There are a lot of ways this marvelous language of ours, English, doesn't make sense. For example, most of the time when we talk about more than one of something, we put an S on the end. One cat, two cats. But then, there's that handful of words where things work differently. Alone you have a man; if he has company, then you've got men, or probably better for him, women too. Although if there were only one of them, it would be a woman. Or if there's more than one goose, they're geese, but why not lots of mooses, meese? Or if you have two feet, then why don't you read two beek instead of books. The fact is that if you were speaking English before about a thousand years ago, beek is exactly what you would have said for more than one book. If Modern English is strange, Old English needed therapy. Believe it or not, English used to be an even harder language to learn than it is today. Twenty-five hundred years ago, English and German were the same language. They drifted apart slowly, little by little becoming more and more different. That meant that in early English, just like in German, inanimate objects had gender. A fork, gafol, was a woman; a spoon, laefel, was a man; and the table they were on, bord, was neither, also called neuter. Go figure! Being able to use words meant not just knowing their meaning but what gender they were, too. And while today there are only about a dozen plurals that don't make sense, like men and geese, in Old English, it was perfectly normal for countless plurals to be like that. You think it's odd that more than one goose is geese? Well, imagine if more than one goat was a bunch of gat, or if more than one oak tree was a field of ack. To be able to talk about any of these, you just had to know the exact word for their plural rather than just adding the handy S on the end. And it wasn't always an S at the end either. In merry Old English, they could add other sounds to the end. Just like more than one child is children, more than one lamb was lambru, you fried up your eggru, and people talked not about breads, but breadru. Sometimes it was like sheep is today - where, to make a plural, you don't do anything. One sheep, two sheep. In Old English, one house, two house. And just like today, we have oxen instead of oxes. Old English people had toungen instead of tongues, namen instead of names, and if things stayed the way they were, today we would have eyen instead of eyes. So, why didn't things stay the way they were? In a word, Vikings. In the 8th century, Scandinavian marauders started taking over much of England. They didn't speak English, they spoke Norse. Plus, they were grown-ups, and grown-ups aren't as good at learning languages as children. After the age of roughly 15, it's almost impossible to learn a new language without an accent and without slipping up here and there as we all know from what language classes are like. The Vikings were no different, so they had a way of smoothing away the harder parts of how English worked. Part of that was those crazy plurals. Imagine running up against a language with eggru and gat on the one hand, and then with other words, all you have to do is add 's' and get days and stones. Wouldn't it make things easier to just use the 's' for everything? That's how the Vikings felt too. And there were so many of them, and they married so many of the English women, that pretty soon, if you grew up in England, you heard streamlined English as much as the real kind.
從許多方面看來 我們使用的這個奇妙的語言 也就是英語, 顯得不太合理 舉個例子來說明 當我們講到的東西數目多於一個 通常會在字尾加上「S」 一隻貓是「cat」,兩隻貓是「cats」 但還有一些其他的字 不遵守這個規則 一個人是「man」 當這人有了同伴,他們叫做「men」 加入的如果是幾位女士,會被稱為「women」 但若只有一位女性 會被稱為「woman」 或是當鵝 (goose) 多於一隻 牠們叫做「geese」 那為什麼麋鹿 (moose) 的複數不是「meese」? 既然腳 (foot) 的複數是「feet」 為什麼書 (book) 的複數不是「beek」 而是「books」? 事實上,如果你講英語的時代 是在大約 1000 年以前 你的確會用「beek」這個字 來表示多於一本的書 如果說現代英語有點怪怪的 古代英語可是需要進醫院了 信不信由你 和現代的英語比較起來 古代英語是很難學的語言 在 2500 年以前 英語和德語曾經是相同的語言 它們慢慢有了分別 一點一點地變得越來越不同 也就是說像德文一樣 在早期的英語裡 無生命的物體是有性別的 叉子 (fork,德文gafol) 是女性 湯匙 (spoon,德文 laefel) 是男性 擺這些餐具的桌子 (table,德文 bord) 男女都不是,又叫做中性 我的天啊! 要能夠使用字 不只是要知道字的意思 還要弄清楚它們的性別 今天的英語中只有一部分字的複數 沒有規則可言 例如人 (men) 還有鵝 (geese) 古代英語中,複數沒有規則很正常 這樣的字還多到數不完 你覺得鵝 (goose) 的複數是「geese」很奇怪嗎? 那就想想看,如果一隻山羊 (goat) 的複數 變成了一群「gat」 或者一棵橡樹 (oak) 的複數 變成了一片「ack」 講話時要能提到這些字 必須確實記住它們的複數型態 而不能直接在字尾加 S 更別說字尾加的不一定是 S 了 在可愛的古代英語中 還有別的字可以加在複數字尾 如同孩子 (child) 的複數是「children」一樣 小羊 (lamb) 的複數是「lambru」 鍋裡炒的蛋是「eggru」 人們也不把麵包叫做「breads」 而是「breadru」 有時候就像綿羊 (sheep) 這個字 變成複數時什麼字也不必加 一隻綿羊是「sheep」 兩隻綿羊還是「sheep」 古代英語的房子一間是「house」 兩間也是「house」 公牛 (ox) 的複數和現在一樣 是「oxen」而不是「oxes」 古代英語中舌頭 複數是「toungen」而不是「tongues」 名字的複數是「namen」而不是「names」 如果這些古代字保持原樣到今天 我們的眼睛就叫「eyen」而不叫「eyes」 那為什麼這些字沒有保持原樣呢? 因為維京人 八世紀時,這些斯堪地納維亞的掠奪者 開始佔據英國大部分的領土 他們不會說英語 他們說諾爾斯語 而且他們已經是成人了 成人在學新語言時 沒辦法像小孩學得那麼好 超過 15 歲之後 人學講新語言時想不帶有腔調 幾乎是不可能的 也會三不五時出個錯 在外語課堂上常看到這種情形 維京人當然也一樣 所以他們找了個方法 來搞定英語裡比較難的部分 當中包含令人抓狂的複數 想像一下,如果在學語言的時候 要背蛋是「eggru」 山羊是「gat」 作為複數型態的一種 還有另一種型態是 只要加上 S 就變成複數 很多天是「days」 很多石頭是「stones」 兩者相比較之下 直接加 S 不是簡單多了嗎? 維京人也是這麼想的 而且維京人的人數很多 他們和很多英國女人結了婚 於是短時間內,在英國長大的人 他們聽到改良式英語的機會 和正統英語一樣多
After a while nobody remembered the real kind any more. Nobody remembered that once you said doora instead of doors and handa instead of hands. Plurals made a lot more sense now, except for a few hold-outs like children and teeth that get used so much that it was hard to break the habit. The lesson is that English makes a lot more sense than you think. Thank the ancestors of people in Copenhagen and Oslo for the fact that today we don't ask for a handful of pea-night instead of peanuts. Although, wouldn't it be fun, if for just a week or two, we could?
再一段時間之後 就沒有人記得正統英語了 沒有人記得門的複數曾經是「doora」 而不是「doors」 很多隻手是「handa」而不是「hands」 現在的複數型態合理多了 不過還有一些字沒改,像是「children」 還有「teeth」 這些字太常用了 要把它們改掉相當困難 所以我們學到了 英語其實比我們所想的還要合理 感謝哥本哈根人 和奧斯陸人的祖先 我們今天想吃花生不必記得「pea-night」 只要記「peanuts」 但如果能幫花生改名幾個禮拜 應該會滿好玩的 對吧?