狗是怎样成为人类朋友的?

狗是怎样成为人类朋友的？

2015-12-25 Annie 英文悦读

家犬起源于33000年前的灰狼，但在这过程中究竟发生了什么却尚不可知。最近，科学家们对狗DNA的研究解开了这一进化历程的神秘面纱。

（“不以小词”而不学，文中一些“熟词辟义”的现象值得注意，比如说action, family等）

译者按：翻译没有标准答案，此篇乃抛砖引玉之作。文中标红的三词为存疑之处。问题反馈请发至邮箱：[email protected]

Genetics

遗传学

Dog DNA study reveals the incredible journey of man's best friend

狗DNA的研究揭示人类挚友的传奇之旅

Descended from the grey wolf, domesticated dogs have been companions to humans for about 33,000 years, a genetic study has shown

一项遗传学研究表明，家犬是灰狼的后裔，已与人类结伴约33000年

The Siberian husky was one of the specimens of selective breeding included in the study. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

西伯利亚的哈士奇是该研究中选育品种之一。 图片：Andrew Milligan/PA

Tim Radford

Tuesday 15 December 2015

1

Man’s proverbial first best friend was probably a grey wolf that may have made contact with the first human companions about 33,000 years ago, somewhere in south-east Asia.

人类首位众所周知的挚友很可能是一只灰狼。这只灰狼大约于33000年前在东南亚某处接触到其第一批人类伙伴。

2

About 15,000 years ago, a small pack of domesticated dogs began trotting towards the Middle East and Africa. Canis lupus familiaris[1] made it to Europe about 10,000 years ago, and when civilisation began in the Fertile Crescent, and humans began to build farmsteads and villages with walls, dogs were already there to help keep guard, herd the first flocks, and demand to be taken for a walk.

约15000年前，一小群被驯化过的狗开始奔向中东和非洲。约10000年前，犬类前往欧洲。而且当新月沃地上的文明开始萌芽和人类开始修建农庄、筑墙建村时，已有狗帮人类看家护

院、外出放牧以及央求主人带它们去散步了。

译者注：在亚洲西部，有一条弧形狭长地带，犹如一弯新月，人称 “新月沃地”。其东部，并行奔流着幼发拉底河和底格里斯河，是两河文明的发源地（来自百度百科）

译者疑：Canis lupus familiaris是个学名，应该有固定译法，而非只泛译译为“犬类”。但本人暂未找到其固定翻译。

3

The details of the story – the characters, the action and the precise locations – are unknowable. But the outlines of the great adventure are written in DNA.

这一故事的细节（角色、情节、确切地点）无从考证。但DNA已记载了这一伟大冒险的大致内容。

4

Scientists from China, Canada, Finland, Singapore, Sweden and the US report in the journal Cell Research that they compared the genomes, or genetic inheritances, of 58 canids. These included 12 grey wolves, 12 indigenous dogs from the north Chinese countryside, 11 from south-east Asia, four village dogs from Nigeria and 19 specimens of selective breeding from Asia, Europe and the Americas, including the Afghan hound, the Siberian husky, the Tibetan mastiff, the chihuahua and the German shepherd.

来自中国、加拿大、芬兰、新加坡、瑞典和美国的科学家在《细胞研究》期刊中发文称，他们对比了58只犬属动物的基因组，即基因遗传。当中包括12只灰狼，12只中国北方乡村土狗，11只东南亚土狗，4只尼日利亚村狗和19只来自亚洲、欧洲和美国的选育样本，包括阿富汗猎犬，西伯利亚哈士奇、藏獒、吉娃娃和德国牧羊犬。

译者注：canid: any of various widely distributed carnivorous mammals o f the family Canidae, which includes the foxes, wolves, dogs, jackals, and coyotes.(American Heritage Dictionary)

5

Because each genome is a text copied (with regular misspellings, or mutations) through the generations, and every genome is related to every other genome, any comparison begins to tell a story of family connections and separations long ago. The more “texts” that can be compared, the more certain the story they start to tell.

每个基因组都是一个世代复制的文本（当中有规则的误拼和突变的），而每个基因组都与其它基因组相关，每一组基因比对都揭示犬科间联系与分离的久远历史。所以，可供对比的“文本”越多，我们从中解读的信息就越可靠。

译者疑：regular有“规律的”、“惯常的“、”频繁的“等多种意思，由于本人缺乏生物学的

相关知识，不是很确定此词的意思。

6

“After evolving for several thousand years in east Asia, a subgroup of dogs radiated out of southern East Asia about 15,000 years ago to the Middle East, Africa as well as Europe. One of these out-of-Asia lineages then migrated back to northern China and made a series of admixtures with endemic east Asian lineages, before travelling to the Americas,” the scientists say.

“一小群狗在东亚进化了几千年后，它们的足迹由东南亚散布到中东、非洲和欧洲。其中一支走出亚洲后重返中国北方并和亚洲特有的一些品种杂交进行一系列杂交，而后前往美国。“科学家说道。

7

“Our study, for the first time, reveals the extraordinary journey that the domestic dog has travelled on this planet during the past 33,000 years.”

“我们的研究首次揭示了家犬在过去33,000年中传奇的环球之旅。”

8

The grey wolf connection has been made before, along with the link with East Asia. The scientists, led by Guo-Dong Wang, a molecular biologist at the Kunming Institute of Zoology, have once more confirmed it. The indigenous Chinese dogs revealed closer links to their wolf ancestors, and retained the greatest genetic variety, another indicator that the domestic canine began somewhere in East Asia. The modern European specialist breeds showed less genetic diversity, suggesting that they descended from a subset of the first dogs, and the DNA of village dogs of Africa showed even less diversity, implying that they owed their origins to an even smaller set of ·migrant ancestors.

之前在发现狗与灰狼的联系的同时，也发现了狗与东亚的联系。由中科院昆明动物研究所的分子生物学家王国栋领导的一群科学家再次证实了这一点。中国土狗揭示了狗与它们的狼祖先之间的联系更为紧密，同时它们还保有最大的基因多样性----再次证明家犬的祖先生活在东亚。现代欧洲特有品种的基因多样性则少得多，这表明它们起源于世上第一群狗的一个小分支。非洲村狗的基因多样性则更少，说明它们的祖先属于原始迁徙犬群的更小的旁系分支。

译者疑：specialist一词在字典上找不到合适的意思，故根据文意译为“特有的“。

9

But the same genetic evidence suggests that at least some dogs from Europe and western Asia may have travelled back into China to interbreed, complicating the story. The ancestral dog and wolf may have continued to interbreed for a while, but the scientists are confident enough of

their findings not only to put a date for the emergence of what became the domestic dog – around 33,000 years ago – but even to guess at an original or founder population of about 4,600 individuals.

但相同的遗传学证据表明至少有些来自欧洲和西亚的狗曾重返中国进行杂交繁殖，这使情况更复杂了。狗的祖先与狼的祖先可能持续杂交了一段时间，但科学家们对他们的发现足够自信，相信凭借这些发现，不仅能确定家犬出现的日期（约33000年前），甚至可以猜测最初的或者说创始的犬群数量大概是4600只。”

10

Whether these joined forces with Ice Age human hunter gatherers, or whether they stayed as wild as the wolves, scavenging on human kills, and subsequently joined up with human companions as part of the civilisation package about 15,000 years ago on the journey to the west, is still uncertain.

它们是否与冰河世纪游猎采集的人群合作？或者它们是否保持狼的野性，食用人类饕餮猎物后的残羹，继而联合它们的人类同伴于15000年前迁往西部，构成文明的一部分？这都尚未确定。

11

“Our study, for the first time, begins to reveal a large and complex landscape upon which a cascade of positive selective sweeps[2] occurred during the domestication of dogs,” the scientists write. “The domestic dog represents one of the most beautiful genetic sculptures shaped by nature and man.”

“我们的研究首次揭示了一个壮大而复杂的生物学图景。当中浮现的，是驯狗过程中一连串的正向选择性清除。“科学家们写道。”家犬是自然和人类共同塑造的最美的基因雕像之一。”

译者： Annie ，校对：欣婷，圣凌

排版：小明

词 汇

1.be descended from sb: to be related to sb who lived a long time ago

eg: He claims to be descended from a Spanish prince.

2.breeding: [u] the keeping of animals in order to breed from them

eg: the breeding of horse

keep sth: to own and care for animals

eg: to keep bees/goats/ hens

1

1.proverbial:[only before noun] well known and talked about by a lot of people (syn: famous) eg: Their hospitality is proverbial.

His mastery of the French language was proverbial.

2

1.pack:[c+sing. or pl. verb] a group of animals that hunt together or are kept for hunting eg: packs of savage dogs

wolves hunting in packs

a pack of hounds 一群猎犬

2.domesticated :(of wild animal) used to living with or working for humans

eg: These animals are only partly domesticated.

domesticated elephants

3.trot(-tt-)+adv./prep.: (of a person or an animal) to run or walk fast, taking short quick steps小步快跑、快步急行

eg: The children trotted into the room.

4.make it: to reach a particular place, goal,etc.

eg: The ship made it to the port.

You’ll never make it that far.

The climbers finally made it to the top of the mountain.(Merriam-Webster Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)

5.Fertile Crescent: 新月沃地（中东的一个新月形的沃土地区，从地中海东岸经底格里斯河和幼发拉底河流域眼神至波斯湾；是新石器时代农业【始于公元前1700年】发展中心，亚述文明、苏美尔文明和巴比伦文明的摇篮）(Oxford Dictionary of Englsih)

6.farmstead: (NAmE or formal) a farmhouse and the buildings near it（American Heritage Dictionary）

7.herb sth: to make animals move together as a group

eg: a shepherd herding his flock.

8.flock: (of sth) （羊或鸟）群

3

1.action: [u] the events in a story, play, etc.（故事、戏剧等中的）情节

eg: The action takes place in France.

4

1.genome:基因组

eg: the human genome

2.canid: Zoology a mammal of the dog family(Canidae)犬属哺乳动物《新牛津英汉双解大词典》 ：any of various widely distributed carnivorous mammals o f the family Canidae, which includes the foxes, wolves, dogs, jackals, and coyotes.(American Heritage Dictionary)

3.indigenous:本地的、土生土长的 （syn: native）

eg: the indigenous peoples/languages of the area

4.breeding: [u]the keeping of animals in order to breed from them

eg: the breeding season

5.mastiff:a large strong dog with short hair, often used to guard buildings獒

6.German shepherd:德国牧羊犬

5

1.copy sth: (from sth)(into/onto sth) 抄写、誊写

2.mutation: [u,c] a change in the form or structure of sth

3.family:[Biology] a principal taxonomic category that ranks above genue and below other, usually ending in –idea(in zoology) or –aceae(in botany) 【生】科《新牛津英汉双解大词典》 6

1.subgroup: a smaller group made up of members of a larger group

2.radiate +adv./prep. :(of lines, etc.) to spread out in all directions from a central point

eg：Five roads radiate from the square.

The pain started in my stomach and radiated all over my body.

3.lineage:[u,c] (formal) the series of familes that sb comes from originally 世系、宗系、家系、血统

4.admixture:something, especially a small amount of sth, that is mixed with sth else

5.endemic:regularly found in a particular place or among a particular group of people and difficult to get rid of

~(to „)

eg: species endemic to (=only found in) Madagascar

the endemic problem of racism

8

1.Institute of Zoology: 动物研究所

2.retain (rather formal)~sth: to keep sth; to continue to have sth

eg: to retain you independence

He struggled to retain control of the situation

The house retains much of its original charm.

She retained her tennis title for the third year.

3.canine:（formal） a dog

9

1.interbreed:[intransitive, transitive] interbreed (something) (with something) if animals from different species interbreed, or somebody interbreeds them, they produce young together 试译：杂交

11

1.cascade:a succession of stages, processes, operations or unites(American Heritage Dictionary)

背景知识

[1]Canis lupus familiaris or Canis familiaris:The domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris or Canis familiaris) is a domesticated canid which has been selectively bred for millennia for various behaviors, sensory capabilities, and physical attributes.[2](wikipedia)

[2] Selective sweep :DNA of a mutation as the result of recent and strong positive natural selection. A selective sweep can occur when a new mutation occurs that increases(Wikipedia) 选择性清除(selective sweep)：指由于最近的较强的正向自然选择，一个突变位点相邻DNA上的核苷酸之间的差异下降或消除。当一个新的突变产生，使个体相对于其他群体成员的适应性增加，就可能产生选择性清除。自然选择有利于适应性强的个体生存，随着时间的推移，新突变的等位基因频率逐渐增加。随着增加变的越来越多，中性遗传变异与新的突变连锁遗传越来越多。基因组上的选择性清除区域逐渐形成正选择的单体型。使这一段区域的遗传变异大量减少（百度百科）

[3]：生物分类学是研究生物分类的方法和原理的生物学分支。分类就是遵循分类学原理和方法，对生物的各种类群进行命名和等级划分。瑞典生物学家林奈将生物命名后，而后的生物学家才用域、界（Kingdom）、门（Phylum）、纲（Class）、目（Order）、科（Family）、属（Genus）、种（Species）加以分类。

最上层的界，由怀塔克所提出的五界，比较多人接受，分别为原核生物界、原生生物界、菌物界、植物界以及动物界。 从最上层的“界”开始到“种”，愈往下层则被归属的生物之间特征愈相近。

句子分析

1.Canis lupus familiaris made it to Europe about 10,000 years ago, //and when civilisation began in the Fertile Crescent, and humans began to build farmsteads and villages with walls, /dogs were already there to help keep guard, herd the first flocks, and demand to be taken for a walk.

注意：//前后两大块是两个并列结构，是本句的最大结构。//后是个状语从句。/前的是后是状语从句的从句部分（从句部分由两个并列句组成）。/后是状语从句的主句部分。

整句应理解为：约15000年前，一小群被驯化过的狗开始奔向中东和非洲。约10000年前，犬属狼种家犬亚种前往欧洲。而且当新月沃地上的文明开始萌芽和人类开始修建农庄、筑墙建村时，狗已经准备好帮人类看家、放牧并要求人类带它们去散步了。

若不注意划分句子成分，可能会理解为：约15000年前，一小群被驯化过的狗开始奔向中东和非洲。约10000年前，犬属狼种家犬亚种前往欧洲。当时新月沃地上的文明开始萌芽，人类开始修建农庄，村庄四周高墙竖起，狗已经准备好帮人类看守、放牧并要求人类带它们去散步。

这种理解不仅不合英文原文的语法，而且还不合逻辑。

试看“新月沃地”的简介：Fertile Crescent 新月沃地（中东的一个新月形的沃土地区，从地中海东岸经底格里斯河和幼发拉底河流域眼神至波斯湾；是新石器时代农业【始于公元前1700年】发展中心，亚述文明、苏美尔文明和巴比伦文明的摇篮）(Oxford Dictionary of Englsih)

苏美尔文明Sumer (/ˈsuːmər/)[note 1] was one of the ancient civilizations and historical regions in southern Mesopotamia, modern-day southern Iraq, during the Chalcolithic and the Early Bronze ages. Although the earliest specimens of writing in the region do not go back much further than c. 2500 BC, modern historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently settled between c. 5500 and 4000 BC by a non-Semitic people who spoke the Sumerian language (pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic occupations, etc., as evidence). (wikipedia)

由上所述，可知新月沃地文明的萌芽是晚于这些狗的迁徙的。

2.The more “texts” that can be compared, the more certain the story they start to tell.

注意：这个句子的后半句和通常的the more„the more结构的句子不同。

试看《牛津高阶》中一例句：

The more she thought about it, the more depressed（表） she（主） became（系）.

再看原文的句子结构：The more “texts” that can be compared, the more certain（表） the story（ they start to tell）（主）.

原句的谓语省略了，补全之后是以下这样的：

The more „, the more certain（表） the story（ they start to tell）（主）can be（系）

3. but the scientists are confident enough of their findings not only to put a date for the emergence of what became the domestic dog – around 33,000 years ago – but even to guess at an original or founder population of about 4,600 individuals.

，但科学家们对他们的发现足够自信，相信凭借这些发现，不仅能确定家犬出现的日期（约33000年前），甚至可以猜测最初的或者说创始的犬群数量大概是4600只。”

注意：to guess at an original or founder population of about 4,600 individuals.字面上是“对有4600个individual的population进行猜测”的意思。但实际上是指“猜测该population里有4600个individual。

4.Whether these joined forces with Ice Age human hunter gatherers, or whether they stayed as wild as the wolves, scavenging on human kills,

注意：scavenging on human kills字面上是“食用人类的猎物“。但照此直译会有人类专门打猎喂狗的歧义。这不合逻辑。应该是人类食用完猎物后拿残渣喂狗才对。故增译为“食用人类饕餮猎物后的残羹”。

文章结构

1-2段：狗起源于33000年前

第3段： DNA记载了狗迁徙、进化历程

4-6段：多国科学家对比犬属基因组

7-9段：“我们”的研究揭示了33000年的进化历程

第10段：“我们”的研究尚未确定的问题

第11段：“我们”的研究揭示了33000年的进化历程

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