PART 4

Right, everyone, let's make a start.

好了，各位，我们开始吧。

Over the past few sessions, we've been considering the reasons why some world languages are in decline, and today I'm going to introduce another factor that affects languages, and the speakers of those languages, and that's technology and, in particular, digital technology.

在过去的几节课中，我们一直在考虑世界上某些语言衰落的原因。今天我将介绍另一个影响语言和语言使用者的因素，那就是技术，尤其是数字技术。

In order to illustrate its effect, I'm going to focus on the Icelandic language, which is spoken by around 321,000 people, most of whom live in Iceland–an island in the North Atlantic Ocean.

为了说明它的影响，我将重点介绍冰岛语。约有32.1万人使用冰岛语，其中大多数人居住在冰岛，它是北大西洋的一个岛屿国家。

The problem for this language is not the number of speakers – even though this number is small.

这种语言的问题不在于说话者的数量，虽然冰岛语使用者人数确实不多。

Nor is it about losing words to other languages, such as English.

也不是由于某些单词被其他语言（如英语）取代。

In fact, the vocabulary of Icelandic is continually increasing because when speakers need a new word for something, they tend to create one, rather than borrowing from another language.

事实上，冰岛语的词汇量在不断增加，因为当说话者需要一个新词来表达某事物时，他们倾向于创造一个新词，而不是借用另一种语言。

All this makes Icelandic quite a special language – it's changed very little in the past millennium, yet it can handle twenty-first-century concepts related to the use of computers and digital technology.

所有这些都使冰岛语成为一种非常特殊的语言。在过去的千年里，冰岛语几乎没有变化，但它可以表达与计算机和数字技术的使用有关的21世纪的新概念。

Take, for example, the word for web browser … this is vafri in Icelandic, which comes from the verb 'to wander'.

举个例子，web browser这个词，在冰岛语中是vafri，来自动词“to wander”。

I can't think of a more appropriate term because that's exactly what you do mentally when you browse the internet.

我想不出一个更合适的词了，因为它准确描述了人们浏览互联网时的心理状态。

Then there's an Icelandic word for podcast – which is too hard to pronounce! And so on.

冰岛语中还有一个单词可以对应podcast，这个词太不好读了。诸如此类还有很多。

Icelandic, then, is alive and growing, but – and it's a big but – young Icelanders spend a great deal of time in the digital world and this world is predominantly English.

因此，冰岛语仍在生存和发展，但是，很重要的是，年轻的冰岛人在数字世界中花费了大量时间，但数字世界是由英语主导的。

Think about smartphones.

想想智能手机吧。

They didn't even exist until comparatively recently, but today young people use them all the time to read books, watch TV or films, play games, listen to music, and so on.

它们直到最近才出现，但是当下很多年轻人总是用它们看书、看电视或电影、玩游戏、听音乐等等。

Obviously, this is a good thing in many respects because it promotes their bilingual skills, but the extent of the influence of English in the virtual world is staggering and it's all happening really fast.

显然，从很多方面来看这都是一件好事，因为它提升了他们的双语能力。但英语在虚拟世界中的影响力之大令人震惊，而且一切都发生得非常快。

For their parents and grandparents, the change is less concerning because they already have their native-speaker skills in Icelandic.

对于他们的父母和祖父母来说，这种变化不那么令人担忧，因为他们已经掌握了以冰岛语为母语的技能。

But for young speakers – well, the outcome is a little troubling.

但对于年轻的语言使用者来说，结果有点令人不安。

For example, teachers have found that playground conversations in Icelandic secondary schools can be conducted entirely in English, while teachers of much younger children have reported situations where their classes find it easier to say what is in a picture using English, rather than Icelandic.

例如，老师们发现冰岛中学的操场上的对话完全可以用英语进行，而更小的孩子的老师报告说，他们班级里的孩子认为用英语而不是冰岛语更容易说出图片中的内容。

The very real and worrying consequence of all this is that the young generation in Iceland is at risk of losing its mother tongue.

所有这一切引发的真正令人担忧的后果是，冰岛的年轻一代有失去母语的风险。

Of course, this is happening to other European languages too, but while internet companies might be willing to offer, say, French options in their systems, it's much harder for them to justify the expense of doing the same for a language that has a population the size of a French town, such as Nice.

当然，其它欧洲语言也经历着这种风险。尽管互联网公司可能愿意在他们的系统中提供其它语言选择，比如法语。但对于他们来说，要为一种使用人口与像是尼斯这样的法国小镇人口差不多的语言提供同样的服务，就更难证明这样做的成本是否是合理的。

The other drawback of Icelandic is the grammar, which is significantly more complex than in most languages.

冰岛语的另一个缺点是语法，它比大多数语言要复杂得多。

At the moment, the tech giants are simply not interested in tackling this.

目前，科技巨头根本没有兴趣解决这个问题。

So, what is the Icelandic government doing about this?

那么，冰岛政府对此做了什么？

Well, large sums of money are being allocated to a language technology fund that it is hoped will lead to the development of Icelandic sourced apps and other social media and digital systems, but clearly this is going to be an uphill struggle.

大量资金被分配给了一个语言技术基金，希望它能推动以冰岛语为基础的应用程序和其他社交媒体及数字系统的开发，但显然这将是一场艰苦的斗争。

On the positive side, they know that Icelandic is still the official language of education and government.

从积极的方面来看，他们知道冰岛语仍然是教育和政府的官方语言。

It has survived for well over a thousand years and the experts predict that its future in this nation state is sound and will continue to be so.

它已经存在了一千多年，专家预测，冰岛语在冰岛的未来是乐观的，并将继续如此。

However, there's no doubt that it's becoming an inevitable second choice in young people's lives.

然而，毫无疑问，它正在成为年轻人生活中不可避免的第二选择。

This raises important questions.

这引发了一些重要问题。

When you consider how much of the past is tied up in a language, will young Icelanders lose their sense of their own identity?

当你考虑有多少历史与一门语言绑定时，年轻的冰岛人会失去他们自己的认同感吗？

Another issue that concerns the government of Iceland is this.

这一点正是冰岛政府关心的另一个问题。

If children are learning two languages through different routes, neither of which they are fully fluent in, will they be able to express themselves properly?

如果孩子们通过不同的途径学习两种语言，而这两种语言他们都不能完全流利地使用，他们能正确地表达自己吗？