研究生英语阅读教程(基础级2版)课文01及其翻译(2)

研究生英语阅读教程(基础级2版)课文及翻译

(besides), in South Australia there is a wide stretch of land called the Nullarbor Plains, the first word of which sounds Aboriginal, but nullarbor is Latin and means "no trees". And most significantly of all, the early settlers called the continent a terra nullius. According to the Encarta World English Dictionary (1999) the Latin phrase terra nullius means:

... the idea and legal concept that when the first Europeans arrived in Australia the land was owned by no one and therefore open to settlement. It has been judged not to be legally valid.

But that judgment was made only recently. When the Europeans arrived, Australia was thinly populated—but populated nonetheless (from then on)—from coast to coast in every direction. There were hundreds of communities and languages. Many of these languages have died out, many more are in the process of dying out, and these dead and dying languages have been largely replaced (substituted) by either kinds of pidgin English or general Australian English. Depending on your point of view, this is either a tragic loss or the price of progress. [6] At the same time, however, can the blame for the extinction of Aboriginal languages be laid specifically at the door of English? The first Europeans to discover Australia were Dutch, and their language might have become the language of colonization and settlement. Any settler language could have had the same effect. If for example the Mongols had sustained their vast Eurasian empire, Mongolian might have become a world language and gone to Australia. Again, if history had been somewhat (a little) different, today's world language might have been Arabic, a powerful language in West Asia and North Africa that currently affects many smaller languages, including Coptic and Berber. Spanish has adversely (negatively) affected indigenous languages in so-called "Latin" America, and Russian has spread from Europe to the Siberian Pacific. If English is a curse and a killer, it may only be so in the sense (meaning) that any large language is likely (possible) to influence and endanger smaller languages.

[7] Yet many people see (consider/ regard) English as a blessing. Let me leave aside here the obvious advantages possessed by any world language, such as a large communicative network, a strong literary and media complex (network), and a powerful cultural and educational apparatus (organization). Let us instead look at something rather different: the issue (problem) of politics, justice, and equality. My object (target) lesson this time is South Africa. Ten years ago, South Africa ceased (stopped) to be governed on principles of racial separateness, a system known in Afrikaans (a language derived from Dutch) as apartheid. The system arose (occurred) because the Afrikaner community—European settlers of mainly Dutch descent—saw themselves as superior to the indigenous (native) people of the land they had colonized.

[8] English-speaking South Africans of British descent were not particularly strong in opposing the apartheid regime (rule), and the black opposition, whose members had many languages, was at first weak and disorganized. However, the language through which this opposition gained (obtained/ got) strength and organization was English, which became for them the key language of freedom and unity, not of oppression. There are today eleven official languages in South Africa—English, Afrikaans, and nine vernacular languages that include Zulu, Ndebele, and Setswana. But which of these nine do black South Africans use (or plan to use) as their national lingua franca? Which do they wish their children to speak and write successfully (in addition to their mother tongues)? The answer is none of the above. They want English, and in particular (especially/ specifically) they want a suitably Africanized English.

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