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Very few white Americans are aware of the extent to which the great majority of black Americans suffer from linguistic schizophrenia—of a unique sort. The diglossia² problem of the lower-class black is unusual because he does not speak a colloquial or "incorrect" form of standard English. Instead, he speaks a dialect³ that has a strikingly different grammar and sound system, even though to white ears the black appears to be trying to speak Standard English. Anyone who speaks Black English⁴ is likely to find himself stigmatized as a user of an inferior kind of Standard English, whereas actually he is speaking a radically different dialect that is as consistent and elegant as whites consider their Standard English to be.
绝大多数美国黑人都在某种程度上饱受着一种独特的“语言精神分裂”之苦，而很少有美国白人意识到这一点。下层黑人的双语²问题非同一般，因为他们说的并非某种口语化的或“不正确的”标准英语，而是一种在语法和语音系统上都截然不同的方言³，尽管在白人听来，黑人似乎是在努力说标准英语。任何说“黑人英语⁴”的人都很可能被贴上标签，被认为是使用了某种低劣的标准英语，而实际上他所说的却是一种与标准英语迥然不同的方言，这种方言的内在逻辑性和优雅程度，并不亚于白人眼中的标准英语。
The whole subject of Black English is so tied up with both racism and good intention that it rarely is discussed calmly, even by specialists in the field. At one extreme is the racist, conscious or unconscious, who attributes black speech to some physical characteristic like thick lips or a large tongue; he is certain that it is inferior speech and that it must be eradicated. At the other extreme is the well-intentioned liberal who denies that he detects much of a departure from white speech; he regards Black English as simply a southern United States dialect, and he is likely to attribute any departure from white speech to the black's educational deprivation. Both views are wrong. Black English's radical departure from Standard English has nothing to do with the anatomy of race or with educational deprivation. The history of the English spoken by New World blacks⁵ shows that it has been different from the very beginning, and that it is more different the farther back in time one goes. Of course, some blacks speak exactly like whites, but these cases are both recent and exceptional; the overwhelming majority speak Black English some or all of the time.
“黑人英语”这个话题总是与种族歧视和良好意愿交织在一起，以至于人们很少能平心静气地讨论它，即使是该领域的专家也是如此。一种极端的观点来自种族主义者，无论他们是否意识到这一点，他们将黑人的口音归因于某些身体特征，如厚嘴唇或大舌头；他们确信这是一种低劣的语言，必须予以根除。另一种极端的观点则来自那些善意的自由主义者，他们否认自己能察觉到黑人英语与白人英语有多大差别；他们认为黑人英语仅仅是美国南部的一种方言，并倾向于将任何与白人英语的差异归咎于黑人所受教育的匮乏。这两种观点都是错误的。黑人英语与标准英语的巨大差异与种族生理结构或教育匮乏无关。新大陆黑人⁵所使用的英语的历史表明，它从一开始就与众不同，而且越往前回溯，差异就越大。当然，有些黑人说的英语和白人完全一样，但这些情况既是近期的，也是个例；绝大多数黑人在部分或所有时间里都说黑人英语。
By "Black English" I do not mean the spirited vocabulary⁶ whose adoption by some whites gives them the mistaken impression that they are talking real soul to their black brothers'. These rich and metaphoric words are much less important than grammar for a description of Black English. They originated by the same processes that gave rise to the slang, jargon, and argot words⁸ of Standard English, and, like the Standard words, they have seeped out to become part of the general vocabulary. Many words that were once the exclusive property of speakers of Black English—groovy, square, jive, rap, cool, chick, dig, rip off, and so on—are now commonly used by speakers of white Standard English. I do not refer to the superficial vocabulary, which changes from year to year, but to its largely different history, sound system, and basic structure.
我所说的“黑人英语”并非指那些被一些白人采用的、充满活力的词汇⁶，这些词汇让白人误以为自己在与黑人兄弟进行真正的灵魂交流⁷。对于描述黑人英语来说，这些丰富且富有隐喻色彩的词汇远没有语法重要。它们产生的过程与标准英语中俚语、行话和黑话⁸的产生过程相同，并且像标准英语词汇一样，它们已经逐渐渗透到日常词汇中。许多曾经是黑人英语使用者专有财产的词汇——例如groovy（时髦的）、square（呆板的）、jive（摇摆舞）、rap（说唱）、cool（酷）、chick（小妞）、dig（理解）、rip off（欺诈）等等——现在也常被说标准英语的白人使用。我所指的不是那些每年都在变化的表层词汇，而是黑人英语在很大程度上与众不同的历史、语音系统和基本结构。
What we hear today as Black English is probably the result of five major influences: African languages⁹; West African pidgin¹°; a Plantation Creole" once spoken by slaves in the southern United States as well as by blacks as far north as Canada; Standard English; and, finally, urbanization in the northern ghettoes. The influence of African languages on black speech was long denied, until in 1949 Lorenzo Dow Turner'² published the results of his fifteen-year study of Gullah¹³, a black dialect spoken in the coastal region around Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia. Gullah is important in the history of Black English because this region continued to receive slaves direct from Africa as late as 1858—and so any influence from Africa would be expected to survive there longer. Turner accumulated compelling evidence of resemblances in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar between Gullah and various Western African languages. He listed some 4,000 Gullah words for personal names, numbers, and objects that are derived directly from African languages. Some of these words—such as tote, chigger, yam, and tater ("potato") —eventually entered Standard English.
我们今天听到的黑人英语可能是五种主要因素共同作用的结果：非洲语言⁹；西非洋泾浜语¹⁰；一种种植园克里奥尔语¹¹，这种语言曾经在美国南部的奴隶以及远至加拿大北部的黑人中使用；标准英语；最后是北方贫民窟的城市化进程。长期以来，人们一直否认非洲语言对黑人语言的影响，直到1949 年，洛伦佐·道·特纳¹²发表了他对“古拉语¹³”长达15 年的研究成果，古拉语是一种黑人方言，在南卡罗来纳州查尔斯顿和佐治亚州萨凡纳周围的沿海地区使用。古拉语在黑人英语的历史中占有重要地位，因为这个地区直到1858 年还一直在接收直接来自非洲的奴隶——因此，任何来自非洲的影响都更有可能在那里留存更长时间。特纳收集了大量令人信服的证据，证明了古拉语与各种西非语言在发音、词汇和语法上的相似之处。他列出了大约4000 个直接源自非洲语言的古拉语单词，包括人名、数字和物品名称。其中一些词——例如tote（搬运）、chigger（恙螨）、yam（山药）和tater（“马铃薯”）——最终进入了标准英语。
The second influence, pidginization, is more apparent because the languages spoken today by the descendants of slaves almost everywhere in the New World—regardless of whether these languages were based on English, French, Dutch, Spanish, or Portuguese —share similarities in sound patterns and in grammar. For example, the common Black English construction He done close the door has no direct equivalent in Standard English, but it is similar to structures found in Portuguese Pidgin, Weskos of West Africa, French Creole of Haiti, the Shanan Creole of Surinam, and so on. An analysis of the speech of slaves—as recorded in eighteenth-century letters, histories, and books of travel— indicates that the great majority of them in the continental United States spoke pidgin English, as much in the North as in the South. This was to be expected since blacks speaking many languages were thrown together in the West African slave factories and they had to develop some means of communication. No matter what their mother tongues were, they had been forced to learn a second language, an African Pidgin English that at least as early as 1719 had been spread around the world by the slave trade. We can be certain of that year because it marked the publication of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe¹⁴, which contains numerous examples of this pidgin and also uses, in the character Friday, the West African and slave tradition of bestowing personal names based on the days of the week.
第二个影响因素是洋泾浜化，这一点更加显而易见，因为如今新大陆几乎所有奴隶后裔所说的语言——无论这些语言是基于英语、法语、荷兰语、西班牙语还是葡萄牙语——在语音模式和语法上都有相似之处。例如，黑人英语中常见的结构“He done close the door”在标准英语中没有直接对应的表达，但它与葡萄牙洋泾浜语、西非的Weskos 语、海地的法语克里奥尔语、苏里南的Shanan 克里奥尔语等语言中的结构相似。对18 世纪的信件、历史和游记中记载的奴隶语言的分析表明，美国本土的绝大多数奴隶都说洋泾浜英语，无论是在北方还是南方。这是意料之中的，因为在西非的奴隶工厂里，说着各种不同语言的黑人被聚集在一起，他们必须发展出某种交流方式。无论他们的母语是什么，他们都被迫学习第二语言，即一种非洲的洋泾浜英语，这种语言至少在1719 年就已经随着奴隶贸易传播到世界各地。我们可以确定这个年份，因为那一年出版了丹尼尔·笛福的《鲁滨逊漂流记》¹⁴，书中包含了大量这种洋泾浜语的例子，并且在“星期五”这个角色身上也体现了西非和奴隶传统中根据星期几来命名的方式。
Therefore most slaves must have arrived in the New World speaking a pidgin that enabled them to communicate with each other and eventually also with overseers. In the succeeding generations a small number of blacks were taught Standard English. But the great majority apparently expanded their pidgin into a Creole language —called Plantation Creole by some linguists even though it was also spoken in the North—by grafting an English vocabulary onto the structures of their native languages and pidgins.
因此，大多数奴隶到达新大陆时一定说着一种洋泾浜语，这种语言使他们能够相互交流，并最终与监工交流。在随后的几代人中，少数黑人被教授了标准英语，但绝大多数黑人显然将他们的洋泾浜语发展成了一种克里奥尔语——一些语言学家称之为“种植园克里奥尔语”，尽管这种语言在北方也有人使用——他们将英语词汇嫁接到他们母语和洋泾浜语的结构之上。
The wonder is that it took people so long to realize that Black English is neither a mispronunciation of Standard English nor an accumulation of random errors made in the grammar of Standard English. Utterances in Black English are grammatically consistent and they are generated by rules in the same way that utterances in Standard English are generated by rules. People may not regard utterances in Black English to be “good English”—but that is beside the point, because Black English is using a different set of rules than those of Standard English.
令人惊奇的是，人们花了这么长时间才意识到，黑人英语既不是对标准英语的错误发音，也不是标准英语语法中随机错误的累积。黑人英语中的语句在语法上是一致的，它们是由规则生成的，就像标准英语中的语句是由规则生成的一样。人们可能认为黑人英语中的语句不是“好的英语”——但这无关紧要，因为黑人英语使用的是一套与标准英语不同的规则。
Summary
English Summary:
The text discusses the nature and origins of Black English, arguing that it is a distinct dialect with its own grammatical structure and sound system, rather than an incorrect form of Standard English. It traces the historical development of Black English, highlighting the influences of African languages, West African pidgin, Plantation Creole, Standard English, and urbanization. The author refutes the misconceptions that Black English is a result of physical characteristics or educational deprivation, emphasizing its consistent and rule-governed nature.
中文概括:
本文探讨了“黑人英语”的性质和起源，认为它是一种具有独特语法结构和语音系统的独立方言，而不是标准英语的一种错误形式。文章追溯了“黑人英语”的历史发展，强调了非洲语言、西非皮钦语、种植园克里奥尔语、标准英语和城市化的影响。作者驳斥了“黑人英语”是由于生理特征或教育匮乏造成的错误观念，强调了它的一致性和规则性。
Analysis
Sentence: "Very few white Americans are aware of the extent to which the great majority of black Americans suffer from linguistic schizophrenia—of a unique sort."
Explanation:
- 难点: 这句话使用了 “linguistic schizophrenia（语言精神分裂症）” 这一隐喻表达，并且使用了 “of a unique sort” 进行修饰，增加了理解难度。
- 解析: “linguistic schizophrenia” 并非指医学上的精神分裂症，而是比喻黑人在使用“黑人英语”和标准英语之间切换时所面临的困境和身份认同问题。作者用 “schizophrenia” 来强调这种语言使用的分裂状态，即黑人需要掌握两种截然不同的语言体系。“of a unique sort” 进一步强调了这种“语言精神分裂症”的独特性，与一般意义上的双语现象有所区别，暗示了其背后复杂的社会和历史因素。整句话的意思是：很少有美国白人意识到大多数美国黑人遭受着一种独特的“语言精神分裂症”的痛苦。
Sentence: "The diglossia² problem of the lower-class black is unusual because he does not speak a colloquial or "incorrect" form of standard English."
Explanation:
- 难点: "diglossia" 是一个专业术语，并且句中使用了 "colloquial" 和 "incorrect" 两个形容词来描述标准英语的一种形式，增加了理解的复杂性。
- 解析: "diglossia" 指的是在一个社会中，两种语言或同一种语言的两种变体，有明确的功能上的分工。一种是“高层次变体”(high variety)，用于正式场合，如宗教、教育、文学等；另一种是“低层次变体”(low variety)，用于日常口语交流。这里作者指出，下层黑人的双言现象（diglossia）是不同寻常的，因为他们说的并不是标准英语的一种口语化或“不正确”的形式。这句话的重点在于否定人们对“黑人英语”的常见误解，即认为它只是标准英语的一种“不规范”的变体。
Sentence: "Anyone who speaks Black English⁴is likely to find himself stigmatized as a user of an inferior kind of Standard English, whereas actually he is speaking a radically different dialect that is as consistent and elegant as whites consider their Standard English to be."
Explanation:
- 难点: 句子结构复杂，使用了 "stigmatized as" 和 "whereas" 引导的对比，以及 "as...as" 结构进行比较，同时涉及了社会对“黑人英语”的偏见。
- 解析: "stigmatized as" 意思是“被污名化为”，这里指说“黑人英语”的人容易被社会贴上负面标签，认为他们使用的是一种低劣的标准英语。 "whereas" 引出转折，指出事实并非如此，他们实际上说的是一种完全不同的方言。"radically different" 强调了“黑人英语”与标准英语的本质区别。"as consistent and elegant as" 结构将“黑人英语”和标准英语进行比较，指出“黑人英语”在语法上同样具有一致性和优美性，就像白人认为他们的标准英语一样。整句话强调了社会对“黑人英语”的偏见和误解，并为“黑人英语”的正当性辩护。
Sentence: "The whole subject of Black English is so tied up with both racism and good intention that it rarely is discussed calmly, even by specialists in the field."
Explanation:
- 难点: "tied up with" 是一个习语，表示“与...密切相关”或“被...所困扰”。句子表达了关于“黑人英语”的讨论往往受到复杂因素的影响，难以保持客观和冷静。
- 解析: "tied up with" 在这里表示“黑人英语”这个话题与种族主义和良好意图交织在一起，难以分割。这意味着对“黑人英语”的讨论往往受到种族主义偏见或出于好意的误解的影响，即使是该领域的专家也很难冷静地讨论这个问题。这反映了“黑人英语”话题的敏感性和复杂性，以及它所引发的社会争议。
Sentence: "At one extreme is the racist, conscious or unconscious, who attributes black speech to some physical characteristic like thick lips or a large tongue; he is certain that it is inferior speech and that it must be eradicated."
Explanation:
- 难点: 句子使用了倒装结构 "At one extreme is the racist"，并且 "conscious or unconscious" 对 "racist" 进行了补充说明，同时涉及了种族主义者对“黑人英语”的错误认知。
- 解析: "At one extreme" 指的是一种极端的观点，"the racist, conscious or unconscious" 指的是持有这种观点的种族主义者，无论他们是否意识到自己的种族主义倾向。"attributes...to" 意思是“将...归因于”，这里指种族主义者将“黑人英语”的特点归因于黑人的一些生理特征，例如厚嘴唇或大舌头。这种观点是完全错误的，并且带有明显的种族歧视色彩。"he is certain that it is inferior speech and that it must be eradicated" 进一步说明了种族主义者的态度，他们认为“黑人英语”是劣等的语言，必须被根除。
Sentence: "The influence of African languages on black speech was long denied, until in 1949 Lorenzo Dow Turner'²published the results of his fifteen-year study of Gullah¹³, a black dialect spoken in the coastal region around Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia."
Explanation:
- 难点: 句子较长，包含一个时间状语从句 "until in 1949..."，并且介绍了 Lorenzo Dow Turner 及其对 Gullah 的研究，信息量较大。
- 解析: 这句话讲述了“黑人英语”研究中的一个重要转折点。长期以来，非洲语言对“黑人英语”的影响一直被否认。直到1949 年，Lorenzo Dow Turner 发表了他对 Gullah 长达15 年的研究成果。Gullah 是一种在南卡罗来纳州查尔斯顿和佐治亚州萨凡纳周围沿海地区使用的黑人方言。Turner 的研究为非洲语言对“黑人英语”的影响提供了有力的证据，改变了人们对“黑人英语”起源的认识。