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英国雷丁大学生物科学学院的科学家们列出了23个最古老的已知词语。这些词语是七种原始欧亚语言所共有的，由这七种语言演化而来的语言有上百种，有的至今还存在，有的已经消亡。研究者估计，这些词语已经有15000年历史了。这些单词包括： Were you to find yourself beside a campfire 150 centuries ago alongside a group of hunter gatherers, chances have it that they might understand some of these words. Some are pretty obvious, like “mother”, “not”, “what” or the ever so life-saving “fire”, but “worm” and “spit” definitely come as a surprise. 如果你穿越到15000年以前，和一群狩猎者围坐在篝火旁边，他们或许能够听懂上述某些词语。他们能理解“mother（母亲）”、“not（不）”、“what（什么）”以及对生存至关重要的“fire（火）”等单词，这不意外，不过“worm（虫子）”和“spit（吐痰）”这两个词语绝对让人意想不到。 There’s a consensus among linguists that a language typically can’t survive past 8,000 or 9,000 years, since it’s common for languages to mix and get replaced by other more influential languages or morph into new ones altogether. These timeless “ultra conservative” words, as they’ve been dubbed by the researchers, show that this isn’t entirely true, albeit the list is only a handful large. 语言学界一致认为，一般来说，一种语言最多只能持续8000或9000年，因为语言通常会彼此融合，被更强势的语言取代或变成新的语言。这些经久不衰的词语却说明该理论并不完全正确，语言学家称之为“超保守”语言，虽然它们数量极少。 | 
