方言会随着老人消失吗

上个星期我回老家，给外婆过八十岁生日。她拉着我的手说了十分钟，我只听懂了一半，最后还是你在旁边给我翻译。阿珍，我小时候明明会说方言的，怎么现在连听都听不全了？

Last week I went back to our hometown for Grandma's eightieth birthday. She held my hand and talked for ten minutes, and I only understood half of it. In the end it was you next to me translating. Ah-zhen, I clearly spoke the dialect as a kid. How is it I can't even follow it anymore?

因为你十二岁就去省城上学了，后来又去上海工作。你在城里听的、说的，都是标准的普通话，身边没有一个人跟你说方言，它就一点一点退了。我一直住在老家，天天听，天天说，所以我还流利。这不是谁聪明谁笨的问题，是环境的问题。

Because you left for school in the provincial capital at twelve, and then went to Shanghai for work. Everything you heard and spoke in the city was standard Mandarin. Nobody around you spoke the dialect, so it faded bit by bit. I've lived in the hometown the whole time, hearing it and speaking it every day, so I'm still fluent. It's not a question of who's smart and who's slow. It's the environment.

说实话，那天我心里挺难受的。外婆讲了一个笑话，全桌人都笑了，只有我在等翻译。我普通话说得再流利，也听不懂自己外婆的笑话，你说这算什么事？

Honestly, I felt terrible that day. Grandma told a joke and the whole table laughed, and I was the only one waiting for a translation. My Mandarin can be as fluent as you like, and I still can't understand my own grandmother's joke. What do you even call that?

方言里的笑话是翻译不过去的，那个味道就在那几个音里。你用标准的普通话再讲一遍，意思一个字都不差，可是笑点没有了。你等翻译的时候，笑话已经凉了。

Jokes in dialect don't survive translation. The flavor lives in those few sounds. Retell it in standard Mandarin and the meaning is exact to the word, but the funny part is gone. By the time you've waited for the translation, the joke has gone cold.

可是阿珍，你别怪我。我在上海，上班、看医生、送孩子上学，全靠普通话。我要是只会方言，我一天都过不下去。普通话给了我一条出去的路，这也是真的吧？

But Ah-zhen, don't blame me. In Shanghai, work, seeing the doctor, taking the kid to school, it all runs on Mandarin. If all I had was the dialect, I couldn't get through a single day. Mandarin gave me a road out. That's true too, isn't it?

我没有怪你。我女儿也一样，我跟她说方言，她用普通话回答我，而且她的普通话说得比我流利。学校要求说标准的普通话，我理解，孩子将来要去更大的地方。可是我心里也清楚，我们家可能就是最后一代会说方言的人了。

I don't blame you. My daughter is the same. I speak dialect to her and she answers me in Mandarin, and her Mandarin is more fluent than mine. School requires standard Mandarin, and I get it, the kids are headed for bigger places. But I also know perfectly well that our family may be the last generation that speaks the dialect.

你真的这么想吗？镇上的老人不是都还在说吗？我在菜市场里听见的全是方言啊。

Do you really think that? Aren't all the old people in town still speaking it? Everything I heard at the market was dialect.

老人在说，可是孩子不用它回答，这才是关键。一种话不是在老人死的那天消失的，是从孩子不肯用它回答的那天开始消失的。老人只是让它多活几年。

The old people are speaking it, but the children don't answer in it, and that's the crux. A language doesn't disappear on the day the old people die. It starts disappearing on the day the children stop answering in it. The old people just keep it alive a few more years.

这句话有点吓人。那我问你，一种只有老人还在说的方言，算是已经死了，还是只是在休息？

That's a bit chilling. Then let me ask you, a dialect only the old still speak, is it already dead, or just resting?

我也问过自己。这几年有人在网上录我们的方言，老故事、儿歌、连吵架的话都录下来了。可是录音就像照片。照片里的人不会跟你吵架，也不会给你的菜提意见。一种话，要有人用它过日子，才算活着。

I've asked myself the same thing. These past few years people have been recording our dialect online, the old stories, the children's songs, even the words for a quarrel. But a recording is like a photograph. The person in a photo won't argue with you, and won't have opinions about your cooking. A language only counts as alive while someone is living their life in it.

有照片总比什么都没有强吧？将来要是有孩子想学，至少还有东西可以学。历史上也有文字消失了几百年，后来又被人重新读出来的。

Still, a photograph beats having nothing, doesn't it? If some child wants to learn it someday, at least there's something left to learn from. History has scripts that disappeared for centuries and were read again later.

有可能。所以我不说它死了，我说它在等。可是等的时间越长，能回来的就越少。别光问我，你自己呢？你打算把它捡回来，还是就这样算了？

Possibly. That's why I don't say it's dead, I say it's waiting. But the longer it waits, the less of it can come back. And don't just ask me. What about you? Are you going to pick it back up, or let it go?

我不想就这样算了。说，可能是说不回来了，可是我想把耳朵找回来。以后每个星期你给我打一次电话，只说方言，不说普通话，行吗？我听不懂的地方你再给我解释。

I don't want to just let it go. Speaking it, maybe that's not coming back. But I want my ear back. From now on, call me once a week and speak only dialect, no Mandarin, okay? Whatever I don't catch, you explain after.

行。外婆知道了一定高兴。她上次还问我，晓琳是不是觉得我们的话太土。我告诉她，不是觉得土，是丢了。丢了的东西，可以去找。

Deal. Grandma will be so pleased when she hears. Last time she even asked me whether you thought our speech was too country. I told her, she doesn't think it's country, she lost it. And a thing that's lost can be looked for.