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To explain, while in English we might say, “She heads the company” or “We face the window,” but Great Andamanese use body parts even more and to describe everything.
虽然我们在英语中可能会说，“她领导公司”或“我们面对窗户”，但大安达曼人会更多地使用身体部位来描述一切。
Anvita divided the lexicon into two classes: free and bound.
安维塔将词汇分为两类：自由词和黏着词。
Words that were free occurred alone—such as the word ra for pig.
自由词单独出现，比如代表猪的词“ra”。
But words that were bound, nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, all existed with relation to other objects—specifically, parts of the body.
但是黏着词（名词、动词、形容词和副词）都是与其他对象相关联存在的，具体地说，是与身体的某些部位相关联。
And body division markers were seven of them.
身体部位标记词占这些词汇的7种。
You might wonder why this is so significant.
你可能想知道为什么这种划分如此重要。
Because no other known language family has a grammar based on the human body, Great Andamanese actually constitutes its own family.
因为已知的其他语系没有基于人体的语法，大安达曼语实际上构成了自己的语系。
According to genetic evidence, the Great Andamanese lived in isolation for tens of thousands of years.
遗传证据表明大安达曼人与世隔绝地生活了数万年。
Anvita realized that the grammar she decoded meant that this original language family came from a time when people conceptualized the whole world through the body.
安维塔意识到，她破译的这种语法意味着这个原始的语系来自一个人们通过身体概念化整个世界的时期。
The most beautiful aspect of the language, that it is, the whole grammar is anthropocentrism.
这种语言的最美之处在于整个语法以人类为中心。
It is—depends upon how people perceive the world through their body: every activity, every modification, and every object is seen through the body.
这取决于人们如何通过身体感知世界：每一个活动、每一次改变、每一个物体都是通过身体看到的。
Only those which are natural forces, are natural elements like words and fauna and flora, they don’t have these prefixes.
只有那些自然力量、自然元素，比如动植物单词，没有这些前缀。
That gives us insight into early humans—and a worldview where everything that happens is connected to everything else.
这让我们对早期人类有了更深入的了解：他们的世界观认为发生的每件事都是相互联系的。
I’m take you back to Papua New Guinea, to the famous cultural show in the highlands.
我要带你回到巴布亚新几内亚，去看看高原上著名的文化表演。
We asked some people at the festival if they could speak to us in their language.
我们在节日中询问一些人，问他们是否能用他们的语言和我们交谈。
What about nice to meet you?
很高兴认识你，怎么说?
Kande!
康帝(土著语言)!
Like the Great Andamanese, some tribes in Papua New Guinea have lived in isolation for years. But its linguistic diversity is still under threat.
像大安达曼人一样，巴布亚新几内亚的一些部落多年来一直与世隔绝地生活着，但他们的语言多样性仍然受到威胁。
In fact, most of the thousands of languages that may go extinct in the next century are Indigenous.
事实上，可能在下个世纪走向灭绝的数千种语言中，大多数都是土著语言。
Nao Junior left this world in February 2009.
奈绪·朱尼尔于2009年2月离开了这个世界。
In his untimely death, he took with him a treasure trove of knowledge that can never be resurrected.
他英年早逝，带走了一个永远无法复活的知识宝库。
I’ll leave you with these words from Anvita’s article: “When the older generation can no longer teach the tongue to the younger ones, a language is doomed. And with every language lost, we lose a wealth of knowledge about human existence, perception, nature and survival.”
我将用安维塔文章中的这段话来结束今天的节目：“当老一辈不能再教年轻一代语言时，一种语言就注定要消亡。随着每一种语言的消失，我们也失去了大量关于人类存在、感知、自然和生存的知识。”
For Science, Quickly, I’m Tulika Bose.
欢迎收看《科学快播》，我是图利卡·博斯。
Science Quickly is produced by myself, Tulika Bose, and Jeffrey Delviscio.
《科学快播》由我、图里卡·博斯和杰弗里·德尔维西奥制作。
This episode was edited by me, Tulika Bose, with music by Dominic Smith.
本期节目由我和图里卡·博斯编辑，由多米尼克·史密斯编曲。
Subscribe to Scientific American to read the article by Anvita Abbi and more in-depth Science News.
订阅《科学美国人》，来阅读安维塔·阿比的文章，深入了解科学新闻。
See you next time.
下次节目再见。
