如果有人说，地球上保留几十种至多几百种动物就足够了，其他的物种可以任意捕杀，或坐视它们随着生存圈被人类蚕食而渐渐消亡，有良知的人们一定不会同意。

　　Men of conscience do not condone the notion that animals can be hunted and killed at will provided a few dozen species are kept, or a few hundred at the most. Nor do they watch with folded arms when animals are left to die out after losing their fair share of living space to mankind.

　　但与此同时，人类虽然没有明言他要杀死小语种和方言，但在行动上似乎只准备保留几十个大语种，甚至越来越集中在几个大语种的使用上，并且是如此坦然地帮助和促进大语种对小语种的吞噬。

　　Paradoxically, human beings are behaving as if they were prepared to keep only a few dozen majority languages, even though they do not profess to get rid of minority languages and dialects. They have gone so far as to limit their use of languages to a few major ones, and have no qualms about literally helping majority languages lick up minority ones.

　　为什么要保护物种和语种？首先在于权利。每一物种都有在地球上生存的权利，每一个小民族都有使用祖先传递给他们的语言的权利，那几乎是他们最重要的特征。其次，这种保护对其他物种，对其他人，对全人类都有好处。文化储藏和积淀在语言中。人类文化的多样性储藏在其多样的语种中。一个强健的生态系必然是多样的，反过来这种多样性又可以帮助它适应和安渡环境的变迁。正如同一个愚钝的村妇宁愿牺牲一点便利，也会拒绝将她的全部鸡蛋放在一个篮子里。

　　Why should animal species and languages be protected? Because, firstly, their right is at stake. Every species has the right to survival. Every minority community is entitled to use the language it has inherited from its ancestors, in many cases as the singular emblem of its ethnic identity. Secondly, protecting species is as conducive to wildlife and mankind as safeguarding dialects is to languages. Cultures are reposed and accumulated in languages. Cultural diversity entails linguistic diversity. A sound ecosystem is predicated on diversity, and diversity offers the ecosystem alternatives to adapt itself to the changing environment in very much the same way as a country woman chooses not to put all her eggs in one single basket, even if it makes things a little inconvenient for her.

　　据说爱斯基摩人有上千种关于雪的词汇，蒙古语中有无数关于牛马羊的词汇，阿拉伯语中有无数关于骆驼的词汇。韩少功在一篇文章中说，他在海南的农贸集市上问一位鱼贩，他卖的是什么鱼，鱼贩一言蔽之：鱼。韩最初以为人家语言贫乏，后来才知道，人家知道上百种鱼的称呼，只是用普通话没法对你讲。这些称呼自然只是最表面的价值，其下面的深不可测的文化含量是我们无法估量的。

　　It is said that the Eskimo have over a thousand words for snow. The Mongolia language has a boundless vocabulary when it comes to cattle, horses and sheep. And Arabic contains countless words and phrases about the camel. The author Han Shaogong wrote that during a visit to a rural fair in Hainan Province, he asked a fish seller what kind of fish he was selling. The answer came in just one word, fish. Han was unimpressed by the seller’s scanty vocabulary, only to find out that the man could actually reel off at least a hundred fish names in his own dialect but could not recount them in Mandarin. On the surface, those fish names are nothing but a bunch of face values, but their cultural connotations can run so deep as to baffle us outsiders.

　　中国的方言之多当居世界之最。道理很简单。广大的地域中的社会历史生活必然形成多种语言。“方块字”与世界历史上罕见的帝国政治及其“书同文”的政策，框定了其疆域内语言变异的限度。其特征是一个语种，诸多方言。各区域独特的文化便储藏在这无数支方言中。四川文化与四川方言，苏州文化与苏州方言，等等，都是交织在一起，互为表里，共存共荣的。如果有一天方言消失了，该地文化中的诸多内容都将随之流逝。

　　No nation in this world boasts as many dialects as China, for the simple reason that the immense social and historical metamorphosis on its vast territory is bound to yield a cornucopia of dialects. The Chinese ideographs, along with a unified written language mandate that was part of a rare brand of imperial politics in world history, circumscribed the changes in Chinese, which is characterized by the presence of numerous dialects under the framework of the same written language. The culture and dialect of that region interact, complement, and cannot do without each other for survival and development. This is the case with Sichuan, Suzhou, or any other localities. If a dialect vanishes someday, a substantial part of what is contained in the local culture will be gone with it.