时间:2019-02-21 作者:英语课 分类:美国学生人类历史


英语课

   Nevertheless they have rendered all coming generations one service of the greatest possible value. They gave us our alphabet.


  不过,他们给后人留下了一笔极有价值的遗产-一他们创造了字母。
  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 1 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.
  腓尼基人当然熟悉苏美尔人发明的楔形文字,不过他们觉得这些歪斜的笔划既笨拙又浪费时间。他们是凡事讲求实际的商人,不肯把大量的时间花在雕刻这些繁琐的字母上。于是他们投入工作,发明了一种大大优于楔形文字的新文字体系。他们从埃及的象形文字中借来几个图案,并简化了数个苏美尔人的楔形文字,以牺牲旧有文字的优美外形为代价,追求书写的速度和效率,终于,他们将数千个不同的文字图案简化成短小而方便的22个字母。
  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 2 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 3 of the Egyptians or in the nail-script of the Sumerians.
  后来,这些字母越过爱琴海传入希腊。希腊人为其增添了几个自己创造的字母,并将改进的字母系统带到意大利。罗马人对字母的外形稍加修改,又将它们教给西欧的野蛮部落。这些野蛮人即我们的祖先。这也是本书以起源于腓尼基人的字母文字而非以埃及象形文字或苏美尔人的楔形文字来写作的原因。

n.版画;雕刻(作品);雕刻艺术;镌版术v.在(硬物)上雕刻(字,画等)( engrave的现在分词 );将某事物深深印在(记忆或头脑中)
  • He collected an old engraving of London Bridge. 他收藏了一张古老的伦敦桥版画。 来自辞典例句
  • Some writing has the precision of a steel engraving. 有的字体严谨如同钢刻。 来自辞典例句
n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 );外国人;粗野的人;无教养的人
  • The ancient city of Rome fell under the iron hooves of the barbarians. 古罗马城在蛮族的铁蹄下沦陷了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • It conquered its conquerors, the barbarians. 它战胜了征服者——蛮族。 来自英汉非文学 - 历史
n.pl.象形文字
  • Hieroglyphics are carved into the walls of the temple. 寺庙的墙壁上刻着象形文字。
  • His writing is so bad it just looks like hieroglyphics to me. 他写的糟透了,对我来说就像天书一样。
标签: 美国学生 历史
学英语单词
account payables
acquired immune deficiency syndromes
adaptive line enhancer
amatea
aneidess
as slick as a whistle
assets revaluation law
Bac Son
balling-iron
bartle freres
base camps
be soaked through
biotite polzenite
boat neck,boat neckline
capital of Swaziland
caprea
cash contract
certificate for cargo gear
Cheremnykhite
church organs
closeout
codon
common polypodies
continuous current electromotor
coralla
dead end clamp
decimate
deterministic case
Dischidia
dodaro
double engine plane
egg-flip
el aabde (el abde)
electron-coupled oscillator
flabellospora irregularis
floating-point indicator
flow-measurement integration
fluorocarbon film
formal calculus
genus Cola
gun-shier
haertel
heading blasting
homilete
hour counter additional intermediate wheel
inner arm
inrolls
interactive graphic
interval contacts
ion strength
ion well
Jamaica sorrel
jobclubs
kid around
lapping switch
lattanzi
Lerrain
lithium dichromate
logged onto
makeup valve
meristem culture
most-favo(u)red reinsurance clause
Mungindi
muscle of incisure of helix
nanoscales
non-propelled craft
ODINSUP
omening
optical mixing phase conjugation
outside butt strap
pervibrator
pilow
pinyin
plane of living
proactive aggression
pustule
quadrature phase subcarrier signal
quasi-proprietary
reacting weight
report of disclaimer of opinion
resident unit
restriction of import
retrosternal
ski club
skyrise
snub
Somasian
sonali
spectrophysics
technical code
Telecom Tower
test-drove
tie-back stub liner
tonic accent
tvga
two-way mixed tricot
ureosmotic animal
Vila Seca
wall paper music
Y network
ye'se