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Although Tom and I have known each other for 16 months, we still haven't had what you might call a decent chat. I've tried to initiate conversation countless times, but he always seems more interested in playing games, singing songs or hiding. It's good to talk, I tell him, but he doesn't reply. I'm beginning to get frustrated.
尽管我和Tom彼此已经认识了16个月，但是我们至今为止还是没有进行过一次正经八百的交谈。我曾无数次地试图展开一次对话，但是他似乎总是对玩游戏，唱歌，捉迷藏更感兴趣。虽然我告诉他，说话是很棒的事，可是他没理我。我于是开始感到挫败起来。
It's not necessarily Tom's fault. I'm pretty confident he does want to talk to me; he just doesn't know how. He doesn't speak my language. Unfortunately he doesn't speak any other languages either. If he did, I'm sure we'd have found some way to communicate by now, even it was one of those clicking languages from southern Africa. If he was a parrot from southern Africa we'd have made more progress. If he was a dolphin he could do the clicks. But Tom's problem is more fundamental than simply being a different species.
这并不能算是Tom的错。我很肯定他不是不想与我交谈，而是他不知道如何交谈，因为他不会说我的语言。不幸的是，他也不会说其他任何一种语言。如果他会的话，到现在为止，我敢肯定我门已经找到一些方式来交流了，哪怕是用南非的咂舌音。如果他是一只南非的鹦鹉，我们或许已经有所进展了；如果他是一只海豚，他可以发吸气音。然而Tom的问题可比简单地作为另一个物种深入多了！
The thing is, he's a baby. He was born in May last year and he isn't yet physically capable of speech. His modest brain isn't quite up to speed and even if it was, he has very little control of his tiny tongue. Although occasionally cute, baby humans are virtually useless. He can't even walk, let alone forage for food or sleep beyond 6am.
问题在于，他是一个婴儿。他于去年5月出生，在生理上他对说话还无能为力。他不太强大的脑子还不太跟得上速度，就算能跟上，他对自己的小舌头也只有微弱的控制力。尽管有时候人类婴儿很可爱，但是他们实际上没有用。他甚至不会走路，更别说自己觅食或是撑到下午6点以后睡觉了。
But Tom can now do some things. He can slither down from a sofa, pick up peas and point wildly at anything that catches his bright blue eyes. And while not particularly useful as a single manoeuvre, that level of co-ordination means he's more than ready to communicate, if only I knew how to encourage him. It's really me who is being slow.
但是Tom现在可以完成一些事。他能从沙发上滑下来，捡起豌豆，并且能激动地指着任何能吸引他那明亮的蓝眼球的东西。尽管这些简单的移动还不能发挥具体作用，但这种配合表明了他已经急不可待地要与人交流了，如果我知道如何鼓励他就好了。看来，那个慢半拍的人是我才对。
We don't know what words man said first. Some experts have speculated that primitive language was developed from random sounds; early homo, they say, might have based his first words either on the noises he heard, like the splash of falling water; or on his own instinctive cries, like a gulp of surprise at the sight of falling water.
我们不知道人类最先说的是哪些词。一些专家已推测，那些最初的语言是从随机的声音中发展起来的。他们声称，早期人类的第一个词也许要么基于他所听到的噪音，像是溅水的声音；要么基于他自己本能的喊叫，像是看到降水时惊奇地吞咽口水的声音。
But some believe that language was developed from signs rather than noises. Gestural theory suggests that man first communicated with hand and body movements and developed language from there.
然而，一些人认为语言是从肢体动作发展起来，而不是从周围的噪音中发展起来的。肢体语言理论认为，人类最初是用手和身体动作来交流，并且语言是由此发展起来的。
The origin of language theories can never amount to much more than educated conjecture. But anyone who owns a child can observe firsthand how their speech slowly emerges. Tom, for instance, has yet to say his first proper word. He did go through a phase of saying "bra" every time he looked at a woman, but that was surely just a coincidence.
语言起源理论总不会超过其学术性推测的框框。然而，任何有孩子的人都可以率先观察孩子的言语是如何初步显现的。比如说，才学会说第一个完整的词的Tom，在一段时间里，每次看见女人，便会说“bra"，但是这绝对只是一个巧合。
As well as "bra", Tom has been able to say "dada" and "mama" for almost a year now, but I'm not counting these as proper words. Babies throughout the world tend to start with such sounds, and this in turn is why so many languages' words for mother, father and baby have similar shapes; father can be expressed as "daddy" in English, baba in Albanian, ubaba in Zula, p¯ap¯a in Maori and atta in Latin. We've chosen these terms to mirror the repetitious consonants that babies seem to like so much.
至今为止，同"bra"一样，Tom已经能够说"dada"和"mama"快一年了，但是我还没把这些当做正规词语。全世界的婴儿都倾向于以这些声音开始，而这反过来说明了为什么在许多语言中，表示妈妈，爸爸和婴儿的词都用相似的形态。”爸爸“在英语里叫"daddy"，在阿尔巴尼亚语里叫baba，在祖鲁语里叫ubaba，在毛利语里叫p-ap-a，拉丁语里叫atta。我们选择的这些发音反映了婴儿似乎喜欢重复的辅音。
As with all their basic skills, babies start talking at different ages. Einstein famously didn't say a word until he was three years old, Picasso said piz piz (a shortening of the Spanish for pencil) at 18 months, and one of the babies in our NCT class said "foible" before she was one. It's probably best not to worry too much about when they say what. They'll all get there in the end. But when I Google "my baby can't talk yet" I can't help but grow a little concerned. A typical 18-month-old, says the website of the Child Development Institute, "has vocabulary of approximately five to 20 words". Perhaps we will count bra, mama and dada after all. Just two more in two months and he'll be normal.
同其他基本技能一样，婴儿在不同的年龄开始说话。爱因斯坦直到三岁才说话，这是出了名的，毕加索在18个月大时说piz piz（西班牙语对铅笔的缩写），我们NCT班里的一个婴儿在一岁前说“foible”。所以，或许最好不要太担心他们何时开口说话，说的是什么，反正到头来，他们都会说话的。但是当我在网上搜索“我的婴儿还不会说话”时，我不由得有点担心起来。儿童发展学会网说，一般而言，对于一个18岁大的婴儿来说，“词汇量大约在5到20个单词之间。”或许我们还得将bra,mama,和dada也算作一个词吧，只要在下两个月内再掌握两个单词，他就在正常之列了。
As far as I can tell, Tom hasn't deliberately mastered a sign for any particular object yet, but he does point incessantly, wave goodbye and clap when excited. So perhaps his gestures are advancing faster than his speech. Perhaps, with a helping hand, this could be our shortcut to satisfying communication.
据我所知，Tom还尚未有意识地掌握一种针对任何特别事物的肢体动作，但是他无休止地用手指物体，挥手再见，并在激动的时候拍手。所以，也许他的肢体动作比他的语言进展得更快。也许手势的帮助，可以加快我们满意的沟通。
We'd like Tom to talk to us as soon as possible so that we can find out what's on his mind, rather than whether his mind is average or not. I'm desperate to know what he's got to say for himself. And, more than his opinions on culture and politics, I mainly want to know how he's feeling, if only so that my wife and I no longer have to guess. One whingey afternoon we thought he might be hungry, tired, teething or just a generally grumpy human being before finally realising he was hot. If only we'd all known there was a simple gesture for it.
我们想要Tom尽快和我们说话，这样我们便可以知道他在想什么，而不是只能判断他的想法是否在平均水平。我已经迫不及待地想知道他会为自己说些什么。并且，比起他对文化和政治的看法来，我更想知道他的感觉，要是我和妻子不用再猜那该多好。一天下午，我们以为他可能是饿了，累了，长牙了或者只是有一点人类共有的烦躁，后来我们才意识到他是热着了。如果他有一个简单的肢体动作来表达他的意图，而我们对其了如指掌就好了。
Baby signing was invented with just such a situation in mind. The basic premise – that babies can communicate before they can talk – was investigated thoroughly by the scientist Joseph Garcia, among others, in the late 1980s. While working at Alaska Pacific University, Garcia suggested that even at six months, hearing babies of hearing parents can begin learning basic sign language for ideas such as eat, drink, milk, more, no and hot. According to his theory, a hot baby with a basic grasp of signing would simply move his open hand across his forehead to make his parents instantly remove his unnecessary jumper.
婴儿的肢体动作是在这样的思想状态下出现的。其基本前提是，婴儿在他们会说话之前就会交流，在20世纪80年代后期，Joseph Garcia及其他科学家对此做过彻底地调查研究。还在阿拉斯加太平洋大学工作时，Garcia表明，就算是那些自己和父母都有听力能力的只有6个月大的婴儿，也都会开始学习一些基本的肢体语言，比如像吃饭，喝水，牛奶，更多，不要，热等。据此理论，一个感觉到热的婴儿，如果掌握一种基本的肢体动作，可以简单地把他摊开的小手移上前额，以便让父母马上帮他脱掉不必要的夹克。
It wasn't until a few years ago, however, that baby signing really took off in the UK. It seems odd that, despite having the means to sign since the birth of language, we've only recently decided to share this information with our babies. Deaf communities have always known that infants can sign before they can talk, but hearing parents hadn't thought to follow suit.
然而，婴儿肢体动作在英国开始流行起来还不到几年工夫。奇怪的是，尽管人们在语言出现前就在使用肢体动作了，可我们从最近才决定和我们的婴儿共享这个信息。失聪群体一直都知道婴儿在他们会说话前便会做动作，但是有听力的父母却从没有想过照着做。
Today, though, there are countless baby sign groups offering hundreds of classes in the UK alone. My wife took Tom to one such class when he was just a few months old, having heard about it from another mum, Sam, who'd read about it on the National Child Trust's (NCT) website. Her son, another Tom, was born six months before ours and had just about mastered the signs for milk and food, which is all you really need to survive at his age. More importantly, Sam told the group that she and Tom both loved the class itself, and that really got everyone's attention. When mums discover a new fun, cheap and healthy thing to do with their babies, the news spreads like wildfire.
尽管如此，今天单单是在英国，就有着多不胜数的婴儿肢体动作训练小组，提供上百个课程。在另一位妈妈Sam那听说了这个课程以后，我和妻子在Tom几个月大的时候带他去参加了一个这种班，这位妈妈也是在国家儿童信托网上得知此事的。她的儿子也叫Tom，比我们的儿子早出生6个月，才掌握了牛奶和食物的肢体动作，这在他的年龄也只能达到这个程度了。更重要的是，Sam告诉小组说，她和 Tom都喜爱这个课程，这着实引起所有人的注意。当妈妈们发现一个能与自己的婴儿一起完成的新乐趣，它花费不大而且健康的时候，这消息便像野火一样蔓延开去。
The first time round, however, baby signing didn't work for us. We all needed to find our feet before our hands. In fact, despite our good intentions, no one in our NCT group had stuck with the signing. It might make things easier in the long run, but at a time when you're trying to get your head round suddenly keeping another human alive it's hard to prioritise. But after 16 non-communicative months I felt it was time to try again, so I took him along to a local baby sign class ran by TinyTalk, which claims to be "the biggest and best baby-signing organisation in the UK, Ireland and Australia".
但是刚去那会儿，婴儿肢体动作对我们并不管用。在使用手势前，我们都找不到北。实际上，除了我们想学好的意愿外，我们的NCT小组里还没有哪个人不被肢体动作难住。可能时间长了，事情就会变得容易一些吧，但是当你在突然转头时，同时让别人保持注意，这是很难优化的。但是在经历了16个的“无法沟通”之月后，我觉得是时候再试试看了，所以我把Tom带到一家TinyTalk旗下的婴儿肢体动作学习班，它自称是“英国、爱尔兰和澳大利亚最好的婴儿肢体动作训练机构”。
There wasn't a lot of focus on vocabulary or grammar. Instead there were colourful mats to sit on, colourful books to look at, colourful toys to play with and a cuddly monkey to ape. Eight babies were herded by eight parents in the general direction of our teacher, Lisa Peycke, herself a mum of two, who spoke, sang and signed to us in a manner that was admirably patient.
训练课并没有过多注重词汇量和语法的学习。取而代之的是五颜六色的垫子供我们坐，五颜六色的书供我们阅读，五颜六色的玩具供孩子玩耍，还有一个柔软的玩具猴子供孩子模仿。六对父母把六个婴儿聚在一起，面向老师的方向。老师叫做Lisa Peycke，她自己也是两个孩子的妈妈，她用耐心的态度为我们唱歌，做动作。
With a degree in linguistics from Bangor University, Lisa had left a job in HR to become a signing instructor soon after becoming a mother. It was, she says, the perfect job, especially since her own kids have taken to signing so well. Her eldest had 40 signs at his disposal at 13 months and her youngest signed her first word, milk, at just five months. Those are impressive stats.
在班戈大学持有语言学学位的Lisa，在成为母亲不久后，便放弃了一份人力资源的工作，成为肢体动作指导师。她说，这是一份完美的工作，特别是当她自己的孩子开始把肢体语言学得很好的时候。她的大儿子用这种方法在13个月以来掌握了40个动作，她的小儿子5个月以来学会了他的第一个肢体语言，牛奶。这些开头都很激动人心。
At first glance hers was much like many of the other parent-and-baby classes we've attended, where we're encouraged to sing songs, clap hands, listen to stories and gossip. Tom seemed to enjoy himself and so we did too. At Lisa's class, for the first time in his short life, he was the oldest child in the room and seemed to revel in this role, sitting silently like a village elder for 40 minutes before eventually cracking when some biscuits were brought out.
第一眼看去，她的课跟很多我们所参加的家长-婴儿的课大体上都差不多，在那儿，老师鼓励我们唱歌，拍手，听故事和闲聊。看上去Tom玩得很高兴，所以我们也跟着高兴。在Lisa的课上，Tom在他短小的生命中第一次成为教室里最大的孩子，并且似乎对此陶醉起来，安静地在坐了40分钟，犹如村子里的长者一般，直到发饼干的时候他终于把持不住了。
The signing aspect of the class was underplayed and far from overwhelming. Lisa signed throughout the songs and stories, we tried to join in, and the babies watched each other. But by the end of the hour I found I had learnt at least half a dozen signs, more than enough to get me going with Tom back at home. I left impressed. I've always been suspicious of baby education, of teaching them the front crawl at six weeks or Mozart in the womb, but this was different, mainly because it was really aimed at the parents.
课程中教肢体动作的方面并不那么充分，远不是主要部分。在唱歌和讲故事的全程，Lisa都在做动作，我们便试图加入进去，婴儿们就彼此大眼对小眼。然而要结束的时候，我已经学了至少半打肢体动作，足够让我在回家后跟Tom交流了。临走时，我的印象很深刻。我一直都对婴儿教育心存疑虑，对于在他们六个月大时教他们自由泳，当他们还在妈妈肚子里时给他们放莫扎特的音乐而心存怀疑。但是这次不一样，很大程度上是因为这个课是针对父母的。
The idea is that I will now use the signs I've learnt every time they're relevant to Tom. Every time I put him down for a nap I'll do the sign for sleep, while also slowly and deliberately saying the word. Eventually, in theory, Tom will connect the ideas and not only recognise the sign but make it himself if he feels sleepy. And because I will have deliberately used the word "sleep" each time, he will, in time, start copying that, too.
办法是这样的，只要现在的每次情况和Tom有关，我都可以用上学过的肢体动作。每次我把他放在床上睡午觉时，便会做出睡觉的动作，并且同时有意识地缓慢说出睡觉这个单词。最终，从理论上来讲，Tom将把动作和观念联系起来，他不仅只会识别动作，还会在自己困的时候做出这个动作。并且由于我每次都会刻意地说出睡觉这个词，慢慢地，他也会模仿着说。
As well as the communication aspect, those who promote baby signing report huge benefits for everyone involved, including larger expressive and receptive spoken language vocabularies, more advanced mental development, a reduction in problematic behaviour and improved parent-child relationships. To those who think signing might slow down speaking, they say the opposite occurs: encouraging sign language empowers babies to focus the topic and context of conversation and ultimately makes them more interested in words. There's even research indicating that simply pointing at things aids the process of object naming and language development, so I'm now telling anyone I meet that my son is really rather advanced.
在交流方面，那些支持婴儿肢体动作学习的人对相关的每个人宣称其巨大的好处，包括可以让婴幼儿无论在表达上，还是接收上，都能掌握更大的词汇量，让他们心智进步，让他们的“问题行为”减少，并改善父母和孩子之间的关系。要对那些认为肢体动作可能会减慢说话能力发展的人所说的是，其实这能产生与之所想相反的效果：鼓励肢体语言会让婴儿专注于谈话的主题和语境，并最终促使他们对单词更感兴趣。甚至已有研究表明，简单地用手指物体能加快婴儿在定义物体过程中的发展和语言的发展，所以现在我要告诉任何我所碰见的人，我的儿子取得了相当大的进步。
Whether or not any of this rubs off on Tom we'll have to see. But instinctively it feels good to be trying to connect with him. Any sort of focused interaction must be a good thing. Having said that, I have to admit feeling a little embarrassed in the class itself, memories of my French oral flooding back as I, the only bloke in the room, tried to sing in tune and remember the actions to "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" (yes, I realise now the clue is in the title).
此事是否会对Tom产生影响，我们还得拭目以待。但是尝试着和Tom 联系起来，让我本能地感觉很好。任何形式的互动都很好。在课程中，当我说了我承认自己感到有些尴尬以后，作为教室里唯一一个男性，在我试着顺着曲调唱歌，并且记住“头，肩，膝盖，脚趾”对应的动作时，以前法语口试的记忆在我脑海中涌现出来。（是的，我现在才意识到，当时口试的提示就在题目中）。
Luckily, if you can't overcome your inhibitions, there are plenty of other more private baby sign options. After our second lesson I bought myself the TinyTalk Let's Sign! DVD, one of several interactive introductions to the language currently available. There are also numerous signing demonstrations on YouTube, and if you watch CBeebies as, I like to reassure myself, all parents do at least once a day, you'll be familiar with the work of one Justin Fletcher. Justin is the very soul of CBeebies, the star of the genuinely amusing Gigglebiz (Arthur Sleep, anyone?) and, most importantly, the presenter of Something Special. In this Bafta-winning show he takes kids with disabilities and learning difficulties on gentle adventures around the country, speaking to the children on screen and at home using a system called Makaton that mixes speech, signing and graphic symbols. As children grow more competent and confident with speech, the signs and symbols are gradually phased out, in just the same way that baby signing slowly gives way to baby talking.
所幸的是，如果你无法克服拘谨，还有很多其他可供你私下学习婴儿肢体动作的方案。第二个课程结束后，我买了一张TinyTalk《让我们一起做动作》的DVD，这是近期你可以找到的若干互动语言入门材料的其中之一。同样地，优酷网上也有许多肢体动作示范，你可以在上面看CBeebies，就像我一样，看这个让自己安心，所有父母每天至少得做一次，你就会熟悉Justin Fletcher的作品。Justin是CBeebies的灵魂人物，也是真正好玩的Gigglebiz（亚瑟睡觉了，还有人在吗？）中的明星，而且最重要的是，他是“来点特别”节目的主持人。在这个Bafta-winning秀里，他带一些残疾的和有学习障碍的孩子在全国范围内进行温和地冒险，在屏幕上和这些孩子说话，在家里使用一个叫做Mataton的系统，把言语，动作，图片符号揉和在一起。当孩子在谈话中变得越来越胜任和自信时，这些动作和符号逐渐被取消，根据同样的方式，婴儿的肢体语言逐渐地让位给言语。
I'm determined to continue with baby sign language, inspired by both Lisa and Justin. Neither came from a signing background and both managed to learn well over 100 signs in a matter of days. More importantly, they make signing look easy, not ridiculous. If they can do it, if Lisa's daughter could do it at five months, then I can do it, too.
在Lisa和Jjustin两个人的启发下，我决意继续学习婴儿的肢体语言。他们都没有肢体动作学习背景，但都掌握了超过100种动作，学会是迟早的事，只在乎时间长短。更重要的是，他们让动作看上去简单而不可笑。如果他们可以做到，Lisa5个月大的女儿可以做到，我也可以做到。
After just a couple of weeks of practice, Tom managed to sign his first word. Or at least I think he did. When I slowly asked him if he was sleepy, he certainly raised his hands to the side of the cheek as if to copy my action, and I was thrilled, even if it might just have been another coincidence. We're getting there. In the short term I'm hoping we'll help each other get to the elementary level of baby signing in a few months, because it's not just him I want to have words with. Tom's going to become an older brother at Christmas, and baby signing could just be how our family of four first gets to know each other. It'll hopefully be our helping hand, our secret language, our way of telling each other if we're a bit hot.
在几周的练习后，Tom学会用动作表达他的第一个词。或者只是我自己认为他学会了。当我慢慢地问他是否困了时，他肯定地举止双手，放在脸颊的一侧，好像是在重复我的动作，于是我很兴奋，就算这只是另一个巧合，我也很兴奋，至少我们正在往目标发展。短期内，我希望我们能帮助彼此在几个月内学会初级的婴儿肢体动作，因为我只是想和他说话。在圣诞节，Tom就要当哥哥了，婴儿肢体动作正是我们四口之家了解彼此的方法。希望它能助我们一力，成为我们的秘密语言，如果我们热了，我们可以用这种方式告诉彼此。
PS:
1. 本文摘自 Alex Horne The Observer, Sunday 10 October 2010 Article history
2. Alex Horne is a comedian and writer. He has just released The Horne Section, a CD of comedy, jazz and poetry (alexhorne.com)
Alex是一名喜剧演员和作家。他刚发行了了名为Horne Section的包括喜剧，爵士及诗歌的CD。
