2016年5月10日功课（5-9日回家休息未作）
THE PHOENICIANS
腓尼基人
THE PHOENICIANS WHO GAVE US OUR ALPHABET
腓尼基人给我们带来了字母表。
THE Phoenicians, who were the neighbours of the Jews, were a Semitic tribe which at a very early age had settled along the shores of the Mediterranean. They had built themselves two well-fortified towns, Tyre and Sidon, and within a short time they had gained a monopoly of the trade of the western seas. Their ships went regularly to Greece and Italy and Spain and they even ventured beyond the straits of Gibraltar to visit the Scilly islands where they could buy tin. Wherever they went, they built themselves small trading stations, which they called colonies. Many of these were the origin of modern cities, such as Cadiz and Marseilles.
腓尼基人是很早就定居在地中海沿岸的一个闪族部落，他们是犹太人的邻居。他们自己建立了两个固若金汤的城镇，蒂尔(施泽注：黎巴嫩西南部港市，曾为古代腓尼基国海港提尔)和西顿(施泽注：黎巴嫩西南部港市 [亦称作 Saida]），在很短的时间里他们就取得了西部海域的贸易垄断。他们的船只固定往返于希腊、意大利和西班牙，不过他们甚至越过直布罗陀海峡到达锡利群岛，在那里他们可以买到锡。他们无论走到哪里，都要建立小的贸易基地，他们称其为殖民地。那些殖民地许多都成了现代城市的起源，比如加的斯（施泽注：加的斯位于西班牙南部,濒临大西洋,是一座有三千年历史的古城）和马赛（施泽注：法国港口城市）。
They bought and sold whatever promised to bring them a good profit. They were not troubled by a conscience. If we are to believe all their neighbours they did not know what the words honesty or integrity meant. They regarded a well-filled treasure chest the highest ideal of all good citizens. Indeed they were very unpleasant people and did not have a single friend. Nevertheless they have rendered all coming generations one service of the greatest possible value. They gave us our alphabet.
他们买卖一切能给自己带来可观利润的东西。他们不受良心的约束。如果我们选择相信他们所有的邻居，腓尼基人不知道诚信与正值是什么意思。他们认为一个装满珍宝的藏宝箱就是所有美好市民的最高典范。事实上他们是没有快乐的一群人，一个朋友都没有。但是，他们却给所有后世子孙回馈了一个价值巨大的创造，腓尼基人发明了字母表。
2016年5月11日功课
The Phoenicians had been familiar with the art of writing, invented by the Sumerians. But they regarded these pothooks as a clumsy waste of time. They were practical business men and could not spend hours engraving two or three letters. They set to work and invented a new system of writing which was greatly superior to the old one. They borrowed a few pictures from the Egyptians and they simplified a number of the wedge-shaped figures of the Sumerians. They sacrificed the pretty looks of the older system for the advantage of speed and they reduced the thousands of different images to a short and handy alphabet of twenty-two letters.
腓尼基人对于苏美尔发明的书写技艺很是熟悉。但是在他们看来那种胡写乱花就是浪费时间。他们是讲究使用的商人，怎会花费几个小时去刻两三个字母。于是他们着手改进，发明了一种新的比就得书写方法更好用的书写体系。他们从埃及人哪里借用了一些图形，并把苏美尔人的一些楔形图片做了简化。因为优先考虑书写速度，他们牺牲了就方法的美观性。他们把成千上万幅不同的图画简化成一个由22个字符组成的短小易用的字母表。
In due course of time, this alphabet travelled across the Aegean Sea and entered Greece.The Greeks added a few letters of their own and carried the improved system to Italy.The Romans modified the figures somewhat and in turn taught them to the wild barbarians of western Europe.Those wild barbarians were our own ancestors, and that is the reason why this book is written in characters that are of Phoenician origin and not in the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians or in the nail-script of the Sumerians.
随着时间的推移，这套字符表经由爱琴海传入了希腊。希腊人加入了少数几个他们自己的字符，然后将这套改良后的字符体系带到了意大利。罗马人把字符进行了稍微的修改，接着将其教给了西欧的野蛮人。那些野蛮人就是我们的祖先，这也就是为什么这本书用腓尼基人发明的字符写成而不是用埃及人的象形文字或用苏美尔人的楔形文字。
