Wikitongues Seeks to Save World’s Dying Languages
維基世界語致力於挽救世界瀕危語言
http://www.51voa.com/VOA_Special_English/wikitongues-seeks-to-save-world-s-dying-languages-81415.html
2019-02-13
1) Experts say there are about 6,500 languages spoken throughout the world. But the United Nations estimates that about half of these languages are in danger of disappearing.
專家說全世界大約有6500種語言，但是聯合國估計約有一半的語言都有滅絕的危險。
2）The U.N. cultural agency, or UNESCO, lists languages it considers endangered on its Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. UNESCO collects information on the languages and then increases efforts meant to prevent them from dying out.
聯合國教科文組織（UNESCO）在其《世界瀕危語言圖集》上列出了它認為瀕危的語言名單。教科文組織收集這些語言的信息，然後下大力氣，旨在防止這些語言滅絕。
3）One non-profit organization seeking to save world languages is a New York-based group called Wikitongues. Officials from Wikitongues say the organization has a simple goal: to provide the tools and support that people need to save their languages.
紐約有一個叫維基世界語的非營利性機構也致力於挽救世界語。維基世界語的工作人員說：我們機構的目的極其簡單，就是給瀕危語言的族人提供工具和支持。
4）Daniel Bogre Udell is the co-founder of Wikitongues. He told VOA that when a language disappears, many other things can go away as well. For example, parts of a community's culture, knowledge and identity can also be lost.
維基世界語的聯合創始人Daniel Bogre Udell跟VOA說：當一種語言消失，好多其他的東西也隨之消失了。比如說，該群體的文化、知識、群體識別性也沒有了。
5）Because of this, Udell believes the process of bringing languages back must be done by community members themselves, "from the ground up," he said.
鑑於此，Daniel Bogre Udell認為：復興這些語言的事情必須由社群內部成員來做，“從源頭上覆興”。
6）”There is no way an outside organization can save someone's language for them.” “外來組織挽救別人自己的語言，這是不可能的。”（我們提供工具和支持）
How it works 維基世界語如何運作？
7）Wikitongues was launched in 2016 as an open internet collection of world languages. The self-described "community" is operated by volunteers from around the world. The collection is in the form of language videos that people add to the Wikitongues website.
維基世界語發起於2016年，是一個開放性的網絡平臺，收集世界各地語言，“社群”（community）由世界各地的志願者來運營，以視頻的形式收集世界各地語言。
8）Wikitongues says that, even with the internet's wide reach, less than 1 percent of all languages are actively represented online.
維基世界語說：即使現如今網絡這麼發達，我們也就收集了不到1%的世界語言資料。
9）There are currently more than 400 languages and dialects represented on Wikitongues' YouTube channel. Some, like English, Farsi and Mandarin, are spoken by hundreds of millions of people.
維基世界語的YouTube網頁上現有400多種各地語言和方言，有一部分是像英語、波斯語和漢語普通話，全世界有數億人在說。
（Farsi [ˈfɑ:si:] 波斯語，屬於印歐語系—伊朗語族—西支，是伊朗和塔吉克斯坦的官方語言 ，也是阿富汗斯坦境內兩種主要語言之一(另一種是普什圖語)。波斯語還分佈於中亞其他地區，波斯語在塔吉克斯坦稱為“塔吉克語”。全世界使用波斯語的人口約有1億。）
10）Others are more uncommon. Bora, for example, is spoken by only a few thousand people in the Amazon regions of Peru and Colombia.
還有一些不太常見，如Bora語是南美洲亞馬遜河流域的秘魯、哥倫比亞的語言，只有幾千人說這種語言。
11）Udell says more than 1,500 people from 70 different countries have added videos to the system. 70多個不同國家1500多人在我們網站上上傳了視頻。
12）”We have people from India who record dozens of languages, which is beyond their own," he said.
其中有印度人錄下了數十種語言，超出了他們的想象。
be beyond sb：(informal) to be impossible for sb to imagine, understand or do
使某人無法想象（或理解、做等）
13）”We have another volunteer from Scotland who is one of the last speakers of a variety of Scottish dialects," Udell added. "He's in the process of reclaiming them, revitalizing, and building a dictionary for them.” 還有一個蘇格蘭的志願者，他是蘇格蘭眾多方言最後一批會說的人之一，他正在想辦法讓這種語言恢復使用、重新煥發活力，還在為這種語言編寫字典。
14）Udell says there are many examples of languages that disappeared but later returned to use. "Hebrew went extinct in the 4th century BC, and was revived in the 1800s. Now once again, it's the mother tongue of half of the world's Jewish population."
維基世界語的聯合創始人Daniel Bogre Udell說：也有很多語言原本消失了，後來又恢復了使用。“希伯來語公元前4世紀的時候就滅絕了，19世紀的時候復興了，現在它是世界上半數猶太人的母語。”
本材料源自51voa.com官方網站，經過本人節選、後期翻譯而成，若有翻譯的不妥當的地方，歡迎指正
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