Describe a banana. It's yellow, perhaps with some green edges. When peeled, it has a smooth, soft, mushy texture. It tastes sweet, maybe a little creamy. And it smells like... well, it smells like a banana.
描述下香蕉。黃顏色，或許邊緣帶點(diǎn)兒綠。剝開(kāi)香蕉皮，光滑綿軟、糊狀質(zhì)地。味甜，口感細(xì)膩有點(diǎn)兒像奶油。聞起來(lái)...嗯，香蕉味兒。

Every sense has its own “lexical field,” a vast palette of dedicated descriptive words for colors, sounds, tastes, and textures. But smell?
每種感官都有其“詞場(chǎng)”，有各色各樣專(zhuān)門(mén)的詞匯來(lái)描述顏色、聲音、口味和質(zhì)地。但氣味呢？

In English, there are only three dedicated smell words—stinky, fragrant, and musty—and the first two are more about the smeller's subjective experience than about the smelly thing itself.
英語(yǔ)中，只有三個(gè)專(zhuān)門(mén)描述氣味的詞——惡臭、芳香和霉味兒。前兩者更多是聞味者的主觀體驗(yàn)，而非事物本身的氣味。

Asifa Majid from Radboud University in the Netherlands has found that the Jahai people of Malaysia and the Maniq of Thailand use between 12 and 15 dedicated smell words.
荷蘭奈梅亨大學(xué)的阿西法·馬吉德發(fā)現(xiàn)，馬來(lái)西亞海族人(Jahai)和泰國(guó)曼尼科人（Maniq)運(yùn)用12至15個(gè)專(zhuān)門(mén)描述氣味的詞語(yǔ)。

For example, ltpit describes the smell of a binturong or bearcat—a two-meter-long animal that looks like a shaggy, black-furred otter, and that famously smells of popcorn. But ltpit doesn't mean popcorn—it's not a source-based term. The same word is also used for soap, flowers, and the intense-smelling durian fruit, referring to some fragrant quality that Western noses can’t parse.
舉個(gè)例子，ltpit 一詞用來(lái)描述麝貓和熊貍這種長(zhǎng)兩米、毛發(fā)蓬亂、看上去像黑皮毛水獺的動(dòng)物，因其氣味像爆米花而聞名。但ltpit 并不是爆米花的意思，這不是個(gè)基于來(lái)源的術(shù)語(yǔ)。ltpit 還同樣用以形容肥皂、花朵和氣味濃重的榴蓮，這都是些西方人鼻子無(wú)法辨識(shí)的氣味芬芳。

Smell information translates straight into behavior or mood and evokes whole memories. Smell doesn't need language. Odors are expressible in language, as long as you speak the right language. It changes the way you perceive the world. Smell is an?intrinsic?part of Jahai culture in a way that it simply isn't in the west.
氣味信息直接轉(zhuǎn)化為行為和心情，并能喚起回憶。氣味無(wú)需語(yǔ)言，但可以用語(yǔ)言來(lái)表達(dá)，只要你說(shuō)對(duì)語(yǔ)言，便能改變你看世界的目光。氣味是海族文化固有的內(nèi)在，而西方人偏偏沒(méi)有。

聲明：本雙語(yǔ)文章的中文翻譯系滬江英語(yǔ)原創(chuàng)內(nèi)容，轉(zhuǎn)載請(qǐng)注明出處。中文翻譯僅代表譯者個(gè)人觀點(diǎn)，僅供參考。如有不妥之處，歡迎指正。