2016年5月10日功課（5-9日回家休息未作）

THE PHOENICIANS

腓尼基人

THE PHOENICIANS WHO GAVE US OUR ALPHABET

腓尼基人給我們帶來了字母表。

THE Phoenicians, who were the neighbours of the Jews, were a Semitic tribe which at a very early age had settled along the shores of the Mediterranean. They had built themselves two well-fortified towns, Tyre and Sidon, and within a short time they had gained a monopoly of the trade of the western seas. Their ships went regularly to Greece and Italy and Spain and they even ventured beyond the straits of Gibraltar to visit the Scilly islands where they could buy tin. Wherever they went, they built themselves small trading stations, which they called colonies. Many of these were the origin of modern cities, such as Cadiz and Marseilles.

腓尼基人是很早就定居在地中海沿岸的一個閃族部落，他們是猶太人的鄰居。他們自己建立了兩個固若金湯的城鎮(zhèn)，蒂爾(施澤注：黎巴嫩西南部港市，曾為古代腓尼基國海港提爾)和西頓(施澤注：黎巴嫩西南部港市 [亦稱作 Saida]），在很短的時間里他們就取得了西部海域的貿(mào)易壟斷。他們的船只固定往返于希臘、意大利和西班牙，不過他們甚至越過直布羅陀海峽到達(dá)錫利群島，在那里他們可以買到錫。他們無論走到哪里，都要建立小的貿(mào)易基地，他們稱其為殖民地。那些殖民地許多都成了現(xiàn)代城市的起源，比如加的斯（施澤注：加的斯位于西班牙南部,瀕臨大西洋,是一座有三千年歷史的古城）和馬賽（施澤注：法國港口城市）。

They bought and sold whatever promised to bring them a good profit. They were not troubled by a conscience. If we are to believe all their neighbours they did not know what the words honesty or integrity meant. They regarded a well-filled treasure chest the highest ideal of all good citizens. Indeed they were very unpleasant people and did not have a single friend. Nevertheless they have rendered all coming generations one service of the greatest possible value. They gave us our alphabet.

他們買賣一切能給自己帶來可觀利潤的東西。他們不受良心的約束。如果我們選擇相信他們所有的鄰居，腓尼基人不知道誠信與正值是什么意思。他們認(rèn)為一個裝滿珍寶的藏寶箱就是所有美好市民的最高典范。事實上他們是沒有快樂的一群人，一個朋友都沒有。但是，他們卻給所有后世子孫回饋了一個價值巨大的創(chuàng)造，腓尼基人發(fā)明了字母表。

2016年5月11日功課

The Phoenicians had been familiar with the art of writing, invented by the Sumerians. But they regarded these pothooks as a clumsy waste of time. They were practical business men and could not spend hours engraving two or three letters. They set to work and invented a new system of writing which was greatly superior to the old one. They borrowed a few pictures from the Egyptians and they simplified a number of the wedge-shaped figures of the Sumerians. They sacrificed the pretty looks of the older system for the advantage of speed and they reduced the thousands of different images to a short and handy alphabet of twenty-two letters.

腓尼基人對于蘇美爾發(fā)明的書寫技藝很是熟悉。但是在他們看來那種胡寫亂花就是浪費(fèi)時間。他們是講究使用的商人，怎會花費(fèi)幾個小時去刻兩三個字母。于是他們著手改進(jìn)，發(fā)明了一種新的比就得書寫方法更好用的書寫體系。他們從埃及人哪里借用了一些圖形，并把蘇美爾人的一些楔形圖片做了簡化。因為優(yōu)先考慮書寫速度，他們犧牲了就方法的美觀性。他們把成千上萬幅不同的圖畫簡化成一個由22個字符組成的短小易用的字母表。

In due course of time, this alphabet travelled across the Aegean Sea and entered Greece.The Greeks added a few letters of their own and carried the improved system to Italy.The Romans modified the figures somewhat and in turn taught them to the wild barbarians of western Europe.Those wild barbarians were our own ancestors, and that is the reason why this book is written in characters that are of Phoenician origin and not in the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians or in the nail-script of the Sumerians.

隨著時間的推移，這套字符表經(jīng)由愛琴海傳入了希臘。希臘人加入了少數(shù)幾個他們自己的字符，然后將這套改良后的字符體系帶到了意大利。羅馬人把字符進(jìn)行了稍微的修改，接著將其教給了西歐的野蠻人。那些野蠻人就是我們的祖先，這也就是為什么這本書用腓尼基人發(fā)明的字符寫成而不是用埃及人的象形文字或用蘇美爾人的楔形文字。