Sharing is caring, as the old adage goes. Communication is at the heart of what it means to be human. Sharing stories, experiences, and information brings us closer together, allows us to progress as a species and keeps us safe.
正如古老的误��误，分享就是关心。 沟通是做人的核心。 分享故事、经验和信息让我们更紧密地在一起，让我们作为一个物种进步，并保证我们的安全。
Except for when it is an announcement like one of my little ones hollered up the stairs this morning; “Ma, we have no milk”. That kind of announcement will make you the opposite of safe.
除了像今天早上我的一个小家伙在楼梯上大喊的公告；“妈妈，我们没有牛奶了”。 那种公告会让你安全相反。
Some of the landmark moments in everyone’s life are cross cultural; births, deaths, marriage. The means by which we make these announcements has changed over time, and here too, we begin to see cultural nuance pop up.
每个人生命中的一些里程碑式时刻都是跨文化的；出生、死亡、婚姻。 随着时间的推移，我们发布这些公告的方式发生了变化，在这里，我们也开始看到文化细微差别出现。
Public Service Announcements (PSA’s) have been around in the form of newspaper articles, pamphlets and posters for the last 200 years. Designed to broadcast information, spread awareness and influence public behaviour, both non-profit and governmental organisations have long used this snappy means of seeding public opinion and controlling the zeitgeist.
在过去的200年里，公共服务公告（PSA）一直以报纸文章、小册子和海报的形式存在。 旨在传播信息、传播意识和影响公众行为，非营利组织和政府组织长期以来一直使用这种快速的手段来播种舆论和控制时代主义。
The fact that most of the students in my school can readily join in with “Dumb Ways to Die”, the Australian PSA made by Metro Trains in Melbourne, is testament to their effectiveness.
事实上，我学校的大多数学生都能轻松加入墨尔本地铁列车制作的澳大利亚公共服务广告“Dumb Ways to Die”，这证明了他们的有效性。
Town criers of old spread the word before the age of mass media, strolling the streets and shouting out the news. The Indigenous peoples of America used smoke signals. In the Middle Kingdom, as well as the town crier and public meetings, important announcements were inscribed on stone tablets or bronze vessels and then placed in prominent public places for all to see.
在大众媒体时代之前，古老的城镇呼喊者传播消息，在街上漫步，大声传播新闻。 美国土著人民使用烟雾信号。 在中王国，以及城镇呼喊和公共会议，重要的公告被刻在石板或青铜器皿上，然后放在著名的公共场所供所有人看到。
Even then, the capacity to make such an announcement is really quite staggering. If we think back to our most ancient fore bearers, making any kind of announcement or statement beyond gesticulation and a basic variety of grunts was unheard of. It was akin to being a tourist in Paris; point and hope for the best.
即便如此，发布此类公告的能力确实令人震惊。 如果我们回想我们最古老的祖先，除了手语和各种基本的咕哝之外，发表任何形式的公告或声明都是闻所未闻的。 这类似于成为巴黎的游客；指出并希望得到最好的。
When I first moved to Spain, I experienced the same involuntary dearth of communication abilities. I needed an adaptor to plug in my iconic Nokia, but, armed with only my dictionary and my finger, I was incapable of articulating my need for an adaptor to plug in my charger. There was no way to transform my increasingly strung-out thoughts into words that the nice woman behind the counter could comprehend.
当我第一次搬到西班牙时，我经历了同样的不自主的沟通能力不足。 我需要一个适配器来插入我标志性的诺基亚，但只有字典和手指，我无法表达我需要适配器来插入充电器。 没有办法把我越来越不解的想法变成柜台后面的好女人能理解的话。
Translating apps did not exist. Apps did not exist. Smartphones did not exist. It was, indeed, the dark ages. I cried at the store attendant. She offered me a lightbulb.
翻译应用程序不存在。 应用程序不存在。 智能手机并不存在。 的确，那是黑暗时代。 我在店员那里哭了。 她给了我一个灯泡。
As a species, we have always had a yearning for faster, better ways to make announcements. It amuses me that we spent so long inventing the telephone, and then the mobile phone, only to return to very fast letters as our primary means of communication.
作为一个物种，我们一直渴望以更快、更好的方式发布公告。 令我感到有意思的是，我们花了这么长时间发明了电话，然后是手机，却回到了非常快的信件作为我们的主要通信手段。
Texting, or Short Message Service (SMS) messages are now the preferred means of communication, with over 40 percent of respondents to a recent YouGov (2024) survey declaring that it is their primary means of communication.
短信或短信服务（SMS）消息现在是首选的沟通方式，在最近YouGov（2024）调查中，超过40%的受访者表示这是他们的主要沟通方式。
With the ubiquitous rise of social media platforms- from Instagram to WeChat to Snapchat and beyond, texting is rapidly overtaking the phone call as the 21st century mode of communication.
随着社交媒体平台的普遍崛起——从Instagram到微信到Snapchat等等，短信正在迅速超越电话，成为21世纪的沟通方式。
There are several reasons for this. For those of us with friends and families scattered across the globe, asynchronous communication is often a necessity. When I need to share a thought with someone who is more than likely sleeping the sleep of the just, I can just fling them a text. It also allows the socially anxious of us to pause and compose our thoughts before responding. There’s a paper trail, helpful for the forgetful of us; what time was the lunch? When are we supposed to meet? Where is the place anyway? All of this info is helpfully stored in your chat history.
这有几个原因。 对于我们这些有朋友和家人分散在世界各地的人来说，异步沟通通常是必要的。 当我需要与一个很可能正在睡觉的人分享一个想法时，我可以给他们发短信。 它还允许我们社交焦虑的人在回应之前暂停并思考。 有一份紙質記錄，對我們健忘的人很有幫助；午餐是幾點？ 我们应该什么时候见面？ 这个地方到底在哪里？ 所有这些信息都保存在您的聊天记录中。
I also have a long and varied text history with myself, almost like an external memory disc, where I store the names of books or series or movies or anything at all that I know will skitter out of my short-term memory as soon as I blink.
我自己也有漫长而多样的文本历史，几乎就像一个外部记忆光盘，在那里我存储书籍、系列或电影的名称，或者任何我知道只要我眨眼就会从我的短期记忆中消失的东西。
Another possible reason for the rise of the text is that for some folx, the mere thought of talking via phone call is repugnant. Without the non-verbal cues that punctuate face to face conversations, and the horror that is unintentional cross talk, phone calls become arduous acts of torture. Closely related to this is the arena of “things you can only do by phone”, such as, ironically, sorting out issues with your SIM card, or certain bank and credit card trials and tribulations. The emotive response to such ordeals has sullied the entire process forever for some.
文本兴起的另一个可能原因是，对一些folx来说，通过电话交谈的想法是令人厌恶的。 如果没有面对面对话的非语言线索，以及无意的交叉对话的恐怖，电话就会变成艰苦的酷刑行为。 与此密切相关的是“你只能通过电话做的事情”的领域，例如，具有讽刺意味的是，解决您的SIM卡问题，或某些银行和信用卡的审判和磨难。 对一些人来说，对这种磨难的情感反应使整个过程永远玷污了。
This movement from speech to text seems then, to be cyclical for us as a species.
那么，对于我们这个物种来说，这种从语音到文本的运动似乎是周期性的。
The bursts of air shooting through the vocal-chords, from a very basic growl of dislike or disapproval, to grunts, clicks and hoots, to come-hither coos served as a proto means by which to make announcements during the hominin’s pre-history.
从非常基本的厌恶或不赞成的咆哮，到咕哝声、咔嗒声和嘶嘶声，再到呼喊声，在人前史前是宣布的原型手段。
And then, someone thought, “We can do better than that”, and around the world, language emerged.
然后，有人想，“我们可以做得更好”，在世界各地，语言出现了。
But so thorny has the debate been about the emergence of the spoken word as a means of communication, the Linguistic Society of Paris banned all talk of it in 1866, a prohibition that held strong until late into the 20th century.
但关于口语作为一种交流手段的辩论是如此棘手，巴黎语言学会在1866年禁止所有谈论它，这一禁令一直持续到20世纪末。
Tentatively, scholars began to re-engage with the gradual emergence of proto language in the 1970’s, in a low key way. Conventional linguists would have you believe our early ancestors meekly evolved the ability to communicate over millions of years, piece by bureaucratic piece. Having raised toddlers, I am pretty certain the first word spoken collectively was “No!”.
暂定地，学者们开始以低调的方式重新参与20世纪70年代原始语言的逐渐出现。 传统的语言学家会让你相信，我们早期的祖先在数百万年里温顺地进化出了沟通能力，一件件官僚主义。 在抚养幼儿后，我很确定集体说的第一个词是“不！”。
Alas, 1.8 million years back when old’ Homo erectus was living his best day, every day, there were no means by which to record announcements of any sort.
唉，180万年前，当古老的直立人正过着他最好的一天时，每天都没有办法记录任何形式的公告。
So we do not know, and possibly will never know the first recorded announcement of our fledgling species. Perhaps the cave drawings that can be found around the globe were the first visual symbols used to announce important happenings; “There are 25 mammoths over that big hill up yonder”.
因此，我们不知道，可能永远不会知道我们新生物种的第一个记录公告。 也许可以在全球范围内找到的洞穴绘画是第一个用于宣布重要事件的视觉符号；“那边那座大山上有25头猛獁象”。
In any case, once the earliest hominins cracked it, there was no going back. Homo Sapiens, with their larger brains and infinitely more suave larynxes took language to a meta level. Not only could we now move beyond a charades-style basic needs communication, we could begin to make announcements; in the moment, nuanced, complex and ambiguous.
无论如何，一旦最早的人破解了它，就再也回不去了。 智人拥有更大的大脑和无限温和的喉部，将语言提升到了元水平。 我们现在不仅可以超越杂难式的基本需求沟通，还可以开始发布公告；在当下，细微差别、复杂和模棱两可。
Not much has changed, then. Here, 15,000 generations later, we are once again communicating via memes and emojis and living our best day every day.
那么，没有什么变化。 在这里，15000代人之后，我们再次通过模因和表情符号进行交流，每天都过着最好的一天。
What will be the next big wave in the announcement preferences of our global peers? Will texting one day go the way of the phone? I can’t wait to find out.
在我们全球同行的公告偏好中，下一个大浪潮会是什么？ 有一天，发短信会走电话的路吗？ 我迫不及待地想知道。