四川 蒋建平（特级教师）

“Sheng”是非洲的一种新语言，它结合了现代的需要和当地部落的语言，有助于缓和紧张局势，使以前接受着不同语言和文化教育的不同地区的年轻人走到一起。

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1 A new African language is helping to reduce tensions and bring young people together in certain areas. And academics are so impressed by the language's potential that a social media platform promoting it will form the subject of a major presentation at this year's eLearning Africa, the continent's leading conference on technology-assisted learning, training and development.

2 The language, Sheng, combines Kiswahili, English and a number of Kenyan tribal words, along with a little of Arabic, Hindi, French, German, Spanish and Italian. It was born on the streets of Nairobi.

3 Now as a society in Kenya, Go Sheng, is helping to celebrate and promote the language, which is almost generally used by young people so much that it has become the first language of many young Kenyans in urban areas.

4 The society provides a platform for social dialogues of the language's growing numbers of speakers. In doing so, it is giving voice to a powerful alternative culture in Kenya and celebrating the many tribal languages that contribute to Sheng.

5 Go Sheng uses a variety of different means to grow Sheng language and culture. Its most significant achievement, to date, has been the development of a Sheng dictionary, which contains over 3,900 words and continues to grow rapidly. It functions as a socially driven resource, where registered members can add words or phrases which then get voted for by other members, before being accepted as authentic. Go Sheng also runs a website and various social media channels, which have an online community of around 15,000 active participants.

Reading Check

Choose the best answers according to the text.

Language Study

Memorize some text-centered chunks

reduce tensions 减少紧张局势

bring...together 使……（团结）在一起

be impressed by 对……印象深刻

along with 与……一起

provide...for 为……提供……

in turn 反过来

a variety of 多种多样的

to date 迄今为止

function as 发挥着……的功能

Cutural Background

两种神奇的语言

口哨语言——加那利群岛中拉戈梅拉岛的土著居民使用这种语言来进行交流。 这种语言有一个“字母表”，仅仅有两到四个元音和四个辅音，并且用口哨的形式将它们连接起来。

宇宙语言——这是一种科学家发明的语言，其目的是和外星人交流。 在1960年，荷兰学者Hans Freudenthal提出了一套宇宙语言的设计方案，他认为通过此规则和代码表达出的句子，任何可能的智慧外星生命都能理解。 Freudenthal认为这本书应该很容易被人类理解，即使是不熟悉地球上任何语法或语言的人。