Isabella Birdの "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan" を読んでいます。彼女が旅をしたのは、何せ江戸時代が終わってまだ十年たっただけなので、英語を片言でも話せる人間を探すのは容易ではなかったと想像できます。旅をするにあたって、通訳選びをしている個所から引用します。
Several of my kind new acquaintances interested themselves about the (to me) vital matter of a servant interpreter, and many Japanese came to "see after the place." The speaking of intelligible English is a sine qua non, and it was wonderful to find the few words badly pronounced and worse put together, which were regarded by the candidates as a sufficient qualification. Can you speak English? "Yes." What wages do you ask? "Twelve dollars a month." This was always said glibly, and in each case sounded hopeful. Whom have you lived with? A foreign name distorted out of all recognition, as was natural, was then given.
この後に三人の候補との面談の話があって、決めかかるのですが、最後に18歳の若い男が出てきて、一番優秀かと思ったらそうでもなく...
This would-be paragon had no reommendations, and accounted for this by saying that they had been burned in a recent fire in his father's house. Mr. Marie was not forthcoming, and more than this, I suspected and disliked the boy. However, he understood my English and I his, being very anxious to begin my travels, I engaged his for twelve dollars a month, and soon afterwords he came back with a contract, in which he declares by all that he holds most sacred that he will serve me faithfully for the wages agreed upon, and to this document he affixed his seal and I my name. The next day he asked me for a month's wages in advance, which I gave him, but Dr. H. consolingly suggested that I should never see him agai!
しかし、結局このItoと呼ばれる18歳の青年が通訳として選ばれました。
ラテン語らしき "sine qua non" は前にもどこかで見たことがありますが、忘れているので調べ直します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: An essential condition; a thing that is absolutely necessary.: grammar and usage are the sine qua non of language teaching and learning
・Collins Dictionary: A sine qua non is something that is essential if you want to achieve a particular thing.: Successful agricultural reform is also a sine qua non of Mexico's modernisation. [
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a necessary condition without which something is not possible: An interest in children is a sine qua non of teaching.
Several of my kind new acquaintances interested themselves about the (to me) vital matter of a servant interpreter, and many Japanese came to "see after the place." The speaking of intelligible English is a sine qua non, and it was wonderful to find the few words badly pronounced and worse put together, which were regarded by the candidates as a sufficient qualification. Can you speak English? "Yes." What wages do you ask? "Twelve dollars a month." This was always said glibly, and in each case sounded hopeful. Whom have you lived with? A foreign name distorted out of all recognition, as was natural, was then given.
この後に三人の候補との面談の話があって、決めかかるのですが、最後に18歳の若い男が出てきて、一番優秀かと思ったらそうでもなく...
This would-be paragon had no reommendations, and accounted for this by saying that they had been burned in a recent fire in his father's house. Mr. Marie was not forthcoming, and more than this, I suspected and disliked the boy. However, he understood my English and I his, being very anxious to begin my travels, I engaged his for twelve dollars a month, and soon afterwords he came back with a contract, in which he declares by all that he holds most sacred that he will serve me faithfully for the wages agreed upon, and to this document he affixed his seal and I my name. The next day he asked me for a month's wages in advance, which I gave him, but Dr. H. consolingly suggested that I should never see him agai!
しかし、結局このItoと呼ばれる18歳の青年が通訳として選ばれました。
ラテン語らしき "sine qua non" は前にもどこかで見たことがありますが、忘れているので調べ直します。
・Oxford English Dictionary: An essential condition; a thing that is absolutely necessary.: grammar and usage are the sine qua non of language teaching and learning
・Collins Dictionary: A sine qua non is something that is essential if you want to achieve a particular thing.: Successful agricultural reform is also a sine qua non of Mexico's modernisation. [
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a necessary condition without which something is not possible: An interest in children is a sine qua non of teaching.
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