A
Of all mankind’s manifold creations, language must take pride of place.
在人类琳琅满目的创造设计中，语言的地位至高无上。
Other inventions -the wheel, agriculture, sliced bread - may have transformed our material existence, but the advent of language is what made us human.
诸如汽车，农耕及别的啧啧称奇的发明，它们有可能改变了物质存在形式，但是语言方使人之为人。
Compared to language, all other inventions pale in significance, since everything we have ever achieved depends on language and originates from it.
人类一切成就都肇始于语言，所以别的任何发明都不足以与语言相提并论。
Without language, we could never have embarked on our ascent to unparalleled power over all other animals, and even over nature itself.
没有语言，人类绝不可能成为经天纬地颠倒乾坤的万物灵首。
B
But language is foremost not just because it came first.
后不僭先绝不是语言地位首屈一指的原因。
In its own right it is a tool of extraordinary sophistication, yet based on an idea of ingenious simplicity:
虽然以以简驭博直接了当为指导思想，语言本身却是裁心镂舌莫可名状的复杂工具。
'this marvellous invention of composing out of twenty-five or thirty sounds that infinite variety of expressions which, whilst having in themselves no likeness to what is in our mind, allow us to disclose to others its whole secret, and to make known to those who cannot penetrate it all that we imagine, and all the various stirrings of our soul'.
言与意，不相及；五五音，造成言；言创语，意可达；法自然，解玄机；了自性，包万象；言意合，人始大。
This was how, in 1660, the renowned French grammarians of the Port-Royal abbey near Versailles distilled the essence of language, and no one since has celebrated more eloquently the magnitude of its achievement.
这是1660年凡尔赛的皇家修道院派著名的语法学家对语言本质的精炼提炼，自此成为对语言绝大成就之再无后者的经典褒扬。
Even so, there is just one flaw in all these hymns of praise, for the homage to languages unique accomplishment conceals a simple yet critical incongruity, language is mankind greatest invention - except, of course, that it was never invented.
但是，致敬于语言光前绝后之成就的溢美之词中暗藏着一个寸辖制轮的悖论，使得所有观止之叹成可刊之论：语言的确是最体现人类智慧的曲尽其妙的创制，那么，不动脑思考的言语，自然不在其中。
This apparent paradox is at the core of our fascination with language, and it holds many of its secrets.
好学深思勤于思考乃是语言得以心游万仞,精骛八极的关键所在，也是语言的袖里玄机。
C
Language often seems so skillfully drafted that one can hardly imagine it as anything other than the perfected handiwork of a master craftsman.
语言的设计可谓巧夺天工，称其是匠心独具的登峰造极之作，应该无人否定。
How else could this instrument make so much out of barely three dozen measly morsels of sound?
屈屈二十几个语音究竟如何构成语言的呢？
In themselves, these configurations of mouth - p,f,b,v,t,d,k,g,sh,a,e and so on - amount to nothing more than a few haphazard spits and splutters, random noises with no meaning, no ability to express, no power to explain.
就本质而言，无论辅音还是元音都不过是气走唇舌之声响，杂乱无章，不堪名文，无力载意。
But run them through the cogs and wheels of the language machine, let it arrange them in some very special orders, and there is nothing that these meaningless streams of air cannot do: from sighing the interminable boredom of existence to unravelling the fundamental order of the universe.
但是，经语法调度语音成为语言要素之后，原本毫无意义的鼻息气流便成了无所不能的表义工具：从鸡毛蒜皮的琐碎杂事，到宇宙运行的不易之典，全知全能。
The most extraordinary thing about language, however, is that one doesn't have to be a genius to set its wheels in motion.
然而语言最神乎其神之处是其不以智商分人，人人可得而尽其用。
The language machine allows just about everybody -from pre-modern foragers in the subtropical savannah, to post-modern philosophers in the suburban sprawl - to tie these meaningless sounds together into an infinite variety of subtle senses, and all apparently without the slightest exertion.
无论是现代化前夕亚热带大草原上的强盗，还是现代化之后都市郊区内的哲学家，每个人都自如运用千篇一律的语音运用自如以遣词造句表达莫可名状的情绪感受。
Yet it is precisely this deceptive case which makes language a victim of its own success, since in everyday life its triumphs are usually taken for granted.
但是，人人生而能出一毫不差之语音，却使大家将胡诌八扯之话与深思明辨之言之有理混为一谈。
The wheels of language run so smoothly that one rarely bothers to stop and think about all the resourcefulness and expertise that must have gone into making it tick.
历朝历代游刃有余的张嘴说话能力虽然被轻而易举得掌握，然而再也无人冥思苦想反复推敲如何语出惊人的佳句了。
Language conceals arts.
言语之妙，全赖锤炼之功，尽失矣。
E
Often, it is only the estrangement of foreign tongues, with their many exotic and outlandish features, that brings home the wonder of languages design.
一场来说，母语习得久惯难察，只有学习传承异政殊俗的外语时，才能对语言设计之妙叹为观止。
One of the showiest stunts that some languages can pull off is an ability to build up words of breath-breaking length, and thus express in one word what English takes a whole sentence to say.
有些语言实在让人五体投地自叹不如，竟能做到很多意思一口气表达，一字成词竟能表达英语一句之意。
The Turkish word sehirlilistiremediklerimizdensiniz to take one example, means nothing less than 'you are one of those whom we can't turn into a town-dweller'.(In case you were wondering, this monstrosity really is one word, not merely many different words squashed together - most of its components cannot even stand up on their own.)
例如土耳其语里的sehirlilistiremediklerimizdensiniz这个词的意思是：你不能成为城镇居民。（可能有人怀疑这不是一个词，而且压缩了多个单词——事实上除了这么长得放一起，拆开之后任何部分都无法独立成词。）
F
And if that sounds like some one-off freak, then consider Sumerian, the language spoken on the banks of the Euphrates some 5,000 years ago by the people who invented writing and thus enabled the documentation of history.
以此方法结合音义的语言并非特例，大约5000年前居住在幼发拉底河两岸的苏美尔人，用类似方法创造了苏美尔语，由此开启了人类有文字记录的历史。
A Sumerian word like munintuma'a ('when he had made it suitable for her') might seem rather trim compared to the Turkish colossus above.
拿苏美尔语里的munintuma'a（没有性别差异）举例，它比上文所提的土耳其语中愣长的字短不少。
What is so impressive about it, however, is not its lengthiness but rather the reverse -the thrifty compactness of its construction.
但让人惊叹的不是其简短，而是倒装——简化到极致的以字构词。
The word is made up of different slots, each corresponding to a particular portion of meaning.
根据不同语境意思的不同，把一个字劈成好几段。
This sleek design allows single sounds to convey useful information, and in fact even the absence of a sound has been enlisted to express something specific.
这样适时多变的设计不但可以用单个音表达语义，而且就连不发生的停顿都可以有实际语义。
If you were to ask which bit in the Sumerian word corresponds to the pronoun 'it' in the English translation 'when he had made it suitable for her: then the answer would have to be nothing.
例如，英语“在他为她弄好”这句话里，翻译成苏美尔语，就是用停顿表“它”。
Mind you, a very particular kind of nothing： the nothing that stands in the empty slot in the middle.
值得注意的是一个特殊的停顿：即中间没有语义的停顿。
The technology is so fine-tuned then that even a non-sound, when carefully placed in a particular position, has been invested with a specific function.
不同位置的停顿，都可以表达不同意义，这种精湛设计简直出神入微，曲尽其妙。
Who could possibly have come up with such a nifty contraption?
何方神圣能如此慧心巧思做出如此巧妙绝伦的设计？