The Lost Art of Naming the World
為世間生物命名 此藝不可失
By Carol Kaesuk Yoon
Despite taxonomy’s now blatant modernity, with practitioners using DNA sequences, sophisticated evolutionary theory and supercomputers to order and name all of life, jobs for taxonomists continue to be in steady decline. The natural history collections crucial to the work are closeted or tossed.
儘管現今分類學大大地現代化了，從業人員運用去氧核醣核酸序列、複雜的演化理論和超級電腦幫所有物種分類、命名，分類學家的工作卻依然在持續減少。攸關分類作業的自然歷史珍藏不是不公開，就是被丟棄。
The ordering and naming of life is no esoteric science. The past few decades have seen a stream of studies that show that sorting and naming the natural world is a universal, deep-seated and fundamental human activity, one we cannot afford to lose because it is essential to understanding the living world, and our place in it.
為生物分類、命名並非冷門學問。過去幾十年源源不絕的研究顯示，為自然世界分類、命名是種普遍、根深柢固且基本的人類活動。這活動我們丟失不起，因為少了它，我們就無法認識這個活生生的世界，以及我們在其中的定位。
Anthropologists were the first to recognize that taxonomy might be more than the science officially founded by Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist, in the 1700s. Studying how nonscientists order and name life, creating what are called folk taxonomies, anthropologists began to realize that when people across the globe were creating ordered groups and giving names to what lived around them, they followed highly stereotyped patterns, appearing unconsciously to follow a set of unwritten rules.
分類學是瑞典植物學家林奈18世紀正式創立的科學，而人類學家則是最早體認到分類學也許不止於此的人。人類學家研究非自然科學家如何分類、命名生物，創造所謂的民俗分類學後，開始發覺全球各地的人們創造分群並為生活在其四周的分群命名時，遵循非常刻板的模式，看似無意識地遵從一套不成文的規則。
The Ilongots, for example, a people of the
舉例來說，菲律賓的伊隆戈人以身體部位為華麗的野生蘭花命名，因此有些地方盛開「大腿」，別處盛開「指甲」、「手肘」和「拇指」。新幾內亞的洛斐佛人把食火雞這種體型巨大的鳥歸類為哺乳動物。
In fact, there seemed, at first glance, to be little room even for agreement among people, let alone a set of universally followed rules. More recently, however, deep underlying similarities have begun to become apparent.
實際上，乍看之下，人與人之間似乎連形成共識的空間都快沒了，遑論一組普世遵循的規則。然而，深藏的相似之處近來開始變得明顯。
Cecil Brown, an anthropologist at Northern Illinois University who has studied folk taxonomies in 188 languages, has found that people recognize the same basic categories repeatedly, including fish, birds, snakes, mammals, “wugs” (meaning worms and insects), trees, vines, herbs and bushes. Wugs are neither an evolutionarily nor ecologically nor otherwise. Still, people repeatedly recognize and name these oddities.
美國北伊利諾大學人類學家西塞兒‧布朗研究過188種語言的民俗分類學，發現人們一再辨認出相同的基本類別，包括魚類、鳥類、蛇類、哺乳動物、「蟲類」（意謂蠕蟲和昆蟲）、喬木、藤蔓植物、草本植物和灌木。蟲類不是演化凝聚的物種群，也非生態或其他因素凝聚的物種群，然而人們卻一再辨認出這些奇特的東西，並幫它們命名。
Likewise, people consistently use two-word epithets to designate specific organisms within a larger group of organisms, despite there being an infinitude of potentially more logical methods. It is so familiar that it is hard to notice. In English, among the oaks, we distinguish the pin oak, among bears, grizzly bears.
同樣地，雖然更合乎邏輯的方法無窮無盡，人們卻始終用兩個字的種小名標示較大群生物中的特有生物。因為太熟悉了，以致很難注意到。在英文裡，各種櫟樹中我們區分出針櫟，熊類中區分出灰熊。
When Mayan Indians, familiar with the wild piglike creature known as peccaries, encountered Spaniards’ pigs, they dubbed them “village peccaries.” We use two-part names for ourselves as well: Sally Smith or Li Wen. Even scientists are bound by this practice, insisting on Latin binomials for species.
馬雅印地安人對稱為美洲野豬、像豬的野生動物很熟悉，當他們見到西班牙人的豬時，稱牠們「村裡養的美洲野豬」。我們自己也用分為姓和名兩部分的名字，如莎莉‧史密斯或李文。連科學家都遵守此一做法，堅持用兩個拉丁字命名生物。
The most surprising evidence for the deep-seatedness of taxonomy comes from patients who have, through accident or disease, suffered traumas of the brain. Consider the case of the university student whom British researchers refer to simply as J.B.R. Doctors found that upon recovering from swelling of the brain caused by herpes, J.B.R. could no longer recognize living things.
分類學牢不可破，最令人意外的證據來自生過病或出過意外而腦部損傷的患者。想一想英國研究人員稱為J.B.R.的大學生的案例，醫生發現J.B.R.在皰疹導致腦部腫脹而逐漸復原時，再也認不出有生命的東西。
He could still recognize nonliving objects, like a flashlight, a compass, a kettle or a canoe. But the young man was unable to recognize a kangaroo, a mushroom or a buttercup. Doctors around the world have found patients with the same difficulty. Most recently, scientists studying these patients’ brains have reported repeatedly finding damage in a region of the temporal lobe, leading some researchers to hypothesize that there might be a specific part of the brain that is devoted to the doing of taxonomy.
他還是認得出沒有生命的物體，像手電筒、指南針、水壺和獨木舟。但這個年輕人認不出袋鼠、蘑菇或毛茛。世界各地都有醫生發現有類似問題的患者。最近，研究這類患者腦部的研究人員一再發表論文指出，發現患者大腦顳葉部分有損傷，以致有某些研究人員假設，大腦可能有個特定區域專司分類。
Without the power to order and name life, a person simply does not know how to live in the world, how to understand it.
人若喪失為生物分類並命名的能力，就簡直不知該如何活在世上，如何去認識這世界。
We are, all of us, abandoning taxonomy, the ordering and naming of life. We are willfully becoming poor J.B.R., losing the ability to order and name and therefore losing a connection to and a place in the living world.
我們所有人都正在放棄分類學，即為生物分類並命名的學問。我們刻意變成可憐的J.B.R.，喪失分類和命名的能力，因此和這個活生生的世界失去連結，也失去在這世上的位分。
No wonder so few of us can really see what is out there. Changing all this turns out to be easy. Find an organism, any organism, and get a sense of it, its shape, color, size, feel, smell, sound. Then find a name for it. Learn science’s name, one of countless folk names, or make up your own.
怪不得我們當中沒有幾個人真能看出外頭有些什麼。要改變這一切其實不難。找個生物體，任何生物體都行，好好去感覺一下，感覺它的形狀、顏色、大小、觸感、氣味和聲音。然後幫它找個名字，不論是學名，數不盡的民俗名之一，或者自己創造一個。
To do so is to change everything, including yourself. Because once you start noticing organisms, once you have a name for particular beasts, birds and flowers, you can’t help seeing life and the order in it, just where it has always been, all around you.
這麼做，就是要改變一切，包括改變你自己。因為一旦你開始注意生物體，一旦你給特定的獸類、鳥類和花起了名字，你就不能不看到生命世界和箇中的秩序，就在它一直所在之處，盡在你身邊。
關鍵字句
本文附了兩張栩栩如生（vivid）的手繪圖，摘自19 世紀德國動物學家海克爾的著作《大自然的藝術形式》（直譯，Kunstformen der Natur），都出自他的巧手。
海克爾畫出第1 分詳盡的生物演化樹狀結構系譜圖「演化樹」（evolutionary tree）而備受讚譽（was greatly lauded），是當時最為人稱道的自然史畫家。
大圖是各種蜂鳥（hummingbird）齊聚一堂。蜂鳥因振翼時發出嗡嗡聲（humming）而得名。它們能快速振翼（每秒15 到80 次，因體型大小而異）懸停空中，便於吸食花蜜，也是唯一可以打倒檔向後飛的鳥。
目前生物分類分成界（Kingdom）、門（Phylum）、綱（Class）、目（Order）、科（Family）、屬（Genus）、種（Species）7 個階層，如人在生物分類上的地位是：動物界→脊索動物門→哺乳綱→靈長目→人科→人屬→智人種。
目前生物命名遵循瑞典生物學家林奈提出的拉丁文雙名法，通常由兩個字組成，前一個是屬的名稱，後一個是種的名稱。
原文參照
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/science/11naming.html
Science Quiz: Naming Nature http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/11/science/20090811-NAMING-QUIZ.html
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