Name: 言語って本当にいくつあるの？ (How Many Languages Are There Really?)
Uploaded: 2024-05-28T00:06:14.000Z
Duration: 4 min 34 s

動名詞

If we assume that our brain picks up one new word per day and that there are a thousand languages and each one has ten thousand words, then it would take us ten million years of learning to be able to talk to each and every person in the world. But how many languages and words are there really? And how many would we need to learn to understand everything?

仮に、私たちの脳が1日に1つずつ新しい言葉を覚え、1000の言語があり、それぞれに1万語の単語があると仮定すると、世界中のすべての人と会話ができるようになるには、1000万年の学習期間が必要ということになる。しかし、実際にはどれだけの言語や単語があるのだろうか？そして、すべてを理解するためにはどれだけの数を学ぶ必要があるのだろうか？

未来形

The story of a curious girl, Maya, will help us find out.

好奇心旺盛な少女マヤの物語が、それを見つける手助けをしてくれるだろう。

過去進行形

Maya was sitting in the schoolyard looking at yesterday's paper when a teacher walked by.

マヤが校庭に座って昨日の新聞を見ていると、教師が通りかかった。

The old man asked the young girl what business she had reading the newspaper, to which Maya replied, I'm trying to understand them world. To understand them world? How about learning some English first, her teacher counted. At first, Maya was just upset, but then her frustration turned into motivation and she promised herself that she would be able to she promised herself that she'd master English better than anyone, especially that stupid teacher.

老人は若い娘に、新聞を読んで何の用かと尋ねた。世界を理解するため？まず英語を勉強したらどうですか？最初はただ動揺していたマヤだったが、やがて苛立ちがやる気に変わり、誰よりも、特にあのバカ教師よりも英語をマスターすると心に誓った。

Like most kids age six, Maya understood about 5,000 words, used about 2,500, and held basic conversations. Her brain had picked up more than one word a day since she was born and will continue to do so until late adulthood. From the day she began her quest, it took her another 12 years of casual conversation and deliberate practice to learn the more nuanced aspects of the language like sarcasm and irony. During that time, her receptive vocabulary grew to 20,000 words and she expressed herself with about 10,000. On her 18th birthday, she decided to visit the newly retired teacher to give him a demo of her linguistic skills. When the man opened the door, she told him that she had mastered the English language, but he just smiled, said nothing, and then disappeared into the darkness of his house. Soon after, he returned with the 20 volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary, asking Maya to read them all, adding that only then would she be able to master English. Maya accepted the challenge and started the same night. For the next two decades, she was excited to read up on ideas and meanings behind the 170,000 words that are in current use and studied approximately 430,000 old-fashioned terms.

ほとんどの6歳の子供と同じように、マヤは約5,000語を理解し、約2,500語を使い、基本的な会話をした。彼女の脳は生まれたときから1日に1つ以上の単語を覚えていた。彼女が探求を始めたその日から、皮肉や皮肉といった言葉のニュアンスを学ぶには、何気ない会話や意図的な練習をさらに12年続けた。その間に、彼女の受容語彙は20,000語に増え、10,000語ほどで自己表現するようになった。18歳の誕生日、彼女は退職したばかりの教師を訪ね、自分の語学力を披露することにした。男がドアを開けたとき、彼女は自分が英語をマ

Maya learned a lot of English, a lot about the world in general, and a lot about languages in particular. She discovered the top five spoken languages, which are English, spoken by about 1.5 billion people, followed by Mandarin, 1.3 billion, Spanish, 500 million, Arabic, 400 million, and French, 300 million. Maya found out that many languages are about to die, but that there are still around 6,500 that exist worldwide, and that there are close to 20,000 dialects in India alone.

マヤは英語をたくさん学び、世界一般について多くを学び、特に言語について多くを学んだ。マヤは、世界で話されている言語のトップ5を発見した。それは、約15億人が話す英語、13億人の北京語、5億人のスペイン語、4億人のアラビア語、そして3億人のフランス語である。マヤは、多くの言語が滅びようとしているが、世界にはまだ約6500の言語が存在し、インドだけでも2万近くの方言があることを知った。

She discovered Esperanto, a newly constructed international language that's spoken by about a million people all around the world. She learned that there are all sorts of gestures and facial expressions we use to communicate preferences and feelings, and that there are a staggering 300 types of distinct sign languages, plus hundreds of programming languages and pictographic and symbolic languages. After learning all of that, Maya went back to see the teacher, not to boast about her proficiency, but to thank him and to tell him that understanding the world and everyone in it takes not only English, but truly comprehending thousands of languages and millions of words, an impossible task. But it wasn't an old man that opened the door, but a young four-year-old who, with a friendly smile, simply asked, welcome, how can help you? And Maya, despite all her knowledge, had no idea what to reply. What do you know about languages?

彼女はエスペラント語を発見した。エスペラント語は新しく構築された国際言語で、世界中で約100万人に話されている。彼女は、好みや感情を伝えるために使うあらゆる種類のジェスチャーや表情があること、300種類もの明確な手話があること、さらに何百ものプログラミング言語や絵文字・記号言語があることを学んだ。そのすべてを学んだ後、マヤは先生に会いに戻った。自分の習熟度を自慢するためではなく、先生に感謝し、世界とそこにいるすべての人を理解するには、英語だけでなく、何千もの言語と何百万もの言葉を理解することが必要であり、

 Did you master one or maybe two? And if so, which ones? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. If you like this video and want us to make more, subscribe to our channel or support us on Patreon.

ひとつ、あるいはふたつはマスターした？もしそうなら、どれですか？あなたの考えや経験を下のコメントで共有してください。もしこのビデオが気に入り、もっと作って欲しいと思ったら、チャンネルを登録するか、Patreonで応援してください。