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And if that sounds like some one-off freak, then consider Sumerian, the language spoken on the banks of the Euphrates some 5,000 years ago by the people who invented writing and thus enabled the documentation of history.
如此結(jié)合音義的語言并非特例，大約5000年前居住在幼發(fā)拉底河兩岸的蘇美爾人柜与，用類似方法創(chuàng)造了蘇美爾語烙样，由此開啟了人類有文字記錄的歷史蔑舞。
A Sumerian word like munintuma'a ('when he had made it suitable for her') might seem rather trim compared to the Turkish colossus above.
拿蘇美爾語里的munintuma'a（沒有性別差異）舉例贷痪，它比上文所提的土耳其語中愣長的字短了不少溅潜。
What is so impressive about it, however, is not its lengthiness but rather the reverse -the thrifty compactness of its construction.
但讓人驚嘆的不是其簡短题造，而是倒裝——簡化到極致的以字構(gòu)詞斥滤。
The word is made up of different slots, each corresponding to a particular portion of meaning.
根據(jù)不同語境意思的不同，把一個(gè)字劈成好幾段丸升。
This sleek design allows single sounds to convey useful information, and in fact even the absence of a sound has been enlisted to express something specific.
這樣適時(shí)多變的設(shè)計(jì)不但可以用單個(gè)音表達(dá)語義铆农，而且就連不發(fā)生的停頓都可以有實(shí)際語義。
If you were to ask which bit in the Sumerian word corresponds to the pronoun 'it' in the English translation 'when he had made it suitable for her: then the answer would have to be nothing.
例如狡耻，英語“在他為她弄好”這句話里顿涣，翻譯成蘇美爾語波闹，就是用停頓表“它”。
Mind you, a very particular kind of nothing： the nothing that stands in the empty slot in the middle.
值得注意的是一個(gè)特殊的停頓：即中間沒有語義的停頓涛碑。
The technology is so fine-tuned then that even a non-sound, when carefully placed in a particular position, has been invested with a specific function.
不同位置的停頓精堕，都可以表達(dá)不同意義，這種精湛設(shè)計(jì)簡直出神入微蒲障，曲盡其妙歹篓。
Who could possibly have come up with such a nifty contraption?
何方神圣能如此慧心巧思做出如此巧妙絕倫的設(shè)計(jì)？
