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寫在前面
思維導圖作者：
Cece，消防人+經濟學人粉絲
翻譯組全體成員如下：
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精讀|翻譯|片語
英文部分選自經濟學人20250301期文化板塊
Culture | The babble and the beyond
文化|胡言亂語與言外之意
Culture | The babble and the beyond
文化|胡言亂語與言外之意
Finding meaning in people’s first words—and their last
從人們的“第一句話”和“最後一句話”中尋找意義
Why there is less significance than society would have you believe
為何這些話語並沒有社會宣揚得那麼有意義？
An illustration of two large speech marks with a coffin on the bottom left and a baby top right.
插圖中有兩個巨大的引號，左下角是一口棺材，右上角是一個嬰兒。
Bye Bye I Love You. By Michael Erard. mit Press; 344 pages; $32.95 and £30
《再見，我愛你》，邁克爾·埃拉德（Michael Erard）著。麻省理工學院出版社；344頁；32.95美元或30英鎊。
BABIES COME into the world seeking out comfort, so their first word is often “mama”. It is easy to say and reflects the bond of mother and child. Meanwhile those leaving this world often make a philosophical statement, reveal a long-hidden truth or even utter a witticism. “Either those curtains go or I do,” Oscar Wilde supposedly said on his deathbed.
嬰兒甫一來到這個世界，就在尋求安慰，所以開口第一句話通常是“媽媽”。這句話發音簡單，且反映了母親和孩子之間的紐帶。而那些即將離開這個世界的人則往往會說一段極具哲理的話，揭露一個隱藏許久的真相，或是說出一句精妙絕倫的俏皮話。據說奧斯卡·王爾德（Oscar Wilde）在臨終前說的是：“要麼那些窗簾走，要麼我走。”
All this, including Wilde’s quip, is dubious, argues Michael Erard, an American journalist who has written several books about language. In “Bye Bye I Love You” he dismantles many long-held beliefs about utterances at both the beginning and end of life. He finds first and last words to be similar in many ways—such as how they are created by expectant listeners as much as by their speakers.
美國記者邁克爾·埃拉德認為上述觀點，包括王爾德的俏皮話，都存在可疑之處。這位作者寫過一些語言相關的書籍。他在《再見，我愛你》一書中，推翻了許多關於生命開始和結束時所說話語的固有觀念。他發現生命的開場白和結束語在很多方面存在相似之處，例如，這些話語並非單純由說話者創造，滿懷期待的傾聽者發揮了同樣重要的作用。
Sounds like mama and dada or papa recur in many of the world’s words for “mother” and “father”. But about as many parental words lack these common sounds; in some languages the word for “mother” features rare consonants that children master only later. “Mama” is what Mr Erard calls a “cultural first word”, fussed over by those who have learned to look out for it or even elicit it from little ones.
像“mama”、“dada”或“papa”這樣的發音在世界上許多地方可以表示“母親”和“父親”。但也有很多語言中爸爸媽媽並不是這樣發音的；在一些語言中，“母親”這個詞有一些罕見的子音，這些子音大一點的孩子才能掌握。埃拉德認為“Mama”是“文化上的第一個詞”，很多人特別關注這個詞，他們已經學會留意這個詞，甚至引導孩子說出這個詞。
Things are very different elsewhere. Among the Beng people of Ivory Coast, a baby is not supposed to utter his first word too precociously. To do so is a bad omen, involving a “cosmic rebalancing”, and a grandparent might die in compensation. Among speakers of Tayap in Papua New Guinea babies are expected to be defiant; people listen out for “oki” and “aiata”, meaning “I’m getting out of here” and “stop it”. A similar belief holds among Samoans, for whom “tae” is expected to be many babies’ first word, short for “ai tae” (“eat shit”).
各個地方的情況大相徑庭。象牙海岸的本族人（Beng people）並不希望嬰兒過早說出第一個詞，在他們看來，嬰兒過早說出第一個詞是不祥之兆，會引發“宇宙再平衡”，代價可能是祖父母或外祖父母中的一位會去世。巴布亞紐幾內亞的泰雅博語（Tayap）使用者則希望嬰兒離經叛道，人們留心捕捉“oki”和“aiata”這些詞，意思分別是“我要離開這裡”和“停止”。薩摩亞人（Samoans）也有類似的觀念，他們認為嬰兒發出的第一個詞會是“tae”，即“ai tae”（吃屎）的簡稱。
In industrialised societies early linguistic development is big business. Unusual and varied early words are meant to be a sign of a gifted child who will reap the rewards of being brainy later on. Baby books encouraging parents to report on their children’s first words made their appearance in the late 19th century along with an increasingly professional, managerial approach to parenting—child-rearing as optimisation. Rich-world parents are thus keen to elicit speech from their children as early as they can.
在工業社會，早期語言發育是一件大事。開口就說出不常用的或者多樣化的詞彙被視作聰慧的標誌，預示著孩子未來會因聰明才智而受益。19世紀末，出現了鼓勵父母記錄孩子第一句話的育兒手冊，與此同時，育兒方式不斷最佳化，變得更加專業化和管理化。發達國家的父母因此熱衷於引導孩子儘早開口說話。
Mr Erard is not the first to point out that industrialisation has changed not only childhood, but old age, too. Medical advances in wealthy countries have led to more protracted declines and deaths at older ages; in earlier centuriesviolence, accidents and catastrophic illnesses claimed many young, otherwise healthy people.
埃拉德並不是第一個指出工業化同時改變了童年和暮年的人。發達國家的醫療技術進步延緩了衰老，延長了壽命；而在過去幾個世紀，暴力、事故和災難性疾病奪走了很多年輕又健康的生命。
That has had an effect on last words. Popular culture has conditioned loved ones to expect some final truth or profundity in the last utterance of the dying. But moments of sudden lucidity, with clear, meaningful and memorable last words, are very much the exception in those who die today (and offer reason to be sceptical of many of the famous last words collected in anthologies). By far the most common process by which people die in the modern rich world is a slow breakdown of physical and mental faculties, “neurochemical commotion” that gradually robs people of the ability to say anything at all.
工業化也改變了遺言。大眾文化讓親人們期待逝者臨終前最後一句話會說出壓抑已久的真相或深刻的哲思。但如今，迴光返照並脫口而出一句清晰、有意義、值得銘記的遺言，這種情況極為罕見（所以我們也有理由對各種精選集中的許多著名遺言持懷疑態度）。在當今富裕社會中，最常見的死亡過程是身心機能的逐漸衰退，這種“神經化學波動”會一點點地剝奪人們說話的能力。
Indeed, in another link between first and last words, Mr Erard argues that dying people lose their verbal faculties in a way resembling the child’s language learning but in reverse. Though language acquisition is well studied, language attrition is not. Mr Erard is elegiac as he describes glances, hand squeezes and gestures, and the sometimes upsetting cries, moans and delirious talk that are often the final communication of the dying. This is why some cultures—many Hindus and Muslims among them—prepare and practise declarations for the moment of death long before it arrives. (Christians once did so, too.)
埃拉德指出，事實上，人生第一句話和最後一句話間還有另一重關聯：將死之人喪失語言能力的過程和嬰兒學習語言的過程相似，只不過順序相反。儘管人們對語言習得的研究已經非常詳盡，對語言退化的研究還差得遠。埃拉德哀婉地描繪了那些眼神、攥緊的手、手勢、時而令人不安的哭喊、呻吟和譫語，這些通常都是臨終者最後的交流方式。因此，在一些文化中，比如印度教徒和穆斯林，會提前很長時間準備和演練臨終發言。（基督徒曾經也這樣做。）
A book ending with so much death may sound like a hard read. Instead, it is a beautiful and even strangely comforting one, with Mr Erard as a pensive, patient guide. (He is training to be an end-of-life doula.) The end must come; unrealistic expectations about final messages need not.
終章探討了這麼多死亡，這本書聽上去可能沉重。但事實恰恰相反，在埃拉德深沉、耐心的引導下，這本書十分美妙，甚至意外地治癒。（他正接受培訓成為一位臨終導樂。）生命的終點必然到來；卻無需對臨終遺言懷有不切實際的期待。
翻譯組：
zy，當下快樂就是意義
Jack Jan，實踐出真知
Cassie，ECNU口譯小菜雞，體制內摸爬滾打教書匠
校對組：
UU，保持低調
雪迪，開眼看世界
Clover，懷民亦未寢
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感想
本期感想
Vicky，少兒英語老師+筆譯新人
話語崇拜
從之前中國有嘻哈里的態度，到奇葩說的爭論，再到脫口秀大會的吐槽，這些爆火的節目裡面，無一不充滿了語言的力量，每一次好像都會有幾句爆梗金句讓我們產生共鳴，給了我們一些啟示和力量，讓我們看清了一些事實和真相。
可是真的是這樣嗎？
在人類文明的漫長程序中，我們似乎總在執著地尋找某種"神聖時刻"。人們習慣性地賦予某些話語特殊的意義，這種話語崇拜的背後，也許藏著的是我們對確定性的渴望與對探索意義的焦慮。
歷史長河中，無數頓悟時刻被過度解讀。牛頓與蘋果的故事被演繹成科學發現的經典範式，彷彿那句"萬有引力"的頓悟決定了整個物理學的程序。但事實上，牛頓的發現是長期積累的結果，而非某個瞬間的靈光乍現。就像真正改變我們人生的，從來都是每一天的每件小事，而不是那一句金句的醍醐灌頂。
在生命終結處，人們同樣執著於尋找"最後的話語"。蘇格拉底飲下毒酒前的遺言被後世反覆解讀，試圖從中提煉出哲人的終極智慧。其實叮囑徒弟歸還自己欠別人的一隻雞（蘇格拉底遺言：“克利託，我還欠伊斯科萊普斯一隻雞，你一定替我還給他。”），也許就是老頭兒在彌留之際想到的最後一件事，無關智慧哲理。
話語崇拜現象揭示了現代社會的一個深層困境：在資訊爆炸的時代，人們愈發渴望抓住某些確定性的符號。第一句話被視為生命的起源，最後一句話被當作生命的總結，這種簡化思維實際上是對生命複雜性的逃避。
生命的意義不在於某個特定的時刻或話語，而在於持續不斷的思考、選擇與行動。真正的智慧存在於日常生活的點滴之中，而非被神化的某個瞬間。
沒有人能代替我們過自己的人生，沒有一蹴而就的成功，也沒有智者救你我於水火，風后面還是風，天空上面仍是天空，一步步向前走去，道路盡頭仍然有路。
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願景