#487 – 欧文·芬克尔：破译古代文明与洪水神话的秘密

他们把它挖了出来，还有那些人。

They dug it up, and those people.

那么他们发现了什么？

So what did they find?

他们发现泥板散乱地堆放在一个大房间的地板上、走廊里到处都是，许多已经破碎，还有许多被烧毁了。

They found the tablets higgledy piggledy all over the floor of a huge room in the corridors and everything, and lots of them broken and lots of them burnt.

所以从那时起，直到最近，研究这些的学者们——那些致力于拼接碎片的人，把吉尔伽美什的故事和爱上他的花园女神的故事拼凑起来，她想引诱他，等等等等，你找不到那块碎片，就再找另一块，再找另一块。

So ever since then, until really quite recently, a seriologist who spent all their well, people who work on these, and joining the bits together, and you have the story about Gilgamesh and the goddess who falls in love with him in the garden, and she wants to seduce him, dot dot dot, you can't find the bit, so you look for another bit, you look for another bit.

渐渐地，他们将这些文献拼凑起来，人们一直以来的假设是，如果把它们全部重新组合起来，就能得到完整的图书馆。

And gradually, they piece together the literature, and the assumption has always been that if you put them all together again, you're have the whole library.

嗯。

Mhmm.

但事实恰恰相反。

But it's the absolute opposite.

因为根据我的看法，实际情况是南方的巴比伦人与来自伊朗的埃兰人密切合作。

Because what happened was that the Babylonians in the South, in my opinion, They they worked hand in glove with the Elamites from Iran.

他们采取了钳形攻势，打败了亚述。

They had a pincer movement, and they beat Assyria.

他们征服了亚述。

They conquered Assyria.

他们冲进首都，放火烧毁了一切，掳走了所有妇女、珠宝和黄金。

And they ran through the capital, and they set fire to everything, pinched all the women and to all the jewelry and all the gold.

人们说他们在一时激愤之下摧毁,.

And people say that in a fit of pique, they destroyed the library.

但他们不会摧毁图书馆，因为那是亚述人统治世界帝国的巨型大脑，里面包含了世界上所有的知识。

But they wouldn't destroy the library because it was the giant brain from which the Assyrians ran a world empire, and it had all the knowledge in the world.

他们摧毁了它？

They destroyed that?

他们说着相同的语言。

They spoke the same language.

他们使用相同的书写系统。

They had the same writing system.

他们会把这些全部安全运回家，一车接一车地运送。

They'd have taken them all safely home, cart after cart after cart.

我认为留在那里的都是副本和破损物品，那些被遗落的东西等等。

And I think what's left there is duplicates and broken things, the things that got dropped and everything.

这就是大家所认为的。

And that's what everyone thinks is it.

哦。

Oh.

所以这也是一个有争议的观点。

So this is also uncon it's a controversial point.

你就是停不下来。

You just not stop.

这很常见

It's common

这有道理。

It's sense.

你今天会把我们俩都害惨的。

You're gonna get both of us canceled today.

但是你看这个，你看到关键点了吗？

But but you see the thing you see the thing?

这个观点基于一个假设，即我们现有的就是全部存在过的。

It's predicated on the assumption that what we have is what there only what there was.

这完全是个谬论。

And this is such a fallacy.

需要从各个角度进行驳斥。

It needs to be attacked left, right, and center.

其实很多楔形文字语言已经被破译了。

So a lot of the cuneiform language is already deciphered.

确实。

Sure.

你能谈谈破译过程吗？

Can you speak to the the deciphering process?

这有多难？

How hard is it?

也许可以带我们回到你最初学习这门语言、解开谜题时的情景。

Maybe take us to this place of for you yourself, first learning the language, figuring out the puzzle of it.

那是什么感觉？

How does it feel?

对于一个并不深入了解它的大脑来说，它看起来是怎样的？

The how does it look like to to a brain that doesn't deeply understand it?

然后你是如何将信息拼凑起来的？

And how do you then piece stuff together?

或许你可以谈谈早期阶段，比如楔形文字的罗塞塔石碑。

Maybe you can go to the the early days, sort of the the Rosetta Stone of cuneiform also.

这很重要。

That's important.

首先需要了解楔形文字系统的工作原理——关键在于他们是用音节书写的，一旦明白这点，许多问题就迎刃而解。

Well, the first thing is is that how the cuneiform writing system works, because the crucial point, and once you see it, is makes a lot of things clear, is that they wrote in syllables.

以英语字母为例（当然他们并没有使用），你会看到字母b、g、d、p、h等等。

So if you take the English alphabet, which, of course, they didn't, you have the letter b g d p h and so forth.

他们无法单独书写一个辅音。

They couldn't write a consonant.

他们做不到这一点。

They couldn't do that.

所以他们采用的方式是在辅音前或后加一个元音。

So what they did is they had a vowel before a consonant or one after.

于是就有了ab和ba这样的组合。

So you have ab and ba.

由于他们有四个元音，所以必须形成ab和ba、ib和b、ub和boo、eb和bear这样的组合。

But as they had four vowels, you had to have ab and ba, ib and b, ub and boo, eb and bear.

嗯。

Mhmm.

因此他们围绕我们称之为辅音的元素，形成了一系列组合变化。

So you had the the range of things clustered around what we call a consonant.

因此他们为所有字母都配备了这些规则，形成了一套基础系统。

So they had all those for all the letters, which gave them a basic system.

实际情况远比这复杂得多，我们无需深入探讨那些更复杂的细节。

There was much more to it than that, and it was more complicated than that where we didn't have to really go into it.

但基本上，如果你是巴比伦人，想写'museum'这个词——这当然是英语及其他语言中最重要的词汇之一——你会先写音节'moo'。

But basically, if you are a Babylonian and you want to write the word museum, which, of course, is one of the most important words in the English language and other languages too, So what you would do is you would write the syllable moo Yeah.

然后是符号'z'，再写下一个符号。

And then the sign z, and then the sign.

这样你把单词拆解成各个音节成分。

So you split the word up into its component syllables.

当你在心中阅读时，再把它们拼合成'museum'。

When you read it in your mind, you squash them together into museum.

这就是基本系统。

That's the basic system.

他们还有其他符号来提示词义及边缘信息，但本质上属于音节文字体系。

They had other signs which gave you a clue as to the meaning and bits around the edge, but it's basically syllabic writing.

嗯

Mhmm.

所以当你去大学学习楔形文字时，你需要掌握所有符号及其各种含义。

So when you go to university to study cuneiform, what you have to learn is all the signs and all their values.

因为遗憾的是，每个符号并不只有单一含义。

Because, unfortunately, they didn't just have one for each.

它们有多个变体。

They had multiple ones.

原因并非古人疯狂或故意制造困难，而是这些音节源自苏美尔语的书写体系。

And the reason is not that they were mad or they wanted to make life hell, but because the syllables derived from the writing of Sumerian words.

苏美尔语词汇中有许多可能通过声调区分的词语。

So the Sumerian vocabulary had a lot of words that were probably differentiated by tone.

比如可能有平调、升调，然后降调。

So you might have and then a rising and then a lower.

尽管后来不再使用声调，这些符号仍保留了原始音值。

And these signs all retain the value even though there were no tones.

这意味着如果你查看符号列表，会发现有大量符号。

So it means if you look at the sign list, there's a lot of signs.

有一号杠（最常见），还有二号杠、三号杠，你必须全部学会。

You have bar number one, which is the common, then there's bar number two, bar number three, and you have to learn them all.

阅读时，你必须学习如何解读它们。

And when you read, you have to learn how to do it.

所以在现代社会，如果你们去大学攻读亚述学——我希望你和所有弟子都能尽快去学——实际上需要掌握两种语言：苏美尔语和巴比伦语。

So when in the modern world, if you go to university to to do Assyriology, which I hope you and all of your disciples will do as soon as possible, you actually have to cope with two languages, the Sumerian and the Babylonian.

首先要明白的是，巴比伦语属于闪米特语系，虽然已经消亡，但它与希伯来语、阿拉米语、阿拉伯语、埃塞俄比亚语、叙利亚语等现存闪米特语族语言相关联，是这一语系的早期范例。

Now the first thing is this, that the Babylonian language is a Semitic tongue, which although it's extinct, is connected to or related to Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopic, Syriac, all that family of Semitic languages which are still alive, is an early example of one of those.

因此当破译工作开始时，学者们正是依靠闪米特语词典来识别单词、名词和词根的。

So that when the decipherment came along, it was the Semitic dictionary that they fell back on to identify words, nouns, and roots.

另一种语言——苏美尔语（就是那种要在词首词尾添加成分的语言），不仅不属于闪米特语系。

The other language, which is Sumerian, the one when you stick bits in the beginning and stick bits at the end, is not only not Semitic.

它与任何其他已知语言都没有亲缘关系。

It's not related to any other known language.

哦，不。

Oh, no.

是的。

Yeah.

这是件令人着迷的事。

This is a bewitching thing.

对我来说这是件令人着迷的事。

It's a bewitching thing to me.

要理解这一点是因为当今世界我们研究的语言，语言学家研究的，它们或多或少都属于某个语系。

And this is how to understand it because the languages that we study in the world today, linguists study, they more or less all fall into a language group.

比如印欧语系有西班牙语、意大利语、拉丁语、赫梯语等等。

So you have Indo European with Spanish, Italian, Latin, Hittite, and so forth.

法语属于其中一个语族，还有日耳曼语族、斯拉夫语族。

So that's what French is one group, and you have Germanic, and you have Slavonic.

大多数语言，甚至那些遥远的语种，都能归入这些可能庞大而松散的语系家族中。

And and most languages, even the far flung ones, fall into what can be seen to be maybe big and airy groups, their family like that.

苏美尔语没有这样的语系归属。

There's not one for Sumerian.

这意味着语言并非孤立存在，而是属于某个语系家族这一事实，必定自古如此。

So this means that the truth that languages do not exist in a vacuum, but they're part of a big family, must always have been true.

所以当文字在大约公元前300年出现时，能够准确书写意味着苏美尔语被及时记录了下来。

So that when writing arrives about 3,000, say, 300 BC, to write proper properly, it means that Sumerian was recorded just in time.

但那些可能与苏美尔语相关的大语种，或许在中国、俄罗斯或亚洲其他地区存在过。

But the big languages, maybe in China, in Russia, in somewhere else in Asia that were related to Sumerian.

都消失了？

Are gone?

或者说全都消失了。

Or all gone.

它们永远永远地消失了，除非发生什么奇迹。

They're gone forever and ever and ever, unless something amazing happens.

所以我们有了这个奇特语系的唯一代表。

So we've got the one representative of this bizarre family.

太神奇了。

Amazing.

想象这件事本身就非常令人兴奋。

It is an it's a very stimulating thing to imagine.

我个人认为尼安德特人和早期智人肯定拥有语言。

I personally believe that Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens for sure had language.

毫无疑问，他们彼此交谈过。

For sure, they talked to one another.

他们不可能没有语言。

It's impossible that they didn't.

关键在于他们确实掌握了语言。

The point came when they did.

他们确实做到了。

They did.

而答案就是，嘿。

And and the answer is, hey.

他们在欧洲统治或生食生活了十万年。

A hundred thousand years of rule or eat live in Europe.

他们必须应对冰河时代。

They had to deal with the ice age.

他们都生活在一起。

They all lived together.

他们抚养自己的孩子。

They bring up their children.

你认为他们什么话都不会说吗？

You think they couldn't speak anything.

他们拥有相同的发声器官。

They have the same apparatus.

如果你拥有人类大脑，它就会对刺激做出反应。

And if you have a human brain, then it responds to stimulus.

而沟通的刺激越多——我是说，想象一下你和我出去猎犀牛的场景。嗯。

And the more stimulus there is for communication I mean, the idea that you and I were out hunting rhinos Mhmm.

然后你会说，莱克斯。

And and you'd say, Lex.

好吧，闭嘴。

Well, shut up.

我一直是莱克斯。

I'm constantly Lex.

莱克斯。

Lex.

我突然想到，哦，我明白了。

And I suddenly think, oh, I get it.

你是腿。

You are legs.

对吧？

Right?

你只需要做一次，然后你就知道我是谁了。

You only have to do that once, then you know who I am.

所以我知道我是我，而你是你。

So I know that I'm me and that you are you.

那些声称无法区分自我意识的人，简直愚蠢至极。

So people who say that they couldn't distinguish ego and and and all that, it's absolutely stupid.

如果你用刀割伤自己的手，你绝对会感受到疼痛。

If you cut your hand with a knife, you sure as hell experience it.

你绝对会的。

You sure as hell do.

很疼。

It hurts.

嗯。

Mhmm.

非常疼。

It hurts a lot.

你甚至可能会失血过多而死。

You might even bleed to death.

但那不是别人的手，而是你自己的手，是你的存在和生命构成了威胁。

But it's not somebody else's hand, and it's your hand, and it's your existence and your life that's threatening.

你认为人们没有意识到自己是一个独立实体吗？

You think people weren't conscious that they were an entity?

我不相信。

I don't believe it.

他们可能已经能用声音来表达这一点了。

And they probably had a way to express that with sounds.

嗯，最终确实如此。

Well, eventually, yes.

名字。

Names.

我是说名字。

I mean Names.

事物的名称，然后你就有了标签固定于某物的概念。

Names of things, and then you have a the idea that a label fixes to something.

然后灯泡一亮，转眼间你就有了犀牛、有了皮肤、有了婴儿，因为你有了一个想法，这个想法驱动大脑，大脑又产生另一个想法。

Then the light bulb has gone on, and next minute, you have rhino, and you have skin, and you have babies, and you because I think you have an idea, and the idea then drives the brain, and the brain has another idea.

这就像生育力一样运作。

It works like fertility.

所以你认为

So what do you

发展书面语言的动机、主要驱动力是什么？

think is the motivation, the primary driver of developing written language?

这是否与文明发展同步进行？

Is it is it goes hand in hand with the civilization?

我认为它出现的媒介是在大量人群居住在城市环境中时。

I think that the media in which it appears is when there's a lot of people living in an urban environment.

是的。

Yeah.

并且伴随着竞争机构、国王、政府或这类事物的存在。

And with with rival institutions or with a king or with a government or all those sorts of things.

这就是为什么我认为哥贝克力石阵也一定是同样的性质。

And that's why I think Gobekli Tepe must have been the same thing.

我在某处读到他们都是游牧民族，每年只来哥贝克力石阵三个月。

I read somewhere that they're all nomads, and they only came to Gobekli Tepe, you know, three months a year.

我的意思是，说他们是游牧民族不可能是真的，绝对不可能是真的。

I mean, that cannot be true that they were nomads, they cannot be true.

要开采石头，必须有人在地面绘制建筑平面图，他们需要计算墙体厚度和高度——我的意思是，这不可能像大猩猩那样随意完成。

To get the stone and someone has to draw on the ground the plan of the building, they have to work out how thick it is gonna be, how high it's gonna be, and I mean, you know, you can't just, you know, like that, like gorillas.

好吧。

Alright.

那么破译的过程。

So deciphering, the process of deciphering.

当我开始研究时，已有语法书、符号列表和词典。

So when I started, there were grammars and sign lists and dictionaries.

一切都令人惊叹。

Everything was marvelous.

基本上都已经被破译了。

It was all basically deciphered.

你只需要继续学习它就行了。

All you had to do is get on with learning it.

但最初，当第一批楔形文字的泥板和砖块以及石刻铭文出土时，没有人能读懂它们。

But at the beginning, when the first tablets and bricks in cuneiform and stone inscriptions came to light, no one could read them.

但他们知道那是文字，只是不知道如何解读。

But they knew they were writing, but they didn't know how to read them.

正如你之前提到的罗塞塔石碑那样，这里出现了可以直接对照的内容——波斯某位国王在比索顿山腰处用埃兰语、巴比伦语和古波斯语三种语言刻下了大流士王成功统治的记载。

And what happened was, like you said before, with the Rosetta stone, it was something directly comparable because there was an inscription of one of the Persian kings halfway up a mountain in a place called Bisutun, where this king Darius had written an account of his successful career in Elamite and in Babylonian and in Old Persian, trilingual version.

虽然古波斯语显然是该语言的古老形式，但波斯语至今仍在使用。

And Old Persian, although it's an obviously archaic form of the language, Persian is still alive.

直到19世纪它仍在使用。

It was still alive in the nineteenth century.

由于古波斯语是用非常简单的楔形文字书写的，他们最终破译了它。

So they since the Old Persian was written in a very simple style of cuneiform, they deciphered it.

他们确认这是古波斯语。

They tweaked it was Old Persian.

他们用波斯语读出了这个名字——古波斯语中的'大流士'。

They read it in Persian, and they read the names Dariawush in old Persian.

然后突然有人意识到另外两栏文字长度相近。

And then suddenly, somebody realized that the other two columns about the same length.

太聪明了。

Brilliant.

你知道吗？

What do you know?

关键是上面写着：'我乃大流士，万王之王，众邦之君，某某之孙'。

And the thing is, it said, I am Darius, the great king, king of the working leader, son of grandson of.

波斯语段落中有大量重复内容是他们能理解的。

So there's a whole paragraph with repeated things in the Persian which they could understand.

所以你知道吗？

So what do you know?

这些内容在另外两种语言中也有重复出现。

They're reiterated passages in the other two languages.

这就是关键所在。

So that was the key.

这把凿子开启了楔形文字的正式解读。

The the kind of the chisel that opened up cuneiform writing proper.

重要的是，他们很快发现巴比伦语属于闪米特语系，这一点至关重要。

And the thing was, they soon tweaked that the language of the Babylonian was a Semitic tongue, and this was so important.

我想他们发现的第一个词是'河流'，这个词在阿卡德语、阿拉伯语和阿拉米语中都有。

I think the first word they discovered was the word for river, which is in Akkadian, and in Arabic and Aramaic.

当他们意识到表示'人'的词语是这个形式时，这简直是天赐良机——所有人都立即翻开阿拉伯语和希伯来语词典，开始寻找符合语境的词汇。

And when they realized that the word that corresponded to the person had this form, This was a gift a gift of gold because everybody immediately sees their Arabic and Hebrew dictionaries and started leafing through looking for words that would fit in the context.

他们基本上就是用这种方式破译了这篇铭文。

And they basically they deciphered this inscription in that sort of way.

当然，随后其他铭文也陆续被解读，期间还遇到了许多需要解决的难题。

And of course, all the other inscriptions came in order, and there were lots and lots of difficulties which had to be resolved.

但这就是基本事实。

But that's the basic thing.

如果没有那份三语对照碑文，真不知道会怎样。

And without that trilingual, I don't know what would have happened.

我是说，或许在现代社会还有可能找到其他方法。

I mean, I suppose it's conceivable that in the very modern world, something might have happened.

但当时，全凭几位极其聪明之人的脑力劳动，他们硬是破解了它。

But as it was, it was done by sheer brainpower by very, very clever persons just doing it, and they they cracked it.

埃兰语要困难得多，但他们也破译了不少。

The Elamite language is much more difficult, but they got a lot of it too.

整个过程充满传奇色彩——碑文刻在平原上方高耸的山壁上，亨利·罗林森这位自诩（实则名不副实）破译楔形文字的英国年轻军官，带着个可怜孩子攀上悬崖，在数千英尺高空俯瞰平原的位置制作了整个碑文的拓印，这些拓本最终被用于破译工作。

So it was a very romantic thing because the inscription was carved on a mountain face far above the plain, and then Henry Rawdinson, who was a upstanding young British officer who claimed to decipher cuneiform quite unjustifiably, climbed up there with some miserable kid and made squeezes of the whole thing overlooking the plane thousands of feet up in the air and brought those back, and they were used in the decipherment.

所以非常具有传奇色彩。

So it's very romantic.

等一下。

Wait a minute.

默里今天又发表了更具争议性的言论。

More controversial statement from Murray today.

亨利·罗林森不配获得这份荣誉吗？

Henry Rawlinson doesn't deserve the credit for that?

不配。

No.

我认为他不配。

I don't think he does.

他被誉为亚述学的父亲，但我觉得他只能算亚述学的继父——因为他最初拿到这些铭文时，写了本长篇大论的书，结果几乎全错了。

He's he's he's called the father of Assyriology, but I think he's the stepfather of Assyriology because when he first got these inscriptions, he wrote a long book about it, which was almost entirely wrong.

嗯。

Mhmm.

当时北爱尔兰有位叫爱德华·辛克斯的牧师，住在杀手巷，有五个女儿，管理着教堂。这人就算不是个活脱脱的天才，至少也是个绝顶聪明的主儿。

And there was a clergyman in Northern Ireland called Edward Hinks who lived in a place called Killer Lane, had five daughters and ran this church, who was possibly a card carrying genius, if not jolly, jolly clothes.

事情经过是这样的。

And what happened with him was this.

当时有一场持续的竞赛，准确说是持续的挑战，关于破译象形文字，通常人们认为这是让·保罗的功劳。

There was an ongoing competition well, an ongoing challenge to decipher hieroglyphic writing, which Jean Paulion usually gets the credit for.

欣克斯非常热衷于尝试在法国人之前破译象形文字。

And Hincks was very interested in trying to decipher hieroglyphic ahead of the French.

他在某个阶段遇到了瓶颈，于是决定研究楔形文字看看是否有所启发。

And he ran into a sort of dead end at one stage, and he thought he'd have a look at cuneiform to see if it was helpful.

与此同时，他成功破解了它。

And at the same time, he cracked it.

他弄懂了楔形文字的工作原理。

He worked out how it worked.

他意识到一个符号可以拥有多个音值和意义，因为这些符号具有多义性。

He realized that one sign can have more than one value of sound and of meaning because they are multivalent signs.

我本想让你免受这个可怕消息的冲击，但事实上...这绝非易事。

I tried to shelter you from the horrible news, but it's actually it it it's not it's not a walk in the park.

大约需要五年时间...你可能四年左右就能掌握，大概吧。

It takes about five years to to you probably do it in about four, probably.

这是一种赞美。

That is a compliment.

我觉得你刚刚是在夸我。

I think you just complimented me.

谢谢。

Thank you.

非常感谢。

Thank you very much.

所以你是说，一个看起来完全相同的符号，根据上下文可能有不同的发音？

So what so you're saying one one sign that looks exactly the same might have different sounds given the context?

对。

Yeah.

而且你必须选择正确的发音。

And you have to choose the right sound.

同时还有不同的含义。

And and and also different meaning as well.

因为，比如说，如果你有一个表示‘热’这个词的符号，对吧，你实际上无法为‘热’画一个图形符号。

Because, for example, if you if you have a sign for hot word hot, right, you can't really have a picture sign for hot.

这说不通。

Doesn't make sense.

但他们做的是画了一个复杂的图案，里面有个火盆嵌在另一个符号中，这个组合符号表示‘热’。

But what they did is they did a drawing of a kind of complex thing with a brazier inside another sign, which meant hot.

所以这个符号存在，但它同时也表示其他含义，你需要根据上下文选择正确的解释。

So that sign existed, but it also meant other things as well, and you had to choose the right one for the context.

上下文才是关键吗？

Is all the context to matter?

我是说，刚开始学楔形文字时真的会让人绝望，因为最要命的是他们连单词之间都不留空格。

I mean, it really is quite a matter for despair when you start cuneiform because on top of everything else, they didn't leave gaps between the words.

嗯。

Mhmm.

因为它们都是连在一起的。

Because they're all connected.

这真的很苛刻。

That's really mean.

是啊。

Yeah.

所以当你阅读时，你需要做的是从第一个符号开始，思考这个符号，在脑海中过一遍它的各种含义，然后看下一个符号。

So when you read, what you have to do, you start with the first sign, and you think of the sign this, and you go through the values in your mind, and there's next sign.

如果一个符号读作bar，下一个读作ab（还有其他读法），bar ab听起来就像一个单词的音节结构，你就这样继续下去。

And if one is bar and the next one is ab, among other readings, bar ab sounds like a syllable structure for a word, and you go on like that.

嗯。

Mhmm.

所以关于它有两件事。

So there are two things about it.

一是如果你想的话，你可以掌握它。

One is that if you want to, you can master it.

另一件事是变量的数量是有限的。

The other thing is that the number of variables was restricted.

他们对此进行了控制，所以并不疯狂。

They controlled it, so it wasn't insane.

嗯。

Mhmm.

换句话说，如果你学习了语料库，掌握了符号的构成方式及其不同含义，那你就完全掌握了。嗯。

So in other words, if you learn the corpus and you would learn how the signs are composed and you learn their different values, then you've got it down Mhmm.

然后你就可以开始了。

And off you go.

而且它非常美丽，我认为。

And and it's it's very beautiful, I think.

它简直太奇妙了。

It's it's it's marvelous.

你能认真地带我回到你学习它的那段时光吗？

Can you, in all seriousness, take me back to the time when you were learning it?

学习它的过程是怎样的？

What's the process of learning it?

嗯，我的成长经历非常不寻常，因为在我上大学前大约三年，我就想成为一名埃及学家。

Well, I had very abnormal upbringing because when I went to university, for about three years beforehand, I'd wanted to be an Egyptologist.

所以我早就读过加德纳的语法书，对学习古埃及语充满期待。

So I'd read the grammar by Gardiner and was looking forward very much to studying ancient Egyptian.

后来我去了伯明翰大学，那是我就读的大学。

And what happened was that I went up to the University of Birmingham, where I went to university.

那里有位名叫兰德尔·克拉克的学者，他是研究末世论的专家。

And there was a man called Randall Clark, who was an eschatologist.

然后兰德尔·克拉克在周一进来，给我们上了一节关于埃及雕塑之类的课。

And Randall Clark came in on the Monday and gave us one lesson about Egyptian sculpture or something like that.

结果第二天，他就去世了。

And the next minute, next day, he died.

砰。

Bang.

于是教授把我叫到他房间说：听着，我需要些时间才能找到一位埃及学家。

So the professor called me into his room and said, look, it's gonna take me a while to get an Egyptologist.

他们可不是随处可见的。

They don't grow on trees.

但系里还有另一位教授古代语言的老师叫兰伯特，他教楔形文字。

But there's another person in this department who teaches another ancient language called Lambert, and he teaches cuneiform.

所以我建议你先去跟兰伯特教授学点楔形文字，等我找到埃及学家你再转回来。

So what I suggest is you go and do a bit of cuneiform with Professor Lambert, and then when I get an Egyptologist, you can convert back.

于是我去敲门。

So I go and knock on the door.

请进。

Yes.

我进去说我想学楔形文字。

So I went in and said, I want to learn cuneiform.

兰伯特教授是个类似福尔摩斯式的人物，清瘦、刻薄、言辞犀利。

And Professor Lambert, who was rather a Sherlock Holmes kind of figure, aesthetic, bony, sarcastic, cruel.

非常刻薄。

Cruel.

残忍。

Cruel.

绝对令人恐惧。

Absolutely terrifying.

我说，我想学楔形文字。

And I said, I I wanted to learn cuneiform.

他一点也不高兴，因为在当时的英国，教授们讨厌教学生，因为这占用了他们的研究时间。

And he wasn't at all pleased because this was a time in Britain when professors resented having students to teach because it butted into their research time.

就是这样的安排。

It was that sort of arrangement.

是的。

Yes.

总之，我就这样开始了。

Anyway, I started it off.

大约在上了一两节课后，我就知道这将是我毕生的事业。

And after about, I don't know, maybe one or maybe two lessons, I knew this was going to be my life's work.

这就是发生在我身上的事。

So that's what happened to me.

这是件了不起的事。

Was It an amazing thing.

于是他给了我一份基本符号清单让我学习，我就照做了。

So he gave me a list of signs to learn basic signs, so I did.

过了几天，我们回来后，他就开始教我阅读。

And the next couple of days, and then we came in, and he we started reading.

考虑到这些符号的复杂性，为什么楔形文字能延续三千年？

So given the complexity of the signs, why did cuneiform last three thousand years?

这是史上最成功的书写系统。

The most successful writing system ever.

问得好。

Fair question.

有几个因素。

There are several factors.

其一是著名的惯性因素。

One is the famous factor of inertia.

嗯。

Mhmm.

第二点是，那些能读写的人掌管着档案，与神庙文书、国王书记官等职位，掌握着极大权力，因为大多数民众并不具备这种能力。

The second thing is that people who could read and write and were in charge of archives and with the clerks in the temple and the writers for the king and everything commanded a very great deal of power because most of the public couldn't.

因此他们将知识、理解与哲学探究都垄断在自己手中。

So they reserved to themselves knowledge, understanding, philosophical inquiry.

当然这些讨论也可能发生在酒馆之类的地方，但主导权始终掌握在他们手里。

I mean, no doubt it went on in pubs and things, but they were they were in charge.

他们把一切都严密管控起来。

They had everything under lock and key.

我认为书吏学校相当封闭排外。

And they were I think the scribal schools are rather cliquey.

这种排外性就像牛津和剑桥互为竞争对手的关系那样。

They were certainly cliquey in the sense of Oxford and Cambridge being rivals, that sort of thing.

他们持有那种观念。

They had that sort of idea.

这对任何人都没有好处。

And it was in no one's interest whatsoever.

没有人会承认普及识字有任何利益可言。

Nobody would ever concede any interest in the idea of literacy for all.

这种想法从未被考虑过，且会被视为大逆不道。

This would be it would never be thought of, and it would be anathema.

所以如果你在周六下午站在肥皂箱上呼吁‘受够了，我们必须教育孩子们’。

So if you got on a soapbox on a Saturday afternoon and say, oh, enough of this.

我们必须教育孩子们。

We have to teach the children.

我想他们会被抓走的。

They'd be taken away, I think.

因此我们在这些泥板上看到的是知识分子阶层的产物，只占人类极少数。

So we're getting in these tablets the output of the intellectual class, a very small fraction of humans.

所以我们只拿到了牛津和剑桥的。

So we're getting just the Oxford and the Cambridge.

确实如此，不过当你去文士学校时，必须认真学习苏美尔语和阿卡德语，包括所有词汇和语法。

We are, except this, that when you went to scribal school, you had to learn Sumerian and Akkadian, the languages properly, and all the vocabulary and the grammar.

嗯哼。

Mhmm.

所以有些男孩可能在这方面遇到很大困难，他们勉强过关，但绝对成不了天才。

So some boys probably had a lot of trouble doing this, and, you know, they were okay, but there ain't gonna be no geniuses.

我认为当时学校的状况是，老师把那些宁愿在外面踢足球但具备读写能力的孩子派出去，靠做基础读写工作谋生。

And I think the situation in the school was that the teachers farmed out the kids who would actually rather have been outside playing football but could read and write to earning their living doing low level reading and writing.

也就是说为人们撰写合同、信件等日常文书，因为当时没人识字。

That's to say writing contracts, letters, everyday things for people because no one could read and write.

所以如果你要嫁女儿，就得找文士来记录所有见证人、聘礼等事宜。

So you had to get a scribe if you're gonna marry your daughter off, you get all the witnesses about the presents and all this.

所有这些程序得花上四天时间完成。

All the that thing had to be done for four days.

所以文书人员会前来服务，中等水平的书写者就能满足这类需求。

So the writer would come and do so your medium level writers would serve that requirement.

而那些极具天赋、聪慧或富有学识的学生则会被鼓励进入文学相关职业领域，比如医学、法律、为国王效力、担任神职等等。

And very talented or clever or intellectual students would be encouraged to go into one of the literary professions, which would be, so to speak, medicine, law, working for the king, working for the church, I mean, the priesthood, so forth.

所有这些依赖档案文书的工作，他们都能找到自己的定位，建筑行业也不例外——因为建造大型建筑时，必须有人精通承重结构和砖石测量技术。

All those things which were dependent upon archives and writing, they would find their nivo and also architecture because if a big building had to be built, then somebody had to know about load bearing things and brick measurements.

因此部分学生就投身于这类工作。

And so some of them went into that kind of work.

可能还有人负责军队后勤，需要调度物资和牲畜运输。

And also, probably, of them went into running the army, and you have to move stores and animals.

他们各自找到了发展空间，其中有些人在智力层面确实出类拔萃。

And so they found their nivo, and some of them were intellectually very able indeed.

这些人进而钻研星相学，更严谨的则投身天文学和语法理论研究——他们撰写了关于两种语言关系、运作机制及词类区分的专著。

And they went into the disciplines of, on the one hand, astrology, but more seriously into astronomy and theoretical grammar because they had treatises about the relationship between the two languages and how they worked and different parts of speech.

他们还撰写了学术评注，阐释词语的深层含义。

And and they wrote learned commentaries as well, what words meant.

因此存在一个知识分子的高层顶端。

So there was an intellectual high level top.

然后还有许多职业抄写员，再就是那些尽早离开学校的孩子，他们从事各种工作，就像今天一样。

And then there were lots of professional scribes, and then there were the kids who left school as soon as possible and did all that, like today.

抱歉我要哲学一下，但哲学家维特根斯坦说过，我们语言的边界就是我们世界的边界。

I apologize to be philosophical, but Wittgenstein, the philosopher, said that the limits of our language is the limits of our world.

那么你认为，楔形文字编码的语言在多大程度上定义了人类文明？

So to which degree did the languages that were encoded in cuneiform define human civilization, would you say?

有哪些事物因为表达起来复杂而很少被提及？

What what were the what were the things that were complicated to express and therefore were not expressed often?

这是个非常有趣的问题。

That's a really interesting question.

就词汇丰富性和语言微妙性而言，我认为巴比伦语可与阿拉伯语和英语相媲美。

So in terms of richness of vocabulary and richness of verbal subtlety, I think Babylonian rivals Arabic and of course, English.

你知道吗？

You know?

换句话说，用英语你可以表达任何你想说的内容。

In other words, you can say whatever you want in English.

嗯哼。

Mhmm.

无论多么微妙，即使人们不理解其中的精妙之处，你也能表达，因为语言工具非常出色。

However subtle it might be, even if people didn't understand the subtlety, you can because the tools are fantastic.

阿拉伯语有大量同义词和表达手段，巴比伦语也是如此。

And Arabic has lots of synonyms and lots of devices and all the same in Babylonian.

它是一种成熟的文学语言。

It was a fully fledged literary language.

关于语言是否限制了进一步发展——这本质上就是你的问题——这个问题极其复杂。

The question about about whether the language put a stop to further things, which is basically what you're asking, is immensely complicated.

但让我觉得相关的一点是，美索不达米亚地区绝大部分学术文献都采用预兆形式，因为他们相信偶然或人为引发的事件对未来具有预示意义。

But the one thing that strikes me as relevant is that a very huge proportion of scholarly literature in Mesopotamia, it takes the form of omens because they believed that events, accidental or deliberately stimulated, had implications for what was going to happen.

嗯哼。

Mhmm.

他们从天空中的现象、街上的事物以及一切事物中获取征兆。

And they took omens from things in the sky and things in the street and every single thing.

如果你是合格的占卜师，这些现象就会具有特定含义。

If you were well qualified divine, they would have this significance.

对吧？

Right?

现在有成千上万行各种不同类型的征兆记录。

Now there are thousands of lines of omens of all different kinds.

比如在阿卡德语中记载：如果蜥蜴爬过早餐桌，王后将会死去。

And in the Acadian, it says, for example, if a lizard runs across the breakfast table, the queen will die.

所以如果你这样翻译阿卡德语，'如果'这个词、动词等所有成分，如果发生这个，就会导致那个。

So if you translate the Acadian this way, the word if, verb, and everything, if that, then this.

因此在许多关于征兆的书籍中，有成千上万行被翻译成'如果发生这个，就会导致那个'的记载。

So there are thousands of thousands of lines translated in many books about omens where if this happens, that will happen.

这就是我的同事们理解它的方式。

So this is how it's understood by my colleagues.

嗯，这绝对是不可能的。

Well, this is absolutely impossible.

因为如果你是国王的首席占卜师，你剖开羊取出肝脏来检查，而如果王后即将死去且国王在场，你绝不会说王后要死了。

Because if you are the you're the you're the chief diviner for the king, and you open up a sheep to take a liver out and examine it according to the and if the queen's gonna die and the king's there, you're not gonna say queen's gonna die.

我的意思是，如果她没死，你会看起来像个该死的白痴。

I mean, you're gonna look like a fucking idiot if she doesn't die.

而如果她真的死了，你就要为此负责。

And if she does die, you're gonna be responsible.

所以你永远能做的、也永远只能做的就是指出：这里有征兆显示王后可能会死，注意是可能而非必然。

So all you can ever do and ever, ever have been able to do is to say, there's a sign here that says that the queen could die, meaning could die, not will die.

因此必须立即启动相应的仪式或法术来规避危险。

And therefore, the requisite ritual or magic must immediately swing into action to defer the danger.

关键在于a等于b这个等式永远不成立。

So the point is that a equals b is never true.

这意味着当a可能等于b，或许等于b，应当等于b，可能为真。

It means that with a, b could be, might be, ought to be, should be, could be true.

所有这些微妙之处。

All those subtle things.

因此为国王服务的占卜师必定是位能洞察君心的哲学家。

So that the diviner who works from the king must have been a philosopher who looks at the king.

他观察国王，深知国王想听什么。

He looks at the king, and he knows what the king wants him to say.

所以他必须告诉国王其想听的内容。

So he has to tell the king what he wants to hear.

即便传达坏消息，他也必须以让国王不介意或不担忧的方式说出来。

He has to tell the king if it's bad news in such a way that he doesn't mind or he won't worry.

这真是精妙绝伦。

It's the most beautiful thing.

如此微妙。

It's so subtle.

这就像...就像一部小提琴协奏曲。

It's it's like a a a it's like a violin concerto.

a等于b的情况一刻都不曾存在过。

It can never have been a equals b for a minute.

所以医书上说，如果一个人有这种症状，就这样做，他说喝了药就会好转。

So the medical texts say, if you do if a man has this, do this, you drink, he said, he'll get better.

对吧？

Right?

他说，你会好起来的。

He says, you'll get better.

那你见过哪个医生会说'照这样做，你就会好'吗？

So you ever met a doctor who will say, you do this, you'll get better?

没有。

No.

他们只会说'如果一切顺利，你就能康复'。

They say, all being well, you'll be back on your feet.

噢，这种病症我见过很多次了。

Oh, I've seen this kind of condition many times.

一切应该都会顺利的。

Everything should go fine.

你应该会好起来的。

You should get better.

你很快就会康复的。

You should be better soon.

但他们永远不会说'你一定会好起来'，因为如果你死了怎么办？

But never you will get better because what happens if you die?

你在哪里？

Where are you?

律师就会找上门来。

The lawyers will show up.

完全正确。

Absolutely.

这意味着这些情态动词无法用阿卡迪亚语法表达。

So this means that not expressible in Acadian grammar are these modal verbs.

能、可能、应该、应当

Could, might, should, ought.

它们无法通过语法表达，但要说如此辉煌的文学语言中竟缺乏这些精妙之处，这完全不可能。

They can't be expressed grammatically, but it is impossible that it was such a magnificent literary language where they didn't have these subtleties is utterly impossible.

如果你在文学文本中将'他将'翻译成'他可能'，那么整个文本就变了。

And if you translate he will in a literary text, he might, then the whole text is different.

整个文本都不同了。

The whole text is different.

是啊。

Yeah.

完全正确。

Absolutely.

我的同事们不会那样翻译，就像语法书里写的那样。

They don't my colleagues translate that it says in the grammar books, like that.

他们自动忽略了其中的荒谬之处，毫无自我反省。

Automatically, there's no self appraisal of the folly of it.

你曾说过翻译既是考古学，又是侦探工作，还充满诗意。

You have said the translation is part archaeology, part detective work, part poetry.

我们能再深入聊聊翻译及其艺术性吗？

Can we just speak about translation and the art of it a bit more?

是的。

Yes.

我的意思是，这真是一门令人惊叹的学科。

I mean, it's such a such an incredible discipline.

就像你刚才暗示的那样，哪怕一个词的微妙变化都可能改变全局。

Just like you said, hinted at, just a subtle variation in a single word can change everything.

其实翻译的真相在于，不同语言间永远不存在完全对等的词汇。

Well, you know, the truth about translation is that you never really have a word in one language which precisely equates another.

没错。

Yeah.

从来都不存在。

You never do.

它们总是某种程度上的最佳选择。

They're always a kind the best you can do.

有时毫无差别，有时却会相当误导人。

And sometimes it makes no difference, and sometimes it's really quite misleading.

所以人们学习阿卡迪亚语时，会同时学习阿卡迪亚词汇和对应的英文翻译。

And so what people do when they learn Acadian is they learn the Acadian word, and they learn the English translation.

对吧？

Right?

你必须进行区分。

You have to to divide.

所以每当遇到这个动词时，它都带有某种区分或分割的意味。

So whenever you have the verb, is some form of divide or division.

但实际上并非如此，因为虽然'区分'是词根，但在英语中可能有10种细微差别——最底层和最顶层的含义，你几乎看不出它们之间的联系。

But actually, it's not because divide is like the primary root, but there's maybe 10 nuances of of what that can mean in English, where the one at the bottom and the one at the top, you'd hardly know they were connected.

那本芝加哥词典真是杰作，等你来博物馆找我时，我一定给你看看这本芝加哥。

And the Chicago dictionary, which is such a magnificent thing, when you come to the museum and see me, I'll show you this Chicago.

这是美国历史上涌现的最突出且重要的事物——芝加哥亚述词典，它有这么厚。

It's the most salient and important thing that came out of America in all its history, is the Chicago Assyrian dictionary, which is this long.

在文化重要性上能与它匹敌的只有一样东西，当然就是电吉他。

There's only a one rival to it for cultural importance, which is the electric guitar, of course.

但我认为这两样都是你们国人最伟大的成就。

But the two of them, I think, are your countrymen's greatest achievements.

这是我们国家的骄傲。

It's the pride of our nation.

就这两样东西。

Those two things.

正是如此。

The very thing.

芝加哥词典能...抱歉我跑题了。

Chicago dictionary can can you I'm sorry to take the tangent.

芝加哥词典是什么？

What is the Chicago dictionary?

它始于二十年代，他们编纂了一部巴比伦语词典，可以说是从A到Z的完整收录。

It started in the twenties, and they made a dictionary of the Babylonian language, a a to zed, so to speak.

它的长度和这张桌子相当。

And it's it's as long as this table.

这是件宏伟的杰作，体积庞大。

It's magnificent thing and this big.

参与编纂的都是真正的翻译家，他们明白这不是简单的词汇对应关系——比如a对应b，而是考虑到谚语中的表达与书信中的含义会有所差异。

And there, the people who worked on it were real translators, so they knew that it wasn't lexically a means b, but they had so if you have something in a proverb, you the meaning is gonna be a little bit different from in a letter.

这些人对卡迪安语的理解可谓深入骨髓。

And, you know, so people really, really understand the Kadian.

确实如此。

They really do.

但情态动词这个现象对我来说是个有趣的谜题，因为书写系统中完全找不到对应的痕迹。

But this thing about the modal verbs is an interesting conundrum to me because there's no way it's reflected in the writing.

所以我只能推测，可能是通过拉长动词元音的方式来表达可能性，就像你说的‘可能做某事’这类含义。

So I can only assume that there was some kind of drawing out of the vowel in a verb, meaning could, you know, like you said, might do it, you know, something like that.

总之，如今这已不是破译的工作了。

Anyway, so nowadays, it's not a decipherment that's the job.

只是阅读而已。

It's just reading.

如果你有大量泥板需要处理，比如在考古挖掘中，当它们出土而此前无人研究过时，会非常令人兴奋。

And if you have lots of tablets to work on, like on a dig, it's very exciting if they come out of the ground and no one's looked for them before.

你知道，这就是你的工作。

You know, it's your job.

如果你是个称职的楔形文字学家，你应该能基本做到视读，除了大多数信件之类的东西。

And if you're a competent seriologist, you should be able to sight read more or less, except most say a letter or something like that.

但大多数文献都有损毁，所以你得学会如何解读内容。

But most documents have some damage, so you have to learn how to interpret stuff.

此外，有些文学作品因技术性词汇而非常困难，他们那时就有专业术语和生僻词汇。

And also, some literature is very difficult because of technical vocabulary, and they had technical vocabulary and unusual words.

所以这些你都能做到。

So you can do all of that.

你基本能理解那些技术性复杂内容

You can kind of figure out the technical complexities.

能分辨出缺失部分造成的干扰

Can figure out the the noise, meaning missing pieces.

是的

Yeah.

有时你可以推算出原本应该是什么，给出合理的推测

Sometimes you can calculate to what it ought to be, make a reasonable suggestion.

我之前提到的这部词典是个绝佳工具，因为它是国家人文基金会支持的项目，凝聚了数十年来众多学者的心血

And this dictionary, I was talking to you about, is such a fantastic tool because a lot of people worked on it for for it was the National Endowment for the Humanities, and it was for decades and decades of work.

全球最顶尖的亚述学家大多都参与了编纂

And most of the world's best Assyriologists collaborated on it.

因此其中的译文和解读质量确实非同凡响

So the quality of translation and understanding is really extraordinary.

你从那个时期读到过哪些内容？

What are some things you've read from that time?

有笑话吗？

Is there some jokes?

有情书吗？

Is there some love letters?

有一两封信是某个家伙写给女人的，说什么你真美，你的嘴唇像红萝卜，耳朵像海象之类的。

There are one or two letters about from a chap to a woman about, you know, you are very beautiful, and your lips are like radishes, and your ears are like walruses and things.

不过，确实有这类内容。

But, I mean, there are some things like that.

还有公元前四世纪巴比伦的一种街头戏剧，当时肯定有演员在街头表演。

And there's a kind of street drama in Babylon in fourth century BC, something like that, when there must have been actors who did this in the street.

讲的是马杜克和他妻子萨尔菲娜托姆，还有另一个女人。

And it's it's it's it's Marduk and and Sarphenatom, his wife, and another woman.

马杜克和这个女人有染

Marduk's having an affair with this other

哦，不。

Oh, no.

女神。

Goddess.

嗯。

Mhmm.

萨尔帕尼图姆心生嫉妒，女人们在街上互相争斗，恶言相向，你知道的，那些粗鄙的谩骂场面非常滑稽。

And Sarphanitum is jealous, and the women fight in the street and herd insults of one another, and, you know, slot bucket and all this kind of stuff is hilarious.

我想，那大概有点像没有音乐的歌剧吧。

And it must have been a bit like a sort of opera without the music, I suppose.

我不知道。

I don't know.

但不管怎样，故事始于萨尔帕尼图姆在房间里，马尔杜克和另一位女神在屋顶的床上，而她能听到动静。

But, anyway, it starts off when Salpinitum is in the room, and Marduk is in bed with this other goddess on the roof, and she can hear.

你可以说这是个永恒的人类话题。

You could say it was an eternal human issue.

是啊。

Yeah.

是啊。

Yeah.

爱情、心碎、嫉妒，诸如此类。

Love, heartbreak, jealousy, all of that.

神明之间也是如此。

Between deities also.

没错。

Yeah.

毕竟神明终究只是以人类为原型塑造的。

Because deities are only modeled on human beings after all.

对。

Yeah.

神祇不过是对人类事务、人类行为、人类方式的一种宏大表达。

Deities is a grandiose way of expressing human affairs, human behaviors, human ways.

是的。

Yeah.

确实如此。

Indeed.

在作品中，他们与神祇的关系是怎样的？

In the writing, what was their relationship to the divine?

与神祇的关系？

Relationship with the divine?

首先要说的是他们拥有一个庞大的神系。

Well, the first thing to say is that they had a large pantheon of gods.

顶端有三位主神，有时被称为阿努、恩利尔和埃亚。

So there were three gods at the top, sometimes called Anu, Enlil, and Ea.

顶端有三位主神，还有数百位其他男女神祇。

There were three gods at the top and hundreds of other gods and goddesses.

我认为许多小村庄和城镇都供奉着古老的本地神祇，最终这些神祇都被整合进一个类似电话簿的神学体系里。

And you have the situation that I think lots of small villages and towns had their old ancient gods, and eventually, they were all worked into a kind of theological system like a phone book.

而那些次要的小神则被合并，然后被分配到大神的家族中担任职务。

And the lesser, minor gods were amalgamated, and then they were given jobs in the households of the big gods.

因此存在某种层级结构

So there was a sort of structure.

这种宏大的神学体系就像当今世界某些地区所存在的那样，构成了当时的背景

So you had this in the background, a big sweeping theology like you have in the world today in some parts of the world.

这是主要的神灵体系，主神们关注统治者与国家命运

And this was the main system, and the main gods were concerned with the ruler and the fate of the country.

另有一位神灵掌管疾病与死亡，处理亡灵事务，每位神明都有各自的专司领域

And another god was concerned with illness and the dead, and what happens to the dead, and they had other specialities.

他们各自拥有专属的神庙

And they all had their own temples.

当婴儿降生时——这可能是放之四海皆准的

And when a baby came into the world, probably this was universally true.

婴儿会被置于某位神明的庇护之下

The baby was put under the tutelage of one or other of the gods.

有时，你知道的，皇室成员地位显赫，但有时并非如此，或是家族成员之类的

Sometimes, you know, the royal family, they were the big shots, but sometimes not, or the ones that were in the family or something like that.

因此人们从小就形成了一种观念：在众多神明中，有专门庇佑家族的特殊神灵，他们有一位特定的守护神。

So people had grew up with the idea that among all of them, there were special ones for the family, and they had a special one who was supposed to look after them.

这就是基本概念。

That's the sort of basic idea.

但问题在于，正如你所说，神明不过是放大版的人类，他们可能会健忘、漠不关心或正在度假。

But the trouble is since gods are, as you say, human beings on a larger scale, they can be forgetful or uninterested or on a holiday.

于是你需要通过各种方式提醒他们——做些小祭祀、给点小贿赂，好让他们履行职责看顾你。

And there are lots of ways that you have to prompt your make little sacrifices and little bribes so they do their job and keep an eye on you.

所以他们持有这种略带实用主义的神明观：神灵有点反复无常，显灵时很伟大但并不总在身边。

So they had that kind of slightly practical view of gods, that they were bit unpredictable, great when they were there but not always there sort of idea.

我还认为，当今世界许多没有在压抑宗教环境中成长劣势的普通人，当他们重病缠身或遭遇大灾时，会对宗教产生更浓厚的兴趣。

And I also believe this, that a lot of people in the world today who did not have the disadvantage of growing up in a stifling religion, but are just normal people, get a lot more interested when they're really ill or when they have a big disaster.

突然间，众神似乎比平常重要得多。

All of a sudden, god or gods seem a lot more important than they do normally.

所以很少有人能以宗教敬畏的状态行走世间。

So few people walk about in a state of religious awe.

我遇到过的神职人员中，相当一部分人也不这么做。

And a good proportion of clergymen I've ever met don't do that either.

这种观念实际上并不基于现实，个人对宗教刺激的反应是波动的、多样的，而且往往是对需求的回应。

It's a kind of conception that's not actually based on reality, that the individual's response to religious stimuli fluctuates and is varied and is often a response to need.

这并非凭空而来。

It doesn't come from nothing.

我的意思是，人们不会突然觉得'我必须为彩虹之类的事情感谢上帝'。

I mean, people don't suddenly feel, I've got to thank the Lord for the rainbow or something like that.

我认为这在当今很可能是事实。

I think it's probably true today.

我是说，当你阅读当今对宗教的调查时，这个国家的基督教正在衰落，因为那些本应是基督徒的人表示他们不再是了。

I mean, when you read the investigations they make of religion today, Christianity in this country is on the decline, because people who are supposed to be Christians say they aren't anymore.

他们是无神论者。

They're atheists.

所以那些说'我去教堂，我信仰一切'的人，现在是一个相对较小的群体，这种情况如果你仔细想想是相当引人注目的。

So the people who say, I go to church, I believe in everything, is a relatively small number of people saying, now, this is the situation, which is quite remarkable if you think about it.

有谁知道这对人类意味着什么后果，宗教是否会平衡发展，还是会逐渐消亡。

Do all knows what the consequence will be for the human race, whether religion will balance out, whether it will die off.

谁知道呢？

Who knows?

我认为这是一种古老的智慧，历经数千年验证，为人类提供了一套应对苦难的工具，正如你所说。

I think it's an ancient technology that has proven across millennia to give a set of tools to humans to contend as you as as you said with suffering.

.

That's a part of life.

所以当那些罕见的时刻来临，当你不得不面对深刻的痛苦、失去、苦难、心碎，所有这些事情时。

So when those rare moments come when you have to deal with deep pain, loss, suffering, heartbreak, all those things.

是的。

Yeah.

仰望天空，提出问题，并试图在你与神灵的对话中找到答案。

Looking up to the sky and asking questions and trying to figure out the answers in your conversation with the divine.

我认为确实如此。

I think that's true.

但我认为在美索不达米亚，这种信仰的力量和直接性是不同的，因为伊拉克没有摩天大楼。

But I think in Mesopotamia, it was different in terms of its potency and immediacy because there's no skyscrapers in Iraq.

你知道，如果你住在伊拉克南部，从屋顶望去，夜晚没有任何灯光。

You know, if you live in Southern Iraq and you see from the roof, there are no lights at night.

你就在星空之下。

You know, you're under the stars.

因为没有雾霾之类的污染，你能看清一切。

You can see everything because of no smog and anything like that.

神明在那里注视的观念，不像在这里那样显得矫揉造作。

And the idea that the gods are there watching is not like a big artifice like it is here.

在这里这种观念听起来就不真实。

It just doesn't ring true here.

你无法真正相信它，而那些人不需要刻意相信，因为它本就如此。

You can't come to it and really believe in it, whereas these people didn't have to really believe in it because it was it.

这是生活中显而易见且实际的部分。

It's the obvious practical part of life.

他们就在那里。

They're right there.

是啊。

Yeah.

因为他们不相信鬼魂。

Because they didn't believe in ghosts.

他们视之为理所当然。

They took them for granted.

他们也不相信神灵。

And they didn't believe in the gods.

他们视之为理所当然。

They took them for granted.

这是不同的机制，因为当今世界上没有人会把这些视为理所当然。

This is a different mechanism because nobody here in the world today takes those things for granted.

恰恰相反。

Just the opposite.