Long Time no See 這句話是怎麼來的

How many times has the average person been greeted with the phrase "long time, no see" after running into an old acquaintance? My guess is plenty. But how and why did such a grammatically awkward phrase become a widely accepted part of American speech?

普通人碰見老熟人的時候說到過多少次“long time, no see”呢？我猜一定有過很多次吧！可是從語法上看起來很彆扭的神句“long time no see”怎麼就能搖身一變成爲人們普遍接受的美語呢？

It turns out there are, at least, two strong possibilities.

這說起來至少有兩種比較大的可能。

The first time "long time, no see" appeared in print was in the 1900 Western "Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far West, by William F. Drannan. That last part of the novel's very long title is relevant here, as it gives a good indication of the kind of story Drannan wanted to tell.

“long time, no see”首次見於出版物是在1900年由韋斯頓出版社出版、威廉·F·卓南所著的《翻山越嶺三十一年》中，此書又名《在遙遠的西部狩獵、捕獲、偵查和與印第安人作戰的一生的真實記錄》。這本小說冗長的標題並非多餘，因爲它提示我們卓南想講述的是個什麼樣的故事。

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Drannan used the phrase to describe an encounter with a Native American he had previously met, "I knew he had recognized me. When we rode up to him he said: 'Good morning. Long time no see you,' and at the same time presented the gun with breech foremost."

根據《牛津英語詞典》，卓南曾使用這個短語來描述他與之前遇見過的一位美洲土著見面時的情景：“我知道他已經認出我了。當我們策馬上前時他說：‘早！Long time no see you,’同時先將槍槍口朝後遞了過來。”

The phrase would be used in a similar way in Jeff W. Hayes' Tales of the Sierras, another Western published in 1900. Once again, the phrase was attributed to an American Indian, "Ugh, you squaw, she no long time see you: you go home mucha quick."

這個短語可能被傑夫•W•海斯在《謝拉山脈傳奇》，韋斯頓出版社1900年出版的另一本書裏以類似的方法使用過。這次這個短語還是出自美洲印第安人之口：“喔唷，你家娘子，she no long time see you:你歸家去罷趕緊滴。”

While Drannan's book was the first time this exact phrase appears in print, the exact origins of "long time, no see" are the subject of ongoing debate among Linguists and historians.

儘管這個短語首次付梓見於卓南的作品，可“long time, no see”的確切起源卻一直是語言學家和歷史學者爭論不休的對象。

The second widely accepted etymological explanation is that the phrase is a loan translation* from the Mandarin Chinese phrase "hǎojǐu bújiàn", which means exactly "long time, no see."

第二種廣泛爲人接受的詞源學解釋是這個短語是從中國的漢語“hǎojǐu bújiàn”中“借譯”而來的，其意思正是“long time, no see”。

Eric Patridge's "Dictionary of Catch Phrases American and British traces the term to the early 1900s, but says it has Asian origins and was brought back to England by members of the British Navy, who picked it up through the pidgin English used by the Chinese people they encountered.

埃裏克·派崔吉的《英美外來語詞典》中將這個短語追朔到了20世紀早期，但指出其始於亞洲，並且是由英國海軍帶回英格蘭的。他們遇到過使用洋涇浜英語的中國人，學會了說這句話。

There is a separate account that lends weight to this latter theory except that it involves members of the U.S. Navy. An excruciating letter published in Our Navy, the Standard Publication of the U.S. Navy, Volume 13 includes the following:

還有另外一種解釋支持後面這個理論，不過牽扯到了美國海軍。在美國海軍標準出版社出版的《我們的海軍》第13卷中的一封精心寫就的信札裏有這樣的話：

"Then Ah Sam, ancient Chinese tailor, familiarly known as 'Cocky,' after taking one good look at the lieutenant said, 'Ah, Lidah, you belong my velly good flend. Long time no see you handsome face.'"

“接着阿三，這位古老中國的裁縫被人稱作‘山雞’，他打量了中尉一眼，說‘嗯，李大，你是我的好盆友。Long time no see you handsome facee.’”

As the Applied Applied Linguistics blog points out in the debate over whether "long time no see" has Native American or Chinese origins. "The earliest written usages are all native English speakers 'reporting' the speech of non-native speakers, from about 1840-1915. ... The literature of that era is rife with stylized English attributed to non-native speakers — can we trust it?"

“應用語言學博客”在“long time no see”是源於美洲土著還是出自中國的爭論中指出：“該句最早運用於書面寫作的時間大約是在1840年到1915年，內容全都是英語國家的人‘轉述’非英語國家者的講話……那個時代的文學作品充斥着出自非英語國家人們之口的程式化英語——它能讓我們信得過嗎？”

As the 20th century progressed, "long time no see" began to evolve from a phrase in broken English to a standard way to greet an old acquaintance. By 1920, the phrase makes it into Good Housekeeping magazine. The novelist Raymond Chandler used it in more than one of his books. In Farewell, My Lovely, Moose Malloy drolly tells his ex-girlfriend Velma, "Hiya, babe. Long time no see." And in 1949, the poet Ogden Nash published his poem "Long Time No See, Bye Now" in The New Yorker. The poem introduces us to Mr. Latour, "an illiterate boor" who "calls poor people poor instead of underprivileged."

伴隨20世紀的腳步，“long time no see”開始從一句不標準的英語短語變成向久未謀面的老友問候時的標準句式。1920年，這句神句登上了《好管家》雜誌。小說家雷蒙·錢德勒在其作品中不止一次用到該句。在《別了，我的至愛》中，穆斯·馬洛伊詼諧地對他的前女友維爾瑪說：“你好，寶貝兒。Long time no see.” 奧格登•納什1949年在《紐約客》上發表了詩歌《Long Time No See, 再見》。這首詩向我們介紹了拉圖爾這樣一位“目不識丁的粗人”，他“直呼窮人爲窮人，而非‘社會權益受剝奪者’。”

Today, the phrase "long time no see" is so widespread as a greeting that there's nothing to indicate the term's origins, be they Native American or Mandarin Chinese.

如今，神句“long time no see”作爲問候語已經廣泛流傳開來，到底是來自美洲土著、中國漢語還是阿拉伯語（有人說該句來源於وقتطويلجدالاترى, lam naraka mundhu muddah，阿拉伯語中的“long time, no see”），其起源已無法從字面上看出來了。

Given its ubiquitous usage in books, conversations, movies, songs and television programs, the phrase is now widely identified with American culture. So much so that it was included in Ya Gotta Know It!: A Conversational Approach to American Slang for the ESL Classroom. Long time, no see has gone from pidgin English to entrenched, American English slang in little over a century.

鑑於其在書籍、對話、電影、歌曲和電視節目裏已無處不在，這個短語現在很大程度上已經融入了美國文化。它甚至已被收入ESL課程裏的《你必須知道：美國俚語對話教程》。在一個世紀略多一點的時間裏，“long time no see”已經由一句洋涇浜英語變爲根深蒂固的美式英語俚語。