OWNED BY PARROT01

Now I can’t speak for you,

虽然我不能完全代表你们

but it seems to be the case that we don’t have sex with people we can’t talk to.

但可以这样说，我们不会跟无法交流的人去做爱

Now we have to counter that, though, against the evidence we’ve heard

不过也许现在得算上这种情况，基于已有证据表明

that we might have had some rather distasteful genetic dalliances with the Neanderthals and the Denisovans.

我们曾与尼安德特人和丹尼索夫人有些不甚美好的浪漫史（早期现代人类与尼安德特人及丹尼索夫人杂交的科学发现）

Okay, this tendency we have, this seemingly natural tendency we have,

我们发现的趋势，这种看似自然的趋势

towards isolation, towards keeping to ourselves, crashes head first into our modern world.

即这种趋向分离，趋向自我孤立的势头，一头撞上了现代社会，就被击破

This remarkable image is not a map of the world.

这幅令人影响深刻的图片，并不是世界地图

In fact, it’s a map of Facebook friendship links.

而是Facebook脸谱朋友群分布的一副地图

And when you plot those friendship links by their latitude and longitude, it literally draws a map of the world.

当你把朋友的位置依照他们所在的经纬度连起来，就画出了一副世界地图

Our modern world is communicating with itself and with each other

现代社会在不停地与自身和其他人交流

more than it has at any time in its past.

这种交流比历史上任何时候都频繁

And that communication, that connectivity around the world, that globalization now raises a burden.

这种交流，这种世界性的连接，也就是全球化下正在渐渐浮起的隐忧

Because these different languages impose a barrier, as we’ve just seen,

因为这些不同的语言变成一道屏障

to the transfer of goods and ideas and technologies and wisdom.

阻碍了货物和思想的交流，技术和智慧的交流

And they impose a barrier to cooperation.

在合作上施加了障碍

And nowhere do we see that more clearly than in the European Union,

比起其他地方，这在欧盟尤为显著

whose 27 member countries speak 23 official languages.

欧盟有27个盟国、23种官方语言

The European Union is now spending over one billion euros annually translating among their 23 official languages.

欧盟现在每年要花费超过十亿欧元，用于互翻23种官方语言

That’s something on the order of 1.45 billion U.S. dollars on translation costs alone.

这大约是十四亿五千万美元的翻译开销。

演讲简介：

生物学家马克·佩格尔与我们分享了一个关于人类如何发展复杂的语言系统的有趣理论。他认为，语言是一种社会技术，它帮助人类早期部落获得了一个强有力的新工具：合作。