might be that they are owed compensation， and it seems clear that it should not include wiping out and replacing the local language.

Perhaps， if one were a god creating a world from scratch11， it would be better to give the people in that world one language rather than many. But now that we have a world with a rich diversity of languages， all of which are interwoven with distinct histories and cultures， and many of which have survived ill-treatment and ongoing persecution， yet which continue to be celebrated and defended by their communities and beyond—once we have all these things， there is no going back without sacrificing a great deal of what is important and valuable.12

最后一位会说孟加拉湾安达曼群岛的部落语言阿卡波语的人，博阿·西尼尔，于2010年去世。关于语言消亡的消息总是令人悲痛的。但这究竟是为什么呢？和其他已经消失的语言一样，阿卡波语并没有对大多数人的生活产生什么影响。但是当某种语言消亡时，我们会觉得是失去了宝贵的东西，这种感觉很常见。而同样地，我们对于“保护少数民族语言是一种浪费时间和资源的事情”的说法也不陌生。我想试着解读一下这些矛盾的态度。

如果一种语言的使用人数达不到这个国家或地区总人口的一半，那么这种语言就是少数民族语言——这是对少数民族语言最简单的一种定义。这使得汉语普通话——这种世界上使用人数最多的语言——在很多国家中变成了少数民族语言。但在通常情况下，我们所说的少数民族语言指的是那些即使在某个国家中是最广泛使用的语言，但依旧属于少数民族语言的语言。第二种定义下的少数民族语言是本文的关注点。我们尤其关注那些濒临灭绝的，或者是那些若缺乏积极有效的保护措施就会濒临灭绝的语言。

一种语言的死亡使我们产生的感伤之情是非常复杂的。博阿·西尼尔的去世不仅仅标志着一种语言的消失，还标志着她曾经所处的文化的消失。此外，一想到某些人是最后一位可以说某种语言的人，以及他承受着失去所有他曾经可以用母语交谈的人的痛苦，也会让人感到惆怅。

我们在某种语言消亡时所产生的伤感其中一部分和语言本身并没有关系。欣欣向荣的被大多数人所使用的语言并不会走向悲惨的境地，因而它们也就不能以相同的方式激发我们的情感。自然地，对少数民族语言的关心经常被当做过于感性的事而被忽视。语言政策的研究者们发现，一个国家中大多数人所使用的语言常常会因为它有用并且能够促进社会发展而被重视，但少数民族语言却被看做进步的障碍，对于它们的关注也常被当做感情用事。

我们往往将“感情用事”视为一种被夸大的对某些事物的情感依恋。之所以说它被夸大，是因为这样的情感并不能如实反映那个被依恋物的价值。我们都会珍视一些对别人来说并没有价值的东西—— 一块几十年的旧橡皮、自己孩子的涂鸦，或是一张去见恋人时留下的早已过期的火车票根。这样的情况可能也适用于少数民族语言：这些濒临灭绝的语言对于某一部分人的价值，并不能保证我们能得到保护其所需的来自全社会范围内的支持。

对于这种情况，我们需要阐明几点。第一，重视少数民族语言并不完全是感情用事。语言是科学而有趣的。对于语言，我们开展了完善而全面的研究——追踪记录它们的历史、研究与其他语言之间的关系，以及它们和母体文化之间的关系等等。理解语言甚至可以帮助我们理解自身思考的方式。一些人认为我们所使用的语言能够影响我们的思想，有人甚至认为语言还可能产生了思想。

其次，让我们来更加仔细地看一下感情用事的价值取向。为什么我们会把一些价值判断的方式叫做“感情用事”呢？我们常常会在有人十分重视跟他们自身有特殊关联的事物时这么说。而对于并没有这种特殊关联的人来说，就不会那么重视这些存在个人价值的事物。正因为存在这样一种价值取向，名人的亲笔签名才会那么有市场，全世界的父母才会把他们孩子的涂鸦贴到冰箱上。

语言的历史和文化意义也是我们需要重视语言的原因。卡特瑞纳·以素今年84岁，是南非一种含有“搭嘴音”的N|uu方言仅剩的三位使用者之一。在过去的十年间，她在她的家乡建立了一个学校，通过教当地的孩子说N|uu语来保护这种语言。

我觉得，即便那些对于保护少数民族语言不太关心的人来说，比起以素保护N|uu语的强烈愿望，创造和推行一种全新的人造语言可能会更让他们感到困惑。保护目前存在的语言之所以比创造新语言更好，是因为前者在历史层面和个人层面具有价值。这些价值也正是和“感情用事”相关联的东西。

所以，少数民族语言是有价值的。那这就意味着社会应该大举投入保护它们吗？未必。少数民族语言的价值可能不如不保护它们的价值大。原因有两点：一是保护少数民族语言给人们带来的压力，二是减少语言多样性的好处。

虽然我们珍惜少数民族语言的原因可能和重视中世纪城堡相似，但我们如何保护这两种东西是有重要区别的。我们可以花錢雇人去保护一座城堡。但是我们不能通过花钱让人们来保护一个少数民族语言。相反地，我们必须让语言变成人们生活中非常重要的一部分，这对于让他们成为合格的语言使用者来说是非常必要的。通常情况下，要实现这一点，需要通过立法来确保孩子们能在学校里学习少数民族语言。

一些父母觉得让他们的孩子学一门有用的大语种可能会比学一门没那么有用的少数民族语言要好。然而，对于以英语为母语的人来说，他们学的最多的几个大语种——法语、德语、西班牙语、意大利语——并没有他们想象中那么有用。由于英语的使用范围太广泛了，即便一个只会说英语的人在上述这些国家旅行时也能和当地人沟通得非常好。如果一个人决定学习上述某一种语言的话，在实用性方面，他的投入并不能期望可以得到什么回报。

既然这样，为什么人们会普遍认为学一门像法语、德语或西班牙语的大语种对以英语为母语的孩子来说是一件好事呢？我觉得这可能和许多人认为学一门少数民族语言是件好事的原因一样：收获一种理解陌生文化的洞察力，让人可以用当地的语言对别人表示尊敬，以及通过学习一门新的语言来锻炼认知能力等等。

最后，让我们来考虑一个与众不同的用来反对“我们应该保护少数民族语言”的理由。语言多样性是沟通的障碍。使用同一种语言的好处是显而易见的。这能够让我们到世界各地旅行，自信地与我们在旅途中遇到的人交流。我们也可以节省笔译和口译的钱。科学方面的进展和其他的消息能够被更加迅速而深入地传播。

但是，以和平公正的方式来推行一门通用语言是很难的。语言消亡的历史是充满暴力的。因而，我们很难在不伤害其他语言使用者的情况下推崇通用语言。考虑到少数民族语言使用者在过去所遭受的不公，他们需要得到一种补偿，而且很明显，这样的补偿不应该包括清除和取代当地的语言。

如果上帝现在要从头开始创造一个世界的话，他给那个世界的人们同一种语言可能比给他们许多语言要好。但既然我们的世界已经有丰富多彩的语言了，并且所有的语言与各自独特的历史文化相互交融，其中许多语言还是经历了不公正对待和持续不断的迫害后存活下来的，并继续被少数民族群体及更多人支持和保护着—— 一旦我们有了所有这些东西，在不牺牲大量重要和有价值的东西的情况下，是没有回头路可以走的。

1. demise： 死亡。

2. melancholy： // 忧郁的，使人悲伤的。

3. dismiss as： （因认为某事不重要而）不予认真对待。

4. facilitate： 促进，帮助。

5. warrant： 保证，允诺。

6. N|uu： 南非Tuu语系中的一种方言，濒临灭绝；click： 搭嘴音，又叫吸气音、吮吸音、咂嘴音，是发音方式的一种，多见于非洲东部和南部的语言中。

7. baffle： 使困惑，使为难；proliferation：增殖，扩散。

8. monoglot： // 只会一种语言的人。

9. hone： 磨炼，训练（技艺等）。

10. implement： 实施，执行；lingua franca： （母语不同的人共用的）通用语。

11. from scratch： 从零开始。

12. interweave with： 与……交织，紧密结合；persecution： 迫害；celebrate： 赞美，颂扬。