Category: Staging Zone

中國人：「行有餘力，則以學文」英譯 If he has any energy to spare from such action, let him devote it to making himself cultivated 的 he、him、himself 是「第三身單數代名詞（third person singular pronoun）」的「主格（nominative ）」、「受格（accusative）」、「與格（dative）」。「雖曰未學，必謂之學」英譯 Grant a man his having received instruction, even though he may say that he has never been taught 的 his 則是「屬格（genitive）」。文法性（gender）一般可分為陽性（masculine）、陰性（feminine）、中性（neuter）；不同於生物性（sex）或雄（male）或雌（female）。

英國人：接中古英語之緒，he、him、his、himself 實不薄巾幗，有類 man 統稱「世人」蓋亦女丈夫有之；陰在陽之內，不在陽之對。

中國人：惟今 he 在 she 之內、man 不在 woman 之外。未學而學，學而未學。唉。

英國人：福勒兄弟（Fowlers）所著《英文正統》（The King’s English (1906)）當其時也，質之不逮文，故倡以 “prefer the Saxon word to the Romance”。美國作家海明威（Ernest Hemingway）的《漁翁釣海》（The Old Man and the Sea），物一無文；英國作家貝洛克（Hilaire Belloc）的《背水尋山》（Hills and the Sea），唯識無境。

中國人：「入乎其內，故能寫之。出乎其外，故能觀之。入乎其內，故有生氣。出乎其外，故有高致 。」

埃及人：符號造形，意由物事。獨體曰文，合體曰字。華語以外，率歸拼音。

中國人：請以「相看兩不厭」的「相看」承言。相者，左木右目，曲直長短，為之匠察良材；看者，上手下目，日頭掁眼，即便掌搭涼篷。

日本人：「是藥三分毒」尚有通理；敝國「今度（こんど）」是「以後、下一次」、「留守（るす）」是「外出、不在家」，則相去霄壤，殊為難解。

中國人：《大學》的「止於至善」、《易經》的「既濟」然後「未濟」，也只可意會，非以言象。

泰國人：凡泰文字母皆以一物命名，熟誦可詳：ก ไก่ ko kai、ข ไข่ kho khai、ฃ ขวด kho khuat、ค ควาย kho khwai、ฅ คน kho khon、ฆ ระฆัง kho rakhang、ง งู ngo ngu、จ จาน cho chan、ฉ ฉิ่ง cho ching、ช ช้าง cho chang、ซ โซ่ so so、ฌ เฌอ cho choe、ญ หญิง yo ying、ฎ ชฎา do chada、ฏ ปฏัก to patak、ฐ ฐาน tho than、ฑ มณโฑ tho montho、ฒ ผู้เฒ่า tho phu thao、ณ เณร no nen、ด เด็ก do dek、ต เต่า to tao、ถ ถุง tho thung、ท ทหาร tho thahan、ธ ธง tho thong、น หนู no nu、บ ใบไม้ bo baimai、ป ปลา po pla、ผ ผึ้ง pho phueng、ฝ ฝา fo fa、พ พาน pho phan、ฟ ฟัน fo fan、ภ สำเภา pho samphao、ม ม้า mo ma、ย ยักษ์ yo yak、ร เรือ ro ruea、ล ลิง lo ling、ว แหวน wo waen、ศ ศาลา so sala、ษ ฤๅษี so ruesi、ส เสือ so suea、ห หีบ ho hip、ฬ จุฬา lo chula、อ อ่าง o ang、ฮ นกฮูก ho nok huk。

中國人：1 – 鉛筆一（壹）；2 – 鴨子二（貳）；3 – 耳仔三（參）；4 – 旗子四（肆）；5 – 魚鈎五（伍）；6 – 煙斗六（陸）；7 – 高腳七（柒）；8 – 葫蘆八（捌）；9 – 蝌蚪九（玖）；10 – 腸蛋十（拾）。然而，「道生一、一生二、二生三、三生萬物」，自然或數由 0 – 〇（零）開始。

中國人：日出而作，朝飯嘗飽，過中不食，日入而息，是上古先民的生活寫照。

英國人：Breakfast (to break one’s fast) 者，一吞一嚥；lunch (= noon + shench) 者，一啖一啜；supper (to sup/soup) 者，一咀一嚼。水穀精微，以固體難消化、流質易吸收。

法國人：Le déjeuner (= dé- +‎ jeûner) 本與 to break fast 同義；不過我輩晏起，又忌空腹食大餐，故襲以早餐為 le petit déjeuner，午餐為 le déjeuner。（注：petit = little）

Linguistics can be summarized in one line:

and the rest is literature.

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In order to listen carefully to whatever tongue someone else is speaking, one must lend an ear first to his mood, comes next to his metre, then to his tone, and lastly to the vowels, followed by the consonants.

Any equivalence relation between human beings, e.g., equality, must be reflexive, symmetric, and transitive. Without even knowing perfectly what somebody else is trying to convey, any Tom, Dick, or Harry can conceive whether the speaker feels happy, angry, glad, or sad. As follow are grammatical moods, for instance, the indicative mood, the imperative mood, the infinitive mood, and the subjunctive mood, as in English.

For anything said, you can count the syllables, tap the beat, hear the rhythm, or imitate the speech. You can make sense of the bites of word, the sets of phrase, and the parts of speech; you may also parse a sentence and analyse the syntax; furthermore, you will differentiate between an agglutinative and an inflectional language.

There are high, middle, and low pitches, as in Thai; stressed and unstressed syllables, as in German; primary or secondary accents, as in Italian; penult or antepenult, as in Latin; the acute, the grave, or the circumflex, as in French; the upper, the lower, the even, and the oblique tones, as in Mandarin; the rise and fall, the sharp or flat, of tunes, for the affirmative, the negative, the interrogative, or the exclamatory tones, as in Russian; and a deep, a loud, a soft, a shrill, or a thick voice, as annotated by diacritics.

All are based on a, e, i, o, u. There are open vowels and close vowels; short or long vowels; front, central, or back vowels; written or spoken vowels; monophthong, diphthong, and triphthong; masculine, feminine, or neuter vowels, as in vowel harmony, etc.

Consonants classified by units are phoneme, allophone, and morpheme; by positions initial, medial, and final; by organs fricatives, nasals, uvular, glottal, labial, alveolar, and velar; and by the flow of air aspirated and unaspirated, i.e., soft and hard.

Only after you have learnt to get your priorities straight (I repeat: first mood, second metre, third tone, fourth vowels, and fifth consonants), then you will manage to attend my every word. That said, you shall have a gift for tongues.

In no time, you will be caught up with such grammatical terms as aspect, tense, voice, mood, case, class, gender, number, agreement, Sandhi, mutation, liaison, etymology, lexicology, orthography, alphabet, script, character, and what not, so much so that you are divided between literature and linguistics, out of which I prefer the former, anyway.

The every essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect.

—Isaac Bashevis Singer

Qua grammarian, his sentiments of art and science in grammar lay to rest the struggle, thanks to i. nomenclature (e.g. synonym, antonym, metonym, and homonym); ii. rhetoric (e.g. diction, euphemism, idioms, phraseology, and proverbs); iii. figures of speech (e.g. alliteration, anastrophe, assonance, ellipsis, inversion, metaphor, and simile); iv. composition (e.g. discourse, narration, orchestration, plot, and style); and v. translation and interpretation (e.g. figurative, free, literal, and verbatim).

阿拉伯人：阿拉伯語字母表，稱做 abjad，由 ا alif、ب bā’、ج jīm 和 د dāl 串成；而拉丁字母表名 alphabet，則由 Α α alpha 和 Β β beta 構成。

英國人：英文的韻母有 a、e、i、o、u 五個；據說阿拉伯語的元音只有 ـَ‎ -a、ـِ‎ -i、ـُ‎ -u 三個，果許？

阿拉伯人：也不盡然。當 ـَ‎ -a 和 ـِ‎ -i 併成 -ai 時，讀音便如 -e；當 ـَ‎ -a 和 ـُ‎ -u 併成 -au 時，讀音就似 -o。

英國人：那還好。

印度人：ये मां रूपेण चाद्राक्षुर्ये मां घोषेण चान्वगुः। (ye māṃ rūpeṇa cādrākṣur ye māṃ ghoṣeṇa cānvaguḥ)

中國人：「諸以色觀我，以音聲尋我」是「ये ye … ये ye …」對偶句。ये ye 是「這些（these）」的意思，有時等於 यह yah 「這（this）」，此處是「無人稱用法（impersonal use）」，引後二句「彼生履邪斷，不能當見我」。玄奘譯作「諸」字，兼含「各眾（each and every）」、「凡是（if and when）」兩義，較與鳩摩羅什譯「若以色見我，以音聲求我，是人行邪道，不能見如來」的一「若」字殊勝。

西藏人：མཛངས་མའི་ཐུགས་དང་བསྟུན་ན།། ཚེ་འདིའི་ཆོས་སྐལ་ཆད་འགྲོ།། དབེན་པའི་རི་ཁྲོད་འགྲིམསན།། བུ་མོའི་ཐུགས་དང་འགལ་འགྲོ།། ༼ཚངས་དབྱངས་རྒྱ་མཚོའི་མགུར་གླུ།༽

中國人：倉央嘉措的這首詩歌，曾緘的譯文最為廣傳。「曾慮多情損梵行，入山又恐別傾城。世間安得雙全法，不負如來不負卿。」譯，不如作也。