VK Neelarao blows the dust off a DVD before putting it in his television’s disc reader. The title song of his latest film plays from the rooftop of his home in Jai Hindpuram, in the southern Indian city of Madurai. “I sang this song myself,” he says. “And the hero of the film is my son.”
VK Neelarao将DVD上的灰尘吹掉，放进影碟机。电影主题曲冉冉响起，从他位于马杜赖市（印度南部城市）Jai Hindpuram的屋子里飘出。这是他最新的电影作品，他说，“这首主题曲是我自己唱的……我儿子出演了电影男主角。”
Neelarao, a retired silk-weaver and magazine editor, is one of the last guardians of the fast-vanishing Saurashtrian language, a mostly oral Indo-Aryan tongue. “Around 80% of the language has been forgotten already,” he says. “My grandchildren don’t understand me when I speak Saurashtrian. My family, everyone around me speaks Tamil,” he adds, referring to the dominant language of Madurai. “I fear that soon they will turn me into a Tamilian.”
退休丝绸织工、杂志编辑Neelarao是索拉什特拉语余数不多的捍卫者之一，该语言属于印度-雅利安诸语，几乎只靠口头传播，目前正在迅速消失。他说，“已经有80%的语言被人们遗忘了”。他补充说，“我讲索拉什特拉语时，孙子孙女们都听不懂。家人、周围的人说的都是泰米尔语……我怕不久后，他们会把我变成只会讲泰米尔语的人。”泰米尔语目前是马杜赖地区的主要用语。
In an attempt to save the language, Neelarao and others are capturing it on camera in films that are generally homemade and self-financed. Last year his work Hedde Jomai made waves after screening in several cities. In the next few months his latest film will be shown in cinemas around the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
为了挽救索拉什特拉语，Neelarao和其他人用摄像机捕捉该语言，制作成电影，一般是自费自制。去年，他的作品《笨蛋女婿》（Hedde Jomai）在数个城市上映后引起了不小的轰动。未来几个月内，Neelarao的最新电影将在泰米尔纳德邦南部的各大影院上映。
Over the opening credits at an early screening, Neelarao explains how his idea came about. “I didn’t make this film to become famous,” he says. “Our language is nearing extinction. It is my mother tongue. I can’t give you a reason why I love it.”
Neelarao在电影的片头字幕中解释了他拍摄电影的初衷：“我拍电影不是为了出名……我们的语言濒临绝迹。它是我的母语。我对母语的热爱无以言表。”
Neelarao sees his films as a last chance to save his language. “Many people had started using the Tamil word maupillay for son-in-law, but after watching my first film they know the Saurashtrian word is jomai,” he says.
在泰米尔纳德邦，采用达罗毗荼诸语（包括泰米尔语、泰卢谷语、马拉亚兰语）拍摄的电影比用印度语拍摄的宝莱坞电影还受欢迎。
Neelarao将他拍摄的电影视为索拉什特拉语的救命稻草。他说道，“很多人在说‘女婿’时都开始用泰米尔语中的‘maupillay’，但看完我的第一部电影后，他们就知道‘女婿’在索拉什特拉语中叫‘jomai’。”
CS Krishnamoorthy, a community historian, traces Saurashtrian origins to the Harappan civilisation in his book The Migrant Silk Weavers of Tamil Nadu. “When the British colonisers conducted their census of India, they saw that we were silk weavers, and so they labelled our community as being from Surat, which was a textile hub at the time,” he says. “But that was wrong.”
社区历史学家CS Krishnamoorthy在其著作《泰米尔纳德邦的流动丝绸织工》(The Migrant Silk Weavers of Tamil Nadu)中，追根溯源，考证出索拉什特拉语起源于哈拉帕文明。他说道，“英国殖民者在普查印度人口时，看到我们都是丝绸织工，就把我们一族归为苏拉特的一支，苏拉特是当时的纺织中心……但实际上并非如此。”
The palkars, or silk-thread people, were an elite caste known traditionally for producing the finest materials for India’s maharajas and nawabs. Their craft was considered so noble and complex that they were sometimes traded as part of marriage dowries or as gifts to neighbouring kingdoms.
丝线人（palkar）是一类精英种姓，一向以为印度王公、纳瓦布制造上等丝绸面料著称，手艺精湛复杂，因此其作品时常被当成嫁妆、或是作为馈赠邻邦的礼物。
Krishnamoorthy says the rise of the British raj in India saw the downfall of their craft. “The British crushed the Indian nobility, which made up most of our clientele. Instead they started exporting Indian cotton to Manchester for their new textile industry. They never cared for fine silks, and so our craft was ruined. Many silk weavers started to work in the cotton industry instead.”
Krishnamoorthy认为，英国逐渐统治印度时，也见证了这一手艺的衰败。“英国人摧毁了贵族阶层，贵族是我们的主要顾客。英国人转而开始出口印度棉花到曼彻斯特，服务于其新兴纺织业。他们从不关心上等丝绸，因而毁了我们的手艺。大量丝绸织工开始转而在棉纺业工作。”
With the rise of the Indian independence movement in the early 1900s, an effort to unite India’s diverse cultures under a single national language, Hindi, emerged in the north, and the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerela and Andhra Pradesh responded by enforcing their own regional Dravidian languages.
20世纪90年代早期，随着印度独立运动兴起，印度北部试图将印度的丰富文化统一于单一的国语——印地语之下，而南部的泰米尔纳德邦、喀拉拉邦及安得拉邦对此的反应是，巩固本地方言达罗毗荼诸语的地位。
The battle for linguistic dominance, coupled with the rise of inter-caste marriage in newly independent India, saw many unique ancient customs give way to a new national identity. Now a new emphasis on learning English in globalised India is adding to that trend, and the result is the disappearance of 220 Indian languages in the last 50 years, the highest rate of linguistic extinction in the world.
当时印度刚刚独立，南北方言争夺主导地位，跨种姓婚姻蔚然兴起，大量独特古老的习俗被崭新的民族特性所取代。而如今的印度正值全球化阶段，对学习英语的新近重视，令不断凋零的方言雪上加霜，使印度出现了全球最高的语言消亡率，在过去50年里绝迹了220种印度语言。
The Saurashtrians, however, are fighting back. Music and magazines have been produced, as well as films, in an attempt to prevent the language’s disappearance. The fact that the community has remained somewhat isolated from other cultures, and has a vibrant tradition of song and poetry of its own, has resulted in the tongue being passed down almost intact. “We have been accustomed to keeping ourselves aloof,” Krishnamoorthy says.
然而，索拉什特拉人正在奋力反击，纷纷制作音乐、杂志及电影，试图阻止其语言消失。事实上，索拉什特拉族人还是多少与其它文化有所疏离，其歌曲、诗歌传统极富生机，因此该索拉什特拉语得以近乎完好地世代相传。Krishnamoorthy说道，“我们习惯了与世隔绝的生活。”
Social media has also helped. The Saurashtrian people have started sharing films and music videos online. Neelarao, who comes from a simpler time, dusts off the DVD again before replacing it in its jacket. “I’m not sure it will make a difference,” he says. “But I feel it is my duty to go on.”
社交媒体也发挥了很大的作用。索拉什特拉人已经开始在网上分享电影及音乐视频了。Neelarao生在一个相对简单的年代，他又擦了一遍DVD，才放回DVD壳里。他说道，“我不确定这么做到底有没有意义……但我觉得继续前行是自己的职责所在。”
编译：尤晓珊，福建师范大学外国语学院翻硕
审校&编辑：齐磊
来源： 卫报
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