The many different things a language can and must do are the subject of “Are Some Languages Better than Others?”, a book from 2016 by R.M.W. Dixon of James Cook University in Australia. Mr Dixon dispels old colonialist prejudices that European languages are sophisticated and indigenous ones primitive. Indeed, many of the most nuanced discriminations are required not by French or German but among isolated traditional communities.
一门语言可以而且必须做的许多不同的事情都围绕《一些语言比其他语言好吗?》，这也是澳大利亚詹姆斯·库克大学的R.M.W.迪克森于2016年出版的一本书。迪克森消除了殖民主义者的偏见，即欧洲语言是复杂的，本土语言是原始的。事实上，许多最微妙的歧视并不是法国或德国所要求的，而是在孤立的传统社区中。
In answering his title’s provocative question, Mr Dixon finds that requiring distinctions (formal or informal “you”, inclusive or exclusive “we”, evidentiality), is useful. The more information, the better. But not every language can require every distinction: a language that had them all would be too hard for members of the community to learn, to say nothing of outsiders. There may be an outer limit to how complex languages can get, constrained by the brain’s processing power.
迪克森发现，在回答题目中提出的这个颇具争议的问题时，要求区分(实据，正式或非正式的“你”、包括听讲者或不包括听讲者的“我们”)是有用的。信息越多越好。但并不是每一种语言都需要每一种区别:一种拥有所有这些区别的语言对社区成员来说太难学了，更不用说社区之外的了。大脑的处理能力可能会限制复杂语言的发展。
Into the argument about whether some languages are superior comes a recent paper on information density in speech, by François Pellegrino and his colleagues at the University of Lyon. Some languages, like Japanese, have few distinct sounds and tight rules on how syllables may be structured, so that the number of possible syllables is low (think ka, ru, to, etc). Other languages (like English) have fewer constraints, so that a single syllable may be as complicated as strengths. All things being equal, one syllable chosen among English’s thousands will carry more information than one picked from Japanese’s dozens. But the study finds that this imbalance is counteracted by speech rate: speakers of Japanese get in many of their simple syllables more quickly than English-speakers do their complicated ones. Overall information density turns out to be the same across hugely different tongues.
最近，里昂大学的弗朗索瓦·佩莱格里诺和他的同事们发表了一篇关于演讲中信息密度的论文，讨论了一些语言是否更好。有些语言，比如日语，很少有清晰的发音，音节的结构也有严格的规则，所以可能的音节数量很低(比如ka, ru, to等等)。其他语言(如英语)的限制较少，因此一个音节可能和 ”strength” 这个词一样复杂。在所有条件相同的情况下，从英语的数千个音节中选择一个音节所包含的信息比从日语的几十个音节中选择一个音节所包含的信息要多。但研究发现，这种不平衡被语速抵消了：说日语的人比说英语的人更快地进入许多简单音节。在不同的语言中，总体信息密度是相同的。

In short, languages are governed by trade-offs. One that avoids making certain information mandatory may be easy to speak, but leaves the listener to fill in the gaps. It may be simple to learn but less expressive. Some languages have lots of redundant elements: in los tres gatos negros están mojados (“the three black cats are wet” in Spanish), all six words indicate a plural. Marking the plural just once (as Chinese does) would be enough. But redundancy has a virtue: emphatic communication is more likely to survive a noisy environment.
简而言之，语言是由权衡决定的。一个避免强制要求某些信息的人可能很容易开口，但让听众来填补空白。学习起来可能很简单，但是表达能力却不强。有些语言有很多多余的元素:在los tres gatos negros estan mojados(西班牙语中的“三只黑猫湿了”)中，所有六个单词都表示复数。仅仅标记一次复数（如汉语）就足够了。但是冗余也有一个优点：强调的交流更有可能在嘈杂的环境中存活下来。
Languages, Mr Dixon says, are like a Western-style house. There are a few rooms you must have (kitchen, bedroom, living room, bathroom), and some discretionary options (office, guest room). On a fixed budget, you can’t have all the extras. He does not crown a “best” language. In the end, he says, readers should make their own list of desirable features, and then closely examine a few languages to decide whether one has more of them than another. But the list of advantages, he concedes, is itself a matter of judgment. For all his scientific criteria, in the end the verdict is in the ear of the beholder.
迪克森说，语言就像一座西式的房子。有几个房间你必须有(厨房，卧室，客厅，浴室)和一些自由选择(办公室，客房)。在固定的预算下，你不可能拥有所有额外的东西。他没有为“最佳”语言加冕。最后，他说，读者应该列出自己想要的特性列表，然后仔细研究几种语言，以确定其中一种语言的特性是否多于另一种。但他承认，优势清单本身就是一个判断问题。尽管他提出了所有的科学标准，但最终的结论还是见仁见智。

来源：经济学人