英語(yǔ)和新的全球精英崛起

The world’s most popular YouTuber is probably PewDiePie. Ostensibly, his videos offer his thoughts on video games, but they also provide a philosophy of life in perfect vernacular youth English: “Don’t be a salad. Be the best goddamn broccoli you could ever be.” His 59.3 million subscribers (or “Bros”, as he calls them) have mostly stayed loyal even after Disney dropped him last year for posting anti-Semitic videos. He said he’d only been joking.

全球最知名的Youtube網(wǎng)紅可能就數(shù)PewDiePie了。表面上，他的視頻是表達(dá)他對(duì)視頻游戲的看法，但這些視頻也通過(guò)最地道的年青人口頭英語(yǔ)表達(dá)了他的生活哲學(xué)：“不要做一盤沙拉，盡力做一棵最棒的該死的西蘭花!”他有5930萬(wàn)訂閱者(他把這些訂閱者稱為“兄弟”)。雖然去年他因上傳反猶太人視頻(他說(shuō)他只是在開玩笑)而遭迪斯尼(Disney)解約，但大部分訂閱者仍在繼續(xù)關(guān)注他。

PewDiePie lives in Brighton but — as the faint accent in his videos reveals — he is a Swede called Felix Kjellberg. Born in 1989, he represents the first global generation in which tens of millions of people from outside the English-speaking world speak perfect English. That shift is ominous for the US and UK. Thanks to English, these countries have dominated the global conversation. Their entertainment, media, university and tech sectors bestraddle the world. But now the PewDiePie generation, machine translation, Brexit and Trump are combining to threaten their dominance.

PewDiePie住在英國(guó)的布萊頓(Brighton)，但是——正如他視頻中不太明顯的口音所暴露出的——他是瑞典人，真名叫費(fèi)利克斯•謝爾貝里(Felix Kjellberg)。他出生于1989年，屬于第一個(gè)“全球世代”，這個(gè)世代的許多非英語(yǔ)國(guó)家的人也能說(shuō)一口完美英語(yǔ)。對(duì)美國(guó)和英國(guó)來(lái)說(shuō)，這種轉(zhuǎn)變是個(gè)不祥的征兆。拜英語(yǔ)所賜，這兩個(gè)國(guó)家主導(dǎo)了全球的話題。他們的娛樂(lè)、媒體、大學(xué)和科技行業(yè)均傲視全球。但現(xiàn)如今，在PewDiePie一代、機(jī)器翻譯、英國(guó)脫歐和特朗普(Trump)的共同作用下，美英兩國(guó)的主導(dǎo)地位受到了威脅。

A few non-native speakers have always managed to sneak into the global English conversation. In music, for instance, think of PewDiePie’s fellow Nordics Abba and Björk. But most ambitious foreigners were held back because they spoke not English, but Globish: a simple, dull, idiom-free, cripplingly accented version of English with a small vocabulary. So they rarely sounded as fun, clever or cool in English as native speakers.

一直以來(lái)，都有一些非母語(yǔ)人士成功混入了全球英語(yǔ)話題中。比如，在音樂(lè)界，有PewDiePie的北歐同胞——瑞典的阿巴樂(lè)團(tuán)(Abba)和冰島女歌手比約克(Björk)。但是，大多數(shù)雄心勃勃的外國(guó)人壯志難酬的原因是，他們講的不是英語(yǔ)，而是“全球語(yǔ)”(Globish)： 一種用詞簡(jiǎn)單、乏味、沒(méi)有習(xí)語(yǔ)、口音很重且詞匯量極少的英語(yǔ)。 所以，他們講英語(yǔ)時(shí)很難像以英語(yǔ)為母語(yǔ)的人一樣風(fēng)趣、智慧和酷炫。

This had fateful consequences. “What is well articulated in English on the internet becomes ‘truth,’” says Japanese writer Minae Mizumura in The Fall of Language in the Age of English. Perfect English is not only heard more, but also taken more seriously than what’s said in other languages, she argues. Note the mystical reverence among the global elite for The Economist, or the spread of Trump’s jibe “fake news” among autocrats worldwide. By contrast, it’s said in the Netherlands that if Jesus returned to earth, and a Dutch newspaper reported the news, the world would never find out.

這種情況產(chǎn)生了十分嚴(yán)重的后果。日本作家水村美苗(Minae Mizumura)在《英語(yǔ)時(shí)代的語(yǔ)言淪陷》(The Fall of Language in the Age of English)一書中說(shuō)，“在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上，用英語(yǔ)闡述的觀點(diǎn)成為了‘真理’。”她指出，較之用其它語(yǔ)言所做的表達(dá)，完美英語(yǔ)不僅聽(tīng)的人更多，而且更加受重視。試看全球精英階層對(duì)《經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人》(The Economist)的那種神秘的崇敬，或者特朗普怒懟媒體的口頭禪“假新聞”在全球獨(dú)裁者中的廣為流傳。相反，荷蘭流傳著這樣一種說(shuō)法：如果耶穌重返人間，而一家荷蘭報(bào)紙報(bào)道了這個(gè)消息，全世界可能永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)注意到。

But now, just as populists are trying to roll back globalisation, along comes the first global generation shaped by the internet, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of China. This generation always knew that Globish wasn’t enough. Emmanuel Macron, born in 1977, records a video in English called “Make the Planet Great Again”, and it impacts the global conversation. Russian social-media trolls influence elections in English. India, for the first time ever, has a new generation of urbanites whose mother tongue is English. They no longer use such Hinglish formulations as “Head is paining”. In Egypt, some children at private English-language schools now struggle to speak Arabic, reports anthropologist Noha Roushdy. These kids are being trained to be heard abroad.

但現(xiàn)在，正當(dāng)民粹主義者試圖逆轉(zhuǎn)全球化進(jìn)程之際，經(jīng)歷了互聯(lián)網(wǎng)、柏林墻(Berlin Wall)倒塌和中國(guó)對(duì)外開放的第一個(gè)全球世代成長(zhǎng)起來(lái)了。這一代人一直都明白，只會(huì)說(shuō)“全球語(yǔ)”是不夠的。1977年出生的法國(guó)總統(tǒng)埃馬紐埃爾•馬克龍(Emmanuel Macron)用英文錄制了一個(gè)名為“讓地球再次偉大”(Make the Planet Great Again)的視頻，在全球引起了反響。俄羅斯噴子在社交媒體上用英語(yǔ)影響了別國(guó)大選。在印度，有史以來(lái)首次出現(xiàn)了以英語(yǔ)為母語(yǔ)的新一代都市人。他們不再說(shuō)“Head is paining”(頭在痛)這樣的印式英語(yǔ)了。人類學(xué)家諾哈•魯什迪(Noha Roushdy)在一篇報(bào)告中說(shuō)，在埃及，一些在私立英語(yǔ)學(xué)校上學(xué)的孩子現(xiàn)在說(shuō)阿拉伯語(yǔ)都很困難。這些孩子正在被訓(xùn)練成為能讓外國(guó)人聽(tīng)懂自己說(shuō)話的人。

And the production line of perfect English-speakers hums ever faster. More and more universities around the world offer courses in English. The Netherlands sets the pace in Europe, followed by the Scandinavians. These countries are now attracting world-class foreign academics, and that’s before the anticipated post-Brexit exodus from British universities. If Brexit and Trump hamper English-language talent industries, continental Europe should benefit. Amsterdam and Copenhagen are already effectively bilingual. Berlin and Paris aren’t far behind.

而且，培養(yǎng)能講完美英語(yǔ)人士的生產(chǎn)線正在以前所未有的速度運(yùn)行。全球各地越來(lái)越多的大學(xué)提供英語(yǔ)教學(xué)課程。荷蘭是歐洲地區(qū)英語(yǔ)教學(xué)的領(lǐng)頭羊，緊隨其后的是北歐國(guó)家。這些國(guó)家目前正在吸引世界級(jí)的外國(guó)學(xué)者。而且在英國(guó)脫歐后，預(yù)計(jì)英國(guó)的大學(xué)會(huì)有大量人才出走。如果英國(guó)脫歐和特朗普當(dāng)政對(duì)英語(yǔ)人才產(chǎn)業(yè)構(gòu)成阻礙，歐洲大陸應(yīng)該會(huì)受益。阿姆斯特丹和哥本哈根已經(jīng)基本了實(shí)現(xiàn)了雙語(yǔ)化。柏林和巴黎也緊隨其后。

Next, the US and UK will lose their dominance of media. Machine translation improves by the week. In a couple of years, a top-class newspaper like Die Zeit will produce its German edition, then press “translate” and get a very decent English version in an instant. Hire a few English-language subeditors to touch up the machine’s phrasings, and suddenly you’re competing with The New York Times.

接下來(lái)，美國(guó)和英國(guó)將失去他們?cè)诿襟w領(lǐng)域的支配地位。機(jī)器翻譯的質(zhì)量每周都在改善。用不了幾年，德國(guó)的《時(shí)代周報(bào)》(Die Zeit)等質(zhì)量上乘的報(bào)紙，將只需按一下“翻譯”鍵，就能立即將德語(yǔ)版轉(zhuǎn)換成很像樣的英文版，再雇用幾個(gè)英語(yǔ)編輯來(lái)潤(rùn)色一下機(jī)器翻譯的文稿，就馬上能與《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》(New York Times)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)了。

This is bad news for non-English languages and literatures. Mizumura predicts that in Germany, for instance, novelists and poets will soon start writing in English. This would mean a return to the era before 1800, when European writers often used a universal language. Dante, Descartes, Thomas Hobbes and even Luther, the father of German, were fluent in Latin, notes Mizumura.

對(duì)英語(yǔ)以外的其他語(yǔ)言和非英語(yǔ)文學(xué)作品來(lái)說(shuō)，這是個(gè)壞消息。水村美苗預(yù)測(cè)，以德國(guó)為例，小說(shuō)家和詩(shī)人很快就會(huì)開始用英語(yǔ)寫作。這將意味著歐洲將回到1800年前的時(shí)代——當(dāng)時(shí)歐洲作家通常使用統(tǒng)一的語(yǔ)言寫作。水村美苗指出，但丁(Dante)、笛卡爾(Descartes)、托馬斯•霍布斯(Thomas Hobbes)、甚至德語(yǔ)之父路德(Luther)都能講流利的拉丁語(yǔ)。

Everyone now piously preaches multilingualism, but it’s not going to happen. About 1.5 billion people are learning English, roughly 10 times more than are learning French, Chinese, Spanish, German, Italian and Japanese put together, estimates the German linguist Ulrich Ammon. And the more people who speak English, the more useful English becomes. Anyway, the PewDiePie generation won’t let you learn their own languages. Try going to Sweden and speaking bad Swedish. You’ll be forced into English in seconds.

現(xiàn)在，人人都惟愿自己具備多語(yǔ)言能力，但這種情況不會(huì)發(fā)生。德國(guó)語(yǔ)言學(xué)家烏爾里希•阿蒙(Ulrich Ammon)估計(jì)，全球約有15億人在學(xué)習(xí)英語(yǔ)，是學(xué)習(xí)法語(yǔ)、漢語(yǔ)、西班牙語(yǔ)、德語(yǔ)、意大利語(yǔ)和日語(yǔ)人數(shù)總和的10倍左右。而且講英語(yǔ)的人越多，英語(yǔ)就會(huì)變得越有用。無(wú)論如何，PewDiePie這一代是不會(huì)讓你再學(xué)習(xí)他們的母語(yǔ)了。你去瑞典講蹩腳的瑞典語(yǔ)試試? 用不了幾秒鐘，你就會(huì)被迫改說(shuō)英語(yǔ)。

From Spain to China, the aspirational classes want to upgrade from Globish to English. That should spark a boom in expat teaching jobs for native English speakers. A Briton teaching in Beijing told me in 2011 that most Chinese students he encountered had never met a native speaker before. The coming generation will have to, because Globish no longer cuts it. (Iran’s recent threat to ban English teaching in primary schools would probably just drive it underground.)

從西班牙到中國(guó)，有報(bào)負(fù)的階層都想從把自己的“全球語(yǔ)”提升為英語(yǔ)。這應(yīng)該會(huì)導(dǎo)致以英語(yǔ)為母語(yǔ)的外派教師的工作急增。2011年，一位在北京教英語(yǔ)的英國(guó)人告訴我，他遇到的大多數(shù)中國(guó)學(xué)生以前從來(lái)沒(méi)有遇見(jiàn)過(guò)母語(yǔ)為英語(yǔ)的人。下一代必須得學(xué)好英語(yǔ)了，因?yàn)?ldquo;全球語(yǔ)”已經(jīng)不夠用了。 (伊朗最近威脅要禁止小學(xué)教授英語(yǔ)，這可能只會(huì)促使英語(yǔ)教學(xué)轉(zhuǎn)到地下)。

The next global ruling class will perceive the world chiefly in English. That will be a loss. As Mizumura says, you can only see what your language allows you to express. But when perfect English becomes standard, Brits and Americans lose their advantage.

下一代全球統(tǒng)治階層將主要用英語(yǔ)來(lái)認(rèn)識(shí)世界。那將是一個(gè)損失。正如水村美苗所說(shuō)，你只能明白你的語(yǔ)言能表達(dá)清楚的東西。但是，當(dāng)完美英語(yǔ)成為標(biāo)準(zhǔn)時(shí)，英國(guó)人和美國(guó)人將失去優(yōu)勢(shì)。