63. 口音的演变

这是《幻术师》，在这里，我，海伦·祖尔茨曼，用大炮发射语言。

This is The Illusionist in which I, Helen Zultzman, fire language out of a canon.

今天节目中，我们将探讨口音。

Coming up in today's show, accents.

我经常戴面具来制作关于口音的节目，我一直很犹豫，不是因为我觉得口音无趣，而是因为一些我稍后会尝试解释的原因。

I'm masked very frequently to make episodes about accents and I've always been reluctant, not because I think accents are uninteresting, but for reasons I'll try to explain later.

无论如何，我听了很棒的播客《20000赫兹》，它是关于声音的，其中有一集讲的是口音的演变，我非常喜欢，觉得非常有趣。

Anyway, I was listening to the excellent podcast 20,000 Hertz, which is about sounds, And they had an episode about the evolution of accents, which I enjoyed very much and I thought was very interesting.

我很高兴地告诉大家，他们允许我今天与你们分享这一集。

And I'm pleased to say they've allowed me to share it with you today.

好了。

Alright.

让我们继续探索这个世界。

On with the the world.

我们感到自豪

Proud we're

克劳利家，我母亲，格兰瑟姆夫人？

the Crawley, my mother, Lady Grantham?

哦，是吗？

Oh, yeah?

是的。

Yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

这对你有帮助吗？

Is that useful to you?

当然有用了。

Oh, you betcha.

是的。

Yeah.

求你了，忘了我曾经知道这件事吧。

Please, forget I knew this ever happened.

你。

You.

不。

No.

不。

No.

你真的很棒，你。

You're you're very good, you.

不。

No.

你真的很棒。

You are very good.

除非是想传达什么，否则没人会带一个像你这么高大的人来谈话。

Nobody brings a fella the size of you unless they're trying to say something they're talking.

对吧，宝贝？

Right, babe?

我喜欢你说话的方式。

I like the way you talk.

我喜欢你说话的方式。

I like the way you talk.

我喜欢口音。

I love accents.

每次听到有人说话方式和我不同时

Every time I hear someone who sounds different from the way I speak

我的名字是沃拉布。

My name is Vollab.

我就会留意，想知道他们出生在哪里，谁影响了他们的成长，有时还会想自己是否也能那样说话。

I take notice and wonder where they were born, who influenced their upbringing, and sometimes whether or not I could speak like that.

顺便提一下，本集中听到的任何口音都不一定是最地道的。

Quick note, any accents you hear in this episode are not necessarily the best.

我知道人们对自己口音非常自豪，并对什么是准确的口音表现有强烈看法。

I know that people are fiercely proud of their accents and have strong opinions about what constitutes an accurate depiction.

所以为了更好

So for better

我的名字是纳尔逊·曼德拉。

My name is Nelson Mandela.

或者更差。

Or worse.

到我肚子里来。

Get in my belly.

我们只是来乐一乐。

We're just gonna have fun with this.

对于所有说英语的人，所有语言都有其起源。

For all English speaking people, all language started somewhere.

好的。

Okay.

这太糟糕了，但我只能做到这样了。

That's terrible, but it's the best I can do.

虽然我们的语言演变经历了多个世纪，但早期现代英语——莎士比亚所使用的版本——大约始于1500年。

While the evolution of our language took many centuries, early modern English, the version used by Shakespeare, dates from around 1,500.

而现代英语，与我们如今的说话方式非常接近，大约在一百年后出现，正好是英国人开始殖民北美之时。

And modern English, pretty close to how we speak now, came along about a hundred years later, right about the time the British began colonizing North America.

所以我很好奇。

So I'm curious.

最初从英格兰来到美洲的殖民者说的是英国口音吗？

Did the American colonists from England originally have a British accent?

但首先，我想找一位口音专家聊聊。

But first, I wanted to speak with someone who's an expert on accents.

我是埃里克·辛格，是一名口音教练。

I'm Eric Singer, and I'm a dialect coach.

口音只是某种特定语言变体的发音特点。

An accent is just the sounds of a particular variety of speech.

也就是语音系统、模式和发音方式。

You know, the sound system, the pattern, the pronunciation.

方言基本上包括语法、词序、表达方式的不同，以及指代事物的不同方式。

Dialect basically includes things like syntax and and word order, different ways of saying things, different ways of referring to something.

你称它为pop、soda还是coke，这些都是方言特征。

Whether you call it pop or soda or coke, you know, that's a dialect feature.

简单来说，方言是你说了什么。

Simply put, dialect is more what you say.

口音是你怎么说的。

Accent is how you say it.

埃里克曾为好莱坞一些最知名的人物工作过。

Eric has worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

当他们扮演具有口音的真实人物或虚构角色时，他会帮助他们完善表演中的说话部分。

He helps them fine tune the speaking portion of their performances when they take on the role of either a real life or fictional character with an accent.

他经过多年的学习和训练，才能既模仿口音，又能教授口音。

He studied and trained for years to be able to both do accents and also teach them.

我问他，哪些口音是他最喜欢模仿的。

I asked him what some of his favorite accents are to perform.

这要看当天的情况，看我心情如何，因为那其中有一大部分原因。

Depends on the day, depends on how I feel because there's a, you know, a big part of that.

让我挑几个我特别喜欢的吧。

Let's see to sort of, pick a few that I definitely have an affinity for.

我妈妈是瑞典人。

My mother is Swedish.

其中一个

One of the

我喜欢瑞典的地方包括食物和文化。

things I love about Sweden is, the food and the culture.

这是我非常有感情的一件事。

It's something I have a great affinity for.

所以我自己腌制鲱鱼和杜松子酒。

So I make, I make my own herring and aquavit.

我有

Got a

我对东南伦敦有一种特殊的感情。

grey affinity for South East London.

我喜欢说霍萨语，即使你只是说英语时无法在其中加入那些点击音。

I like doing Hossa, even if you can't get the clicks in there when you're just speaking English.

霍萨语是南非的土著语言。

Hosa is an indigenous language to South Africa.

纳尔逊·曼德拉会说霍萨语，南非有11种官方语言，而科萨语是其中使用最广泛的一种。

Nelson Mandela was a Hosa speaker, and it's South Africa has 11 official languages, and Xhosa is one of the biggest.

如果你想象一种非常刻板的法国口音，嘴角往往会向牙齿方向收拢并略微前伸。

You know, if you think of a very stereotypical French accent, the lip corners tend to be sort of pulling in towards the teeth and advancing a little bit.

如果你想象一种非常典型的20世纪50年代英国皇家空军口音，情况则恰恰相反。

If you think of a sort of very stereotypical 1950s kind of RAF kernel sort of thing, it's the opposite.

下巴位置很高，嘴角往往会向两侧舒展。

The jaw is very high, and the lip corners tend to spread a bit.

埃里克很有天赋，但每个人都有自己的弱点。

Eric is pretty talented, but everyone has their kryptonite.

对吧？

Right?

我想知道哪些口音对他来说更难模仿。

I wonder which accents are harder for him to perform.

威尔士口音对美国演员来说通常很难掌握。

Welsh accents tend to be tricky for American actors.

我们一般很少听到威尔士口音。

We generally haven't heard a lot of Welsh.

我发现我从未有机会练习盖尔迪口音，也就是纽卡斯尔口音。

I find I've just never had the opportunity to work on Geordie accent, which is Newcastle.

巴利怎么了？

What's wrong with Bally?

巴利怎么了？

What's wrong with Bally?

这完全正常。

It's perfectly normal.

给女孩的。

For girls.

不。

No.

不是给男孩的，比利。

Not not for lads, Billy.

男孩们踢足球或摔跤。

Lads do football or wrestling.

另一个让口音难以掌握的因素是心理和身份认同方面的问题。

The other thing that can make an accent difficult to acquire is just kind of psychological and identity stuff.

模仿口音是一种想象力的体现。

It's an act of the imagination taking on an accent.

所以，口音在技术层面上有很多非常非常细致的方面，涉及这些声音是如何发出的。

So there are these, you know, very, very technical aspects to what an accent is, how those sounds are formed.

但如果你无法想象自己是一个说那种口音的人，你就做不到。

But you can't do it if you can't imagine yourself as somebody who speaks that way.

这是你的思想，你的想象力，你的心。

It's your mind, it's your imagination, it's your heart.

所以，如果你很难想象自己是一个说某种口音的人，那么要达到那种程度就会难得多。

And so if it's hard to imagine yourself as someone who speaks with a given accent, it's gonna be a lot harder to get there.

好的。

Okay.

那么回到我最初的问题。

So back to my initial question.

在17世纪到大约1776年期间，英国殖民者在北美定居时说的是什么口音？

What did British colonists sound like when settling in North America in the sixteen hundreds up to, say, 1776?

当时并不仅仅只有一种英语口音。

There wasn't only one English accent.

有很多种。

There were many.

还有另外三次大规模的移民浪潮。

There were three other big waves of migration.

我的意思是，这有点简化了，但你知道，我们都想象朝圣者登陆普利茅斯岩的情景。

I mean, is a little bit simplified, but, you know, we all think of the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock.

所以当时那种口音肯定在马萨诸塞这些殖民地占主导地位。

And so whatever that accent was then was surely what sort of predominated in those those kind of Massachusetts colonies.

弗吉尼亚，特别是蒂德沃特地区的弗吉尼亚，主要由富裕家庭的儿子及其仆人定居。

Virginia, sort of Tidewater Virginia was settled to a large extent by sons of well off families and their servants.

然后还有贵格会教徒，他们来到特拉华、马里兰一带，并向西扩散到宾夕法尼亚南部。

Then there was the Quakers who came over into kind of Delaware, Maryland area and sort of spread west into Southern Pennsylvania.

所以，你知道，当时有非常多不同的口音。

So, you know, there were lots and lots of accents.

我意识到要让埃里克给出一个明确的答案可能有点困难。

I realized it might be hard to pin Eric down on an answer here.

但总的来说，我问他，当时殖民地的这些口音听起来大致会是什么样子？

But in the most general terms, I asked him what would most of those accents sound like in the colonies at that time?

听起来对我们现在的耳朵来说会非常奇怪，但我认为这绝对是美国口音，因为元音后不发r音这一特征实在太显著了。

It would have sounded quite strange to our ears, but I would say definitely American just because this pronunciation or nonpronunciation of r sounds after vowels is such a major feature.

这是一个巨大的分歧。

It's a huge divide.

从费城，我们期待一份独立宣言。

From Philadelphia, we expect a declaration of independence.

13个殖民地中已有8个筹集资金支持大陆军。

Eight of the 13 colonies have levied money in support of a continental army.

像hat和half这样的词之间的元音差异，对我们来说，hat和half的发音是一样的。

The different vowel sounds between things like hat and half, where for us, hat and half, it's the same.

他俘虏了我们18名军官。

He has 18 of our officers.

他是谁，我认识吗？

Who is he I recognize?

他是民兵的指挥官。

He's the commander of the militia.

他打着白旗前来进行正式谈判。

He rode in under a white flag for formal parley.

我认为这两点会让我们产生一种印象，即当时英国和美洲殖民地的所有英语使用者，听起来更像现在的美国人，而不是现在的英国人。

Those two huge things, I think, would probably give us the impression that all English speakers in England and in The States or the colonies sounded more like Americans do now than like Brits do now.

如果这些殖民者大多听起来像美国人，那么英国的口音是如何演变成今天我们所熟知的样子的呢？

If many of these colonists more or less sounded American, then how did accents back in Britain change to what we now know them as today?

我们对英国口音有一种先入为主的观念，通常认为它不发/r/音，也就是非卷舌音。

We have a sort of preconceived notion of what British dialect should sound like, and it's typically without its r's, you know, so it's not rhotic.

这是沃尔特·沃尔克拉姆。

That's Walt Wolfram.

他是北卡罗来纳州立大学的社会语言学家，专攻美国英语的社会与族群方言。

He's a sociolinguist at North Carolina State University specializing in social and ethnic dialects of American English.

在五十年的职业生涯中，他撰写了20本书和300多篇关于美国英语变异的研究文章。

In a fifty year career, he's written 20 books and over 300 articles on variation in American English.

美国英语的口音基本上反映了英国各地的方言。

The accents of American English pretty much reflected areas of England.

例如，你可能会发现那些定居在弗吉尼亚海岸和北卡罗来纳沿海岛屿上的人。

So for example, you get people who settled on the coast of Virginia in islands, for example, and in North Carolina on the islands there.

而且他们是非常卷舌的。

And they were very rhotic.

也就是说，他们在说‘four’和‘war’等词时都会发出r音。

That is they pronounced their r's in four and in war and so forth.

所以他们非常卷舌，因为他们来自英格兰西南部，那里的人至今仍发r音。

So they were very rhotic because they came from Southwest England where people still pronounce their r's.

另一方面，英格兰的一些地区却逐渐变得不卷舌了，因为在16和17世纪，伦敦地区这种发音方式逐渐成为标准。

On the other hand, there were some areas of England which were becoming quite arlous because that was becoming the standard in London in the sixteen hundreds and seventeen hundreds.

因此，他们更不卷舌。

And so they were more arlous.

这种如今被称为标准发音（RP）的新口音可能始于17世纪，但要过很久才与英国人紧密联系在一起。

This new accent that today is called received pronunciation or RP for short may have begun in the sixteen hundreds, but it would take a while before it became so synonymous with Brits.

你太荒谬了。

You're being ridiculous.

没有英国人会想到

No Englishman would dream

死在别人家里。

of dying in someone else's house.

但基本上，这是伦敦和英格兰南部的标准，源于其声望和社会阶层。

But, basically, it's simply the standard of London of Southern England because of the prestige and because of the social class.

这成为了被接受的规范。

That became the acceptable sort of norm.

所以，你好好想想吧。

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

本质上，口音的声望取决于听者的主观感受。

Basically, prestige in accents is in the ear of the beholder.

说到声望，关于这种带/r/和不带/r/的争议，莎士比亚在1600年左右的戏剧，听起来真的像我们今天想象的那样吗？

So speaking of prestige, with all of this r full and r less business, did Shakespeare's plays around 1,600 sound the way we imagine them today?

如果你考察莎士比亚的背景——就我们所知的那样——他实际上确实发/r/音。

If you look at Shakespeare's background to the extent that we know about him, he actually used r's.

因此，他说话的声音并不会像我们今天想象的英国人那样。

And so he wouldn't sound like we imagine a British person to sound like at that time.

回到莎士比亚时代，那些r音非常重。

You go back to Shakespeare, and the r's were really hard.

所以有些美国人认为莎士比亚的作品应该始终用r音明显的口音来念，如果你喜欢这样，那也没问题。

So this idea that some Americans have, I think, that Shakespeare should always be pronounced in an r p accent is fine if that's your taste.

那些拥有伤害之力却从不施加的人，不做他们最常表现的事，他们感动他人，自己却如石头般冷漠、不动摇，对诱惑迟钝。

They that have power to hurt and will do none, that do not do the thing they most do show, who, moving others, are themselves as stone, unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow.

但这听起来和莎士比亚时代演员们的发音完全不一样。

But it sounds absolutely nothing like what Shakespeare's actors would have sounded like.

那些倾注了艺术却从不付诸行动的人，不做他们最常表现的事，他们哀悼他人，自己却如石头般冷漠、不动摇，对诱惑迟钝。

They that have poured art and will do none, who do not do the thing that most do show, who mourn others are themselves as stone, unmothered cold and to temptation slow.

大概是这样的。

Something like that.

那时候的发音非常带r音，r音很重，有点像海盗的口音。

It was very r full, really hard r's, kind of, you know, almost a little bit piratical.

而且发音非常流畅、高效。

And it was it was very fluid and efficient.

他们离开了

They left

省略了很多发音。

out a lot of sounds.

随着接下来几个世纪英国口音的变化，美国口音也随之变化。

As accents in England began to change over the next few centuries, so did American accents.

但在二十世纪初，出现了一个有趣的现象：两种口音重新交汇，创造出一种全新的口音，它并非自然演变而来，而是人为设计的。

But early in the twentieth century, an interesting phenomenon occurred as they came crashing back together in a brand new accent that didn't evolve, it was created.

从殖民时代到十九世纪末，美国的口音一直在缓慢演变。

From colonial times to the early nineteen hundreds, accents continued to slowly evolve in America.

但在二十世纪二十年代和三十年代左右，一种新口音几乎凭空出现。

But around the nineteen twenties and thirties, a new accent popped up almost out of nowhere.

它有很多名称，广为人知的当然是跨大西洋口音，有时也叫中部大西洋口音，这

Well, it's got lots of names popularly known certainly as Transatlantic, sometimes Mid Atlantic, which

很奇怪。

is weird.

但无论如何，就像你一样

But either way, sort of like you

你出生在英格兰和美国之间大洋中央的一个岛上。

were born on an island in the middle of the ocean between England and The US.

它曾经被称为标准美式英语，之前则被称为世界英语。

It used to be called good American speech, and before that, it was called world English.

在很大程度上，这是一种混合口音。

It is, for the most part, kind of a hybrid accent.

对罗斯福来说，这是他的自然方言。

For FDR, it was his natural dialect.

1941年12月7日，一个将永载史册的日子。

12/07/1941, a date which will live in infamy.

所以某种程度上，虽然它具有一些人们认为是跨大西洋的特征，但这些对他是自然的，这与演员完全不同，比如奥黛丽·赫本，她可能希望显得具有跨大西洋口音，因此会减少卷舌音，把't'发成better中的音。

So in a sense, while it had some characteristics that people think of as transatlantic, they were natural to him, which is quite different from an actor, for example, who like Audrey Hepburn, who might want to appear to be transatlantic and therefore be r less and pronounce her t's as in better.

哦，我知道这是每个人一贯的想法，但每个人恰好都错了。

Oh, I know it's what everybody always thinks, but everybody happens to be wrong.

他们选择不发r音，再挑选几个元音，比如把'bad'读成'bad'。

They choose rlessness, then they choose a few vowels like bad, as bad.

于是他们选了大约六七个特征，对英国人来说，简直天啊。

And so they choose a half a dozen features, which is to a Britisher sounds, oh my gosh.

那是个糟糕的英国口音。

That's a bad British accent.

而对美国人来说，他们可能分辨不出区别，所以听起来对他们来说都很有格调。

And to an American, they may not know the difference, and so it all sounds sophisticated to them.

菲比，这是我的父母，西奥多和比茜。

Phoebe, these are my parents, Theodore and Bitsy.

西奥多，比茜。

Theodore, Bitsy.

真令人愉快。

What a delight.

你在做什么？

What are you doing?

我想让他们了解菲比这个人，而不是菲比的口音。

I want them to get to know Phoebe, not Phoebe.

很难停下来。

It's hard to stop.

这赋予了声望。

It conferred prestige.

而我认为，这种观念现在已经过时了，因为这种认为某些群体或某种说话方式才是正确的，而其他人都说错了、不好，实际上是在告诉那些使用非标准方言或低声望方言的人：你们是糟糕的、错误的、马虎的——这显然荒谬至极。

And this is an idea that I think is not with the times now because this kind of idea of picking a certain group of people or way of speaking and saying everybody else speaks wrong or badly, we're then telling people who speak nonstandard dialect or lower prestige dialect, you're bad and wrong or sloppy, and that's just absurd on its face.

我原本以为跨大西洋口音只是一时潮流，已经完全消失了。

I assumed that the transatlantic accent was just a fad and died out completely.

但后来NBC播出了一部叫《欢乐一家亲》的剧。

But then there was a little show on NBC called Frasier.

天哪，真是《欢乐一家亲》啊。

Oh, for goodness sake, Frasier.

我是个幸福已婚的男人。

I'm a happily married man.

马里斯对我来说意义重大。

Maris means the world to me.

就在前几天，我无缘无故地亲了她。

Like, just the other day, I kissed her for no reason whatsoever.

是的。

Yes.

尼尔斯·克兰。

Niles Crane.

大卫·海德·皮尔斯曾在耶鲁大学和耶鲁戏剧学院接受训练，而在他接受训练的那个时代，几乎所有的美国戏剧学院都将此视为圣经。

So David Hyde Pierce trained at Yale, and Yale drama school, like pretty much every American drama school of the time when he was training, that was sort of the bible.

这种标准的美式发音模式，在人们早已不再自然使用它之后，仍然长期被所有演员培训项目广泛教授。

So this good American speech pattern was universally taught in actor training programs long after nobody spoke it naturally anymore.

如今在许多地方，它仍然在被教授。

It still is taught in a lot of places.

当然，它在演绎历史题材时仍然很有用。

It's still useful for period stuff, certainly.

如果你要拍一部设定在二十世纪五十年代的电影，而且角色是演员，那就用标准的美式口音吧。

If you're gonna set a a movie in the nineteen fifties and the characters are actors, well, go for your good American speech.

当然。

Absolutely.

电影就是电影，霍华德。

Movies are movies, Howard.

不是生活。

Not life.

至于舞台。

Now the stage.

舞台是真实的。

A stage is real.

就在你面前，是活生生的血肉之躯，伙计。

Real flesh and blood human beings right out there in front of you, buster.

说到标准的美式口音，美国社会有一种看法，认为某些口音不如其他口音那么优雅或受欢迎。

Speaking of good American speech, there's a perception in America that some accents are less becoming or desirable to have than others.

所以一种通用的美国口音已经流行开来。

So a sort of general American accent has taken hold.

有一种被称为通用美国口音的虚构概念。

There's this mythical beast called general American.

把‘通用’两个字加上引号。

Put the general in quotes.

它并不是一种单一的口音。

It's not one accent.

它更像是某些特征的缺失，也就是缺乏具有明显地域特征的发音。

It's more sort of the absence of certain things, which is it's the absence of particularly regionally identifiable features.

比如，如果我说 Tom、coffee 或 hot，这些发音都会让人一听就知道你的出身地。

So, you know, if I say Tom or coffee or hot, you know, those are things that are gonna stand out to anybody and kind of make them say, oh, you know, I know where you're from.

所以如果你没有这些特征，人们可能会觉得你说话带有通用美国口音。

So if you don't have any of those, then people might say you sound kind of general American.

当然，这其中仍然存在很多变化。

Of course, there's lots of variations still in there.

你知道吗，有一半的美国人把'cot'和'caught'这两个词押韵。

You know, half of Americans rhyme the words c o t and the words c a u g h t.

对吧？

Right?

所以cot和cot。

So cot and cot.

我在cot上下载了一个app。

I cot an app on the cot.

加拿大人几乎都这么做。

Canadians pretty much all do that.

正如你所描述的，这种没有口音的特点可能会有点无聊。

This lack of accent, as you might describe it, can be a bit boring.

我问埃里克能不能给我展示一个我最喜欢的口音——《冰血暴》里的那种。

I asked Eric if he could give me one of my favorites, an accent from Fargo.

哦，明尼苏达口音，那可完全不同。

Oh, Minnesota, so that's very different.

我知道很多来自那里的人对那种刻板或夸张的版本非常敏感。

And I know a lot of people from there are are quite sensitive about kind of a stereotypical or exaggerated version of that.

这并不是说所有明尼苏达人都会那样说话，但确实有一些人会这样。

And it's not to say that everyone from Minnesota might talk like that, but there are people who do for sure.

嗯，我最清楚了。

Well, I would know.

我是销售总监。

I'm the executive sales manager.

美国各地有多种区域口音，已经存在了数百年。

There are a whole range of regional American accents that have been around for hundreds of years.

从纽约、波士顿、芝加哥，到卡津口音，以及各种南方口音。

From New York to Boston to Chicago to Cajun to a wide variety of southern accents.

但像山谷女孩或卡戴珊式的声门塞音这样的新口音呢？

But what about newer ones like Valley Girl or the Kardashian esque vocal fry?

我觉得这有点难以界定。

I think it's a little hard to define.

我认为人们对‘山谷女孩’有不同的理解，尽管可能有一些共同特征，比如语调上扬。

I think people mean different things by Valley Girl, Although there are probably some, you know, some common features like up talk.

也许你应该在斯图尔特回家前离开。

Maybe you should get going before Stuart gets home.

对。

Right.

对。

Right.

我会告诉你，开车到萨姆森特，然后左转，向北开四五英里。

I'll say you're take candy view driver to Sam Cente and then make a left and go four or five north.

从那里，就离开主干道。

From there, just get off from all hauling.

完全就是这样。

Totally like that.

而且毫无疑问，像声门化音就是其中的一部分。

And definitely, like vocal fry is part of that.

那就是你的声带开始比平常说话时振动得稍微慢一点的时候。

That's when your vocal folds start kind of vibrating a little slower than they would for, like, all your voice.

拥有一种真正成功的品牌，靠的是让人们喜欢真实的你，这确实是一种天赋。

It is a talent to have a brand that's really successful off of getting people to like you for you.

所以我认为这一定涉及某种天赋。

So I would think that has to involve some kind of talent.

这两种特征实际上在美式英语中非常普遍，你知道的，澳大利亚口音、北爱尔兰口音和苏格兰口音常常在短语或句子末尾使用升调。

Both of those features actually are really widespread in American speech, you know, Australian accents, and Northern Irish accents, and Scottish accents very often have a rise at the end of a phrase or a sentence.

我们要去哪儿？

Where are we going?

回家吧，小子。

Go home, boy.

我想去。

I want to go.

所以如今你在北加州和西北地区看到了新的方言区域。

So what you have today are you have new dialect areas in Northern California, in the Northwest.

例如，在西雅图和波特兰这样的地区，正在形成具有地域特色的方言。

So for example, in Seattle and Portland, areas like this are creating dialects that are regionally distinctive.

关键是这一点。

And the point is this.

每个人都想知道自己来自哪里，而我们的方言就表明了我们的出身。

Everybody wants to be from somewhere, and our dialect indicates where we're from.

孤立是某些口音能够长期保留下来的原因之一。

Isolation is one reason some accents have lasted for as long as they have.

一个广为流传的理论认为，阿巴拉契亚英语是十六世纪伊丽莎白时代英语的遗留产物。

One popular theory is that Appalachian English is a preserved remnant of sixteenth century Elizabethan English.

我叫奥尔多·莱恩中尉，正在组建一支特别队伍。

My name is lieutenant Aldo Rain, and I'm putting together a special team.

我需要八名士兵。

And I need me eight soldiers.

这既对也不对。

Well, it's true and not true.

明白吗？

Okay?

正确的一面是，确实保留了一些古老的英语用法。

The true aspect of it is that there are certainly older retentions of the English language.

例如，在阿巴拉契亚英语中，像‘he’s a hunt’这样的表达和‘inefficient’这样的用法，确实是一种被保留下来的古老英语现象，像‘twice then once’代替‘once and twice’的发音也是如此。

For example, in Appalachian English, the prefix like he's a hunt and inefficient, that certainly is an older English phenomenon that has been preserved as are pronunciations like twice then once for once and twice.

这些确实是更古老的发音。

They're certainly older pronunciations.

但问题是，与此同时，阿巴拉契亚英语也在变化，正逐渐形成自己独特的方言。

The problem is that at the same time, Appalachian English is changing and becoming a dialect unto itself.

因此，阿巴拉契亚英语中其实有很多全新的元素。

And so there are lots of things that are actually new in Appalachian English.

这有点像‘有些旧的，有些新的，有些借来的，你知道的，还有些蓝色的’。

It's sort of like something old, something new, something borrowed, you know, something blue.

几年前，BBC的一个摄制组曾来到奥克拉科克岛访问。

A few years ago, a crew from BBC came to visit the island of Ocracoke.

奥克拉科克是北卡罗来纳州海岸外的一个岛屿。

Ocracoke is an island off the coast of North Carolina.

有人说过，那里保留着真正的伊丽莎白时代和莎士比亚时期的英语。

Someone had said, well, that's where the really Elizabethan Shakespearean English is found.

确实，他们的一些语言特征在莎士比亚时代就已经存在了。

And it's true that they do have some older features that were around at the time of Shakespeare.

他们用 'are' 表示 'their'，也用 'for' 表示 'high tide'。

They say the are for their, and they also say for for high tide.

他们说 'you know'，这更接近英国口音，也更古老。

They say, you know, which is a little more British and older.

因此，他们的一些语言特征确实是往昔时代的遗存。

So they have some traits that certainly are remnants of former days.

许多人一生中据说会失去自己的口音，或使其转变为另一种口音。

Many people throughout their lives supposedly lose their accents or have them transform into a different one.

当南方人搬到北方时，他们常常会逐渐失去那种典型的南方拖音。

When a southerner moves north, they often start to lose that classic southern drawl.

有些口音会不会正在消失？

Could some accents be dying out?

语言中有一些音素通常不太稳定，更容易在语言演变过程中被改变或替换为其他音。

There are some sounds in languages generally that are that are a little unstable, that are a little more likely to be changed or dropped into something else as language change goes on.

而我们正好有两个这样的音。

And we have two of them.

就是‘this’和‘thin’中的两种不同的th音。

It's the two different t h sounds like in this and thin.

一个是浊音，一个是清音。

One is voiced, one is unvoiced.

对吧？

Right?

每当我们在语言中看到这些音，它们最终都会随着时间推移发生演变、改变或消失。

And every time we see those in languages, they they eventually morph or change or get dropped over time.

你绝对能在所谓的多元文化伦敦英语中听到这一点，我非常喜欢这种口音，它会用v或f音来代替。

You can definitely hear that in what's called multicultural London English, which I love, kind of a v or an f sound instead.

一个很好的例子是，一些伦敦人把'mother'和'brother'念成'mother'和'brother'。

A good example of this is the way some Londoners say mother and brother as mother and brother.

我认为我曾看到过预测，到2150年，英语将完全不再有这些音。

I think I've come across predictions that by 2150, English won't have those sounds at all.

所以这种变化一直在持续。

So that's always ongoing.

新的口音不断出现、消失、融合、分裂，并彼此区分开来。

New accents are always coming and going and merging and splitting and distinguishing themselves from each other.

每当我听到有人说话方式和我不同时，都会让我意识到世界是如此广阔而多元。

Every time I hear someone who sounds different from the way I speak, it reminds me that the world is vast and diverse.

它是由拥有不同想法、不同文化和不同身份的人们组成的集合。

It's a collection of people with different ideas, different cultures, and different identities.

这些身份起源于数千年前，至今仍然存在。

These identities began thousands of years ago, and they're still with us.

因为我们是在这些小型社会群体中进化的，所以你必须能够识别并区分自己人和外人。

Because we evolved in these these social communal small groups, and so you have to be able to recognize and distinguish your people from the other people.

我们对这些细微的差异变得非常敏感，即使我们无法准确说出它们具体是什么。

We've grown very, very attuned to these minute differences even if we can't say technically what they are.

我们会想，哦，你不是我这一类的，或者你是我的同类。

We're like, oh, you're not one of me or you're my kind of guy.

只是回来一下

Just coming back

回到口音就是身份这个观点上。

to the idea that accent is identity.

这是一种方式

It's a way

以几乎完全无意识的方式编码和传递信号，让大多数人感受到自己是谁，

of encoding and signaling almost completely at an unconscious level for most people who they feel like they are,

他们希望被看作是谁，

who they want to be seen as,

他们觉得自己属于哪个群体。

what group they feel like belong to.

正是这种丰富性和多样性令人着迷，也深深体现了人性。

It's the richness and the variety that is so fascinating and so deeply human.

方言就是身份，它们标记着我们的来源、我们的本质以及我们的去向。

Dialects are identity, and they index where we come from, who we are, where we're going.

因此，从某种意义上说，没有方言就意味着失去了你个人特质的一部分、你的地域身份，以及你对自己是谁和你所属社群的认知。

And so in a sense, to be without a dialect is to lose something of your personal character, your regional identity, and your sense of who you are and the communities that you come from.

它们与其他任何方面的多样性一样关键。

They're about as critical as any other aspect of diversity.

如果每个人都说同样的话，这个世界会变得乏味得多。

This would be a much less interesting place if everybody spoke the same way.

非常感谢 Twenty Thousand Hertz 与 The Illusionist 分享这段内容。

Thanks very much indeed to twenty thousand Hertz for sharing this piece with the illusionist.

它由达拉斯·泰勒、凯文·埃德斯、萨姆·斯尼布利和杰·伯格制作。

It It was produced by Dallas Taylor, Kevin Eds, Sam Snibley, and Jai Berger.

Twenty Thousand Hertz 是一档非常出色的节目。

20,000 Hertz is a terrific show.

你可以在20k.org或通过你选择的任何播客平台收听所有剧集。

You can hear all the episodes at 20k.org or via your pod blaster of choice.

希望你喜欢20,000 Hertz对口音的探索。

I hope you enjoyed 20,000 Hertz's investigation of accents.

正如我所说，我一直试图弄清楚自己为什么对在这档节目以及我的另一档播客《Answer Me This》中讨论口音感到犹豫，而我们在后者中经常收到许多关于口音的问题。

Like I said, I've been trying to unpick my reticence about covering accents on this show and on my other podcast, Answer Me This, where we receive many questions about accents.

我认为我的顾虑与节目中提到的某个观点有关。

And I think my reservations come down to something that was touched on in the episode.

我的口音源于我在肯特郡的唐桥井镇长大，那里属于英格兰东南部被称为‘内郡’的地区之一。

My accent comes from me growing up in the town of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, which is one of what are collectively known as the Home Counties in South East England.

有一种泛化的内郡口音，它在很大程度上消除了该地区原本丰富的口音多样性，虽然并未完全抹平。

There's a sort of generic Home Counties accent which homogenized much of the variety of accents within that area, not completely, but much of it.

更广泛地说，这种口音在英国成为文化上的主导口音，代价是其他地区的口音被稀释甚至完全消失，无论有意还是无意。

And further afield, it became a culturally dominant accent in Britain at the expense of accents from other regions which became diluted or lost entirely deliberately or not.

这其中涉及大量关于阶级、经济和教育的问题，口音常常引发诸多假设与偏见。

There's a lot going on there with class and economics and education, so many presumptions and prejudices aroused by accents.

所以我觉得，作为一个拥有文化主导的汉普郡口音的人，如果我谈论口音，可能会让人觉得我在评判或显得高傲。

So my feeling is as the owner of a culturally dominant Home Counties accent, there's a danger that if I talk about accents, it can sound like I'm judging them or being a snob.

当然，我希望把这种评判留到别人选择的词语上，而不是他们说话的口音上。

And of course, I want to save that up for the word someone chooses to use, not the accent they say them in.

显然，事情没那么简单。

Obviously, it's more complicated than that.

今天你随机抽取的词典词汇是：海洋生物，右括号，水平游动。

Your randomly selected word from the dictionary today is: marine creature, close brackets, swimming horizontally.

今天试着在邮件里用这个词吧。

Try using it in an email today.

你可以在网上找到我，在 Facebook 和 Twitter 上搜索《Illusionist Show》，在节目官网，每集都有对应的帖子，包含额外资料和赞助商链接。

You can find me online, search for Illusionist Show on Facebook and Twitter, and on the show's website, there's a post for every episode, each with links to additional material and the sponsors.

还有文字稿。

There are transcripts.

每个随机选出的每日词汇，都配有词典条目的照片。

There's a photo of the dictionary entry for each randomly selected word of the day.

所有这些东西。

All of that stuff.

当你访问 illusionist.org 进行家访时，你就会看到。

You'll see it when you pay a home visit to the allusionist dot org.

你好，来自让你学到有趣知识的播客的鉴赏家。

Hello there, connoisseur of podcasts from which you learn interesting things.

如果《好奇心周刊》还没在你的订阅列表里，现在就加上吧。

If Curiosity Weekly isn't already in your subscriptions, put it in there right now.

由探索频道推出的《好奇心周刊》为我们带来了最新、最棒的科学发现，并且即使对我们这些没有科学博士学位的人也能解释清楚——我那位拥有物理学博士学位的丈夫从不让我忘记这一点。

Curiosity Weekly from Discovery brings us the latest and greatest scientific discoveries and explains them even for those of us who don't have a science PhD, which my doctor of physics husband will never let me forget.

对于我们这些‘幻术爱好者’来说，《好奇心周刊》提供了大量语言学内容，比如鲸鱼如何在60英里外互相交流，狨猴如何互相叫名字，婴儿如何在子宫内就学习语言，以及AI如何在子宫内学习语言。

For us illusionauts, Curiosity Weekly offers so much linguistic content, like how whales converse with each other even from 60 miles away, how marmosets call each other names, how babies learn language even within the womb, how AI learns language even within the womb.

开玩笑的，AI并不会在子宫里发育。

Joke, AI doesn't gestate in wombs.

它是在我们的胆囊里发育的。

It gestates in our gallbladders.

还有更多内容，比如副作用的正面影响、奶酪可能让我们更长寿，太好了，还有我们最近讨论过的一个话题——猫咪的哀伤。

And there's so much more, like the positive side effects of side effects, how cheese might make us live longer, yay, and a topic we broached recently, cat grief.

《好奇心周刊》帮助我们理解塑造我们世界的一些最重要问题和理念。

Curiosity Weekly helps us make sense of some of the biggest questions and ideas shaping our world.

在您收听播客的任何平台收听来自探索频道的《好奇心周刊》。

Listen to Curiosity Weekly from Discovery wherever you get your podcasts.