Mysteries of vernacular: Miniature - Jessica Oreck

Transcriber: Andrea McDonough Reviewer: Bedirhan Cinar

翻译人员: Minji Seo 校对人员: Min WANG

Mysteries of Vernacular

白话的奥秘

Miniature,

微型的，

something distinctively smaller

指显著小于

than other members of its type or class.

它的类型或级别的其他成员。

Miniature traces its roots to the Latin, <i>minium</i>,

“微型的”词源追踪到拉丁语，<i>minium</i>，

which meant, "red lead".

"红铅"的意思。

Minium referred, in particular, to a compound of lead

红铅，特指一种铅化合物

used as a pigment in Medieval times.

在中世纪被用作一种色素。

In those days, because there were no printing presses,

那时因为没有印刷机

groups of scribes were tasked with

成群的抄写人员

painstakingly copying all books by hand.

要煞费苦心地用手抄写所有的书。

Whenever they needed to denote a chapter break

每当他们需要表示一个章的间断

or a division of text,

或文本分隔，

scribes would switch from standard black

抄写员会从标准黑色切换

to the red pigment, minium.

到红色颜料-红铅。

Another important visual device used to increase

另一个重要的视觉图案，用于让

the prominence of certain portions of text

文本的某些部分更突出

was to set them off

是始于

with large, ornate, and colorful capital letters,

用被微小及详细的绘画作品包围

often surrounded by tiny, detailed paintings.

大、 华丽，并多彩的大写字母。

The Italians began to refer

意大利人开始参阅

to these elaborate and diminutive paintings

这些精致且小巧的画

as <i>miniatura</i>, illuminations.

作为 <i>miniatura</i>，启发。

Because of the necessarily small size of the paintings,

由于这些画的尺寸必须小，

miniatura began to be associated with all things wee

“细微画”开始与所有极小的事情相关

and spawned to other words with the same base,

且在相同的基础上衍生出其他单词，

like the Latin <i>minimum</i>, for least.

像拉丁 词<i>minimum</i>，“为最少”

Miniatura was transmuted into English

“细微画”被蜕变成英语

in the 16th century as the word, <i>miniature</i>,

在16 世纪变成单词，<i>miniature</i>，

and since that time,

自那以后，

it has had the exact same meaning we use today.

它与如今我们所用的含义是一样的。