A Professor of Phonetics.
一个语音学教授。

As will be seen later on, Pygmalion needs, not a preface, but a sequel, which I have supplied in its due place. —
正如后面会看到的，培根《变形记》并不需要前言，而是需要一部续集，我已经在适当的位置补充了这部续集。 —

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. —
英国人不尊重他们的语言，也不愿意教会他们的孩子如何说英语。 —

They spell it so abominably that no man can teach himself what it sounds like. —
他们拼写得太糟糕了，以至于没有人能够自学出它的发音。 —

It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him. —
英国人不可能开口让其他英国人不讨厌或鄙视他。 —

German and Spanish are accessible to foreigners: English is not accessible even to Englishmen. —
德语和西班牙语对外国人来说是容易掌握的：即使对英国人来说，英语也是不易掌握的。 —

The reformer England needs today is an energetic phonetic enthusiast: —
今天英国需要的是一位充满活力的语音爱好者改革家： —

that is why I have made such a one the hero of a popular play. —
这就是为什么我把这样的人设为一部受欢迎的剧中主角的原因。 —

There have been heroes of that kind crying in the wilderness for many years past. —
多年来一直有这样的英雄在荒原中呼喊。 —

When I became interested in the subject towards the end of the eighteen-seventies, Melville Bell was dead; —
当我在十八世纪七十年代末对这个主题产生兴趣时，梅尔维尔·贝尔已经去世了。 —

but Alexander J. Ellis was still a living patriarch, with an impressive head always covered by a velvet skull cap, for which he would apologize to public meetings in a very courtly manner. —
但是亚历山大·J·埃利斯仍然是一个活着的族长，总是戴着一顶华丽的天鹅绒骷髅帽，他会以非常彬彬有礼的方式向公众会议表达歉意。 —

He and Tito Pagliardini, another phonetic veteran, were men whom it was impossible to dislike. —
他和另一位语音学老兵蒂托·帕利亚迪尼是不可能讨厌的人。 —

Henry Sweet, then a young man, lacked their sweetness of character: —
当时还年轻的亨利·斯威特缺乏他们的人格魅力：他对于那些传统凡人来说几乎不可调和，就像易卜生或塞缪尔·巴特勒一样。 —

he was about as conciliatory to conventional mortals as Ibsen or Samuel Butler. —
作为一个语音学家，他的出色能力（我认为他在他的工作上是最好的）本应获得高级官方认可，并可能使他的学科更受欢迎，但由于他对所有学术权威和普遍认为希腊语比语音学重要的人的魔鬼般的轻蔑，他未能实现这一目标。 —

His great ability as a phonetician (he was, I think, the best of them all at his job) would have entitled him to high official recognition, and perhaps enabled him to popularize his subject, but for his Satanic contempt for all academic dignitaries and persons in general who thought more of Greek than of phonetics. —
作为一个语音学家，他的出色能力（我认为他在他的工作上是最好的）本应获得高级官方认可，并可能使他的学科更受欢迎，但由于他对所有学术权威和普遍认为希腊语比语音学重要的人的魔鬼般的轻蔑，他未能实现这一目标。 —

Once, in the days when the Imperial Institute rose in South Kensington, and Joseph Chamberlain was booming the Empire, I induced the editor of a leading monthly review to commission an article from Sweet on the imperial importance of his subject. —
曾经，在帝国学院崛起于南肯辛顿的日子里，乔瑟夫·张伯伦正在宣扬帝国的重要性，我说服了一家知名月刊的编辑委托 Sweet 写一篇关于他研究领域在帝国中的重要性的文章。 —

When it arrived, it contained nothing but a savagely derisive attack on a professor of language and literature whose chair Sweet regarded as proper to a phonetic expert only. —
当文章送到时，里面除了对一个语言和文学教授的恶毒讽刺攻击外，什么也没有。 —

The article, being libelous, had to be returned as impossible; —
由于文章构成诽谤，不得不将其退回，认定不可能发表； —

and I had to renounce my dream of dragging its author into the limelight. —
我不得不放弃把他带上聚光灯下的梦想。 —

When I met him afterwards, for the first time for many years, I found to my astonishment that he, who had been a quite tolerably presentable young man, had actually managed by sheer scorn to alter his personal appearance until he had become a sort of walking repudiation of Oxford and all its traditions. —
后来，多年后我再次与他见面时，惊讶地发现，他这个曾经相当能看的年轻人，实际上通过纯粹的鄙视，使他的个人形象发生了改变，成为一种对牛津及其传统的彻底否定的行走体现。 —

It must have been largely in his own despite that he was squeezed into something called a Readership of phonetics there. —
对于被塞进一个叫做“语音学读者群体”的地方，他肯定大部分是出于自愿的。 —

The future of phonetics rests probably with his pupils, who all swore by him; —
语音学的未来很可能操之在他的学生们手中，他们都对他言听计从。 —

but nothing could bring the man himself into any sort of compliance with the university, to which he nevertheless clung by divine right in an intensely Oxonian way. —
然而，无论如何，他本人与大学从未达成任何形式的和解，但他却以一种强烈的牛津风格紧紧抓住大学不放，可以说是出于他自己的意愿。 —

I daresay his papers, if he has left any, include some satires that may be published without too destructive results fifty years hence. —
我敢说，他的论文如果留下了一些，50年后发布起来可能不会带来太过破坏性的结果，其中可能包括一些讽刺作品。 —

He was, I believe, not in the least an ill-natured man: —
我认为，他一点也不是个恶毒的人：相反，我认为他是非常和善的；但是他不会容忍愚蠢的人。 —

very much the opposite, I should say; but he would not suffer fools gladly.
他曾是个十分不易惹的人，我敢说他是个非常讲理的人。

Those who knew him will recognize in my third act the allusion to the patent Shorthand in which he used to write postcards, and which may be acquired from a four and six-penny manual published by the Clarendon Press. The postcards which Mrs. Higgins describes are such as I have received from Sweet. I would decipher a sound which a cockney would represent by zerr, and a Frenchman by seu, and then write demanding with some heat what on earth it meant. —
认识他的人将会在我的第三幕中辨认出他曾经用来写明信片的专利速记，这种速记可以从克拉伦登出版社出版的四先令六便士的手册中学得。希金斯夫人所描述的明信片就是我从斯威特那里收到的。我会解读出一个伦敦腔会读作zerr的声音，而一个法国人会读作seu，然后愤怒地写信询问到底这是什么意思。 —

Sweet, with boundless contempt for my stupidity, would reply that it not only meant but obviously was the word Result, as no other Word containing that sound, and capable of making sense with the context, existed in any language spoken on earth. —
斯威特对于我的愚蠢充满了鄙视，他会回信不仅解释这个声音意味着什么，而且很明显是“Result”这个词，因为在地球上任何一种语言中，没有其他包含这个声音，并且与上下文有意义的词存在。 —

That less expert mortals should require fuller indications was beyond Sweet’s patience. —
斯威特对于其他不那么专业的人需要更详细的提示已经失去了耐心。 —

Therefore, though the whole point of his “Current Shorthand” is that it can express every sound in the language perfectly, vowels as well as consonants, and that your hand has to make no stroke except the easy and current ones with which you write m, n, and u, l, p, and q, scribbling them at whatever angle comes easiest to you, his unfortunate determination to make this remarkable and quite legible script serve also as a Shorthand reduced it in his own practice to the most inscrutable of cryptograms. —
因此，尽管他的“现行速记法”的整个要点是它可以完美地表达语言中的每个音素，包括元音和辅音，而且你的手只需要写m、n和u、l、p、q这些容易写的字母，以你最容易的角度乱写它们，但他不幸地决定让这种令人称奇且非常易读的字体也用作速记法，结果在他自己的实践中变成了最难以辨认的密文。 —

His true objective was the provision of a full, accurate, legible script for our noble but ill-dressed language; —
他真正的目标是为我们那高贵却着装不佳的语言提供一个全面、准确、易读的字体； —

but he was led past that by his contempt for the popular Pitman system of Shorthand, which he called the Pitfall system. —
但是，他对流行的皮特曼速记法的蔑视却让他超过了这个目标，他称之为陷阱系统。 —

The triumph of Pitman was a triumph of business organization: —
皮特曼的胜利是商业组织的胜利： —

there was a weekly paper to persuade you to learn Pitman: —
每周都有报纸说服你学皮特曼。 —

there were cheap textbooks and exercise books and transcripts of speeches for you to copy, and schools where experienced teachers coached you up to the necessary proficiency. —
有便宜的教材、练习册和演讲的抄录本，还有经验丰富的教师指导你达到必要的熟练程度。 —

Sweet could not organize his market in that fashion. —
Sweet不能以那种方式组织他的市场。 —

He might as well have been the Sybil who tore up the leaves of prophecy that nobody would attend to. The four and six-penny manual, mostly in his lithographed handwriting, that was never vulgarly advertized, may perhaps some day be taken up by a syndicate and pushed upon the public as The Times pushed the Encyclopaedia Britannica; —
他几乎可以被视为撕毁了没有人关注的预言的女神西布勒。这本四先令六便士的手册大部分是他的印刷字迹，从来没有低俗地做广告，或许有一天会被一个辛迪加接手并作为《泰晤士报》推销《大英百科全书》那样推销给公众； —

but until then it will certainly not prevail against Pitman. —
但在此之前，它肯定无法击败皮特曼。 —

I have bought three copies of it during my lifetime; —
在我生命中我买了三本它的副本； —

and I am informed by the publishers that its cloistered existence is still a steady and healthy one. I actually learned the system two several times; —
我从出版商那里得知它仍然过着僻静而健康的生活。我实际上学过这个系统两次； —

and yet the shorthand in which I am writing these lines is Pitman’s. —
然而我用来写这些字的速记是皮特曼的。 —

And the reason is, that my secretary cannot transcribe Sweet, having been perforce taught in the schools of Pitman. —
而原因是，我的秘书不能记录Sweet先生的演讲，因为她只学过Pitman速记学校教授的课程。 —

Therefore, Sweet railed at Pitman as vainly as Thersites railed at Ajax: —
因此，Sweet 先生像Thersites对着Ajax诅咒一样毫无用处地痛骂Pitman速记法。 —

his raillery, however it may have eased his soul, gave no popular vogue to Current Shorthand. —
尽管他的嘲讽可能缓解了他的心灵，但并没有在普通速记法中引起流行风潮。 —

Pygmalion Higgins is not a portrait of Sweet, to whom the adventure of Eliza Doolittle would have been impossible; —
Pygmalion 中的Higgins教授并非Sweet 先生的形象，因为对于Sweet 先生来说，与艾丽莎·杜立德的冒险是不可能的； —

still, as will be seen, there are touches of Sweet in the play. —
不过，正如我们将看到的，该剧中确实有些Sweet 先生的特点。 —

With Higgins’s physique and temperament Sweet might have set the Thames on fire. —
如果Higgins拥有Sweet 先生的体格和性情，他可能会引起轰动。 —

As it was, he impressed himself professionally on Europe to an extent that made his comparative personal obscurity, and the failure of Oxford to do justice to his eminence, a puzzle to foreign specialists in his subject. —
事实上，Sweet先生在欧洲的职业形象给专攻他研究领域的外国专家带来了困惑，因为他自己相对较低的知名度以及牛津大学对他的杰出贡献的认可之不足。 —

I do not blame Oxford, because I think Oxford is quite right in demanding a certain social amenity from its nurslings (heaven knows it is not exorbitant in its requirements! —
我并不责怪牛津大学，因为我认为牛津大学要求其学子具备一定的社交风度是正确的（天知道要求并不高！）。 —

); for although I well know how hard it is for a man of genius with a seriously underrated subject to maintain serene and kindly relations with the men who underrate it, and who keep all the best places for less important subjects which they profess without originality and sometimes without much capacity for them, still, if he overwhelms them with wrath and disdain, he cannot expect them to heap honors on him.
虽然我深知对于一个拥有被严重低估的学科的天才来说，与那些低估它的人保持宁静和友好的关系是多么困难，而且那些人把所有最好的位置留给那些对此毫无原创性和能力的较不重要的学科，但如果他用愤怒和蔑视淹没他们，他不能指望他们会给他带来荣誉。

Of the later generations of phoneticians I know little. —
关于后来的语音学家们我所知甚少。 —

Among them towers the Poet Laureate, to whom perhaps Higgins may owe his Miltonic sympathies, though here again I must disclaim all portraiture. —
其中伫立着桂冠诗人，也许是得益于他，希金斯才拥有《失乐园》式的情怀，虽然在这里我必须再次声明，这并非完全描绘真实。 —

But if the play makes the public aware that there are such people as phoneticians, and that they are among the most important people in England at present, it will serve its turn.
但是如果该剧使公众意识到确实存在这样一些语音学家，并且他们目前是英国最重要的人物之一，那么它就将达到其目的。

I wish to boast that Pygmalion has been an extremely successful play all over Europe and North America as well as at home. —
我想要吹嘘一下，《皮格马利翁》在欧洲和北美以及国内都是一部极为成功的剧作。 —

It is so intensely and deliberately didactic, and its subject is esteemed so dry, that I delight in throwing it at the heads of the wiseacres who repeat the parrot cry that art should never be didactic. —
它如此强烈、有意识地说教，而它的主题又被认为是枯燥的，因此我喜欢将它抛掷给那些重复鹦鹉学舌说艺术不应该说教的聪明人们。 —

It goes to prove my contention that art should never be anything else.
这正证明了我的观点，艺术不应该是其他任何东西。

Finally, and for the encouragement of people troubled with accents that cut them off from all high employment, I may add that the change wrought by Professor Higgins in the flower girl is neither impossible nor uncommon. —
最后，为了鼓励那些因口音而无法从事高级职业的人们，我可以补充说，希金斯教授对花女的改变既不是不可能的，也不是罕见的。 —

The modern concierge’s daughter who fulfils her ambition by playing the Queen of Spain in Ruy Blas at the Theatre Francais is only one of many thousands of men and women who have sloughed off their native dialects and acquired a new tongue. —
在法国现代门房的女儿在法国剧院扮演西班牙女王，这只是成千上万的人中的一个，他们摆脱了本地方言，学会了一种新的语言。 —

But the thing has to be done scientifically, or the last state of the aspirant may be worse than the first. —
但是这件事必须科学地完成，否则求知者的状况可能会比最初更糟糕。 —

An honest and natural slum dialect is more tolerable than the attempt of a phonetically untaught person to imitate the vulgar dialect of the golf club; —
一个诚实自然的贫民窟方言比一个语音未教育的人模仿高尔夫俱乐部的粗俗方言更容忍。 —

and I am sorry to say that in spite of the efforts of our Academy of Dramatic Art, there is still too much sham golfing English on our stage, and too little of the noble English of Forbes Robertson.
很遗憾地说，尽管我们戏剧艺术学院的努力，舞台上仍然有太多虚伪的高尔夫英语，而福布斯·罗伯逊的高贵英语却很少。