【TED-ED 700集】P4 "A brief history of alcohol"

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"A brief history of alcohol" by Rod Phillips

brief: a concise statement or summary.

这个好难呜呜呜，所以用了翻译器哈哈哈。

DeepL Translator

This chimpanzee stumbles across a windfall of overripe plums. Many of them have split open, drawing him to their intoxicating fruity odor. He gorges himself and begins to experience some… strange effects. This unwitting ape has stumbled on a process that humans will eventually harness to create beer, wine, and other alcoholic drinks. 

atumble across: to find or learn about (something) unexpectedly.

he gorges himself: (If you gorge on something or gorge yourself on it, you eat lots of it in a very greedy way.)

unwitting: not done on purpose

这只黑猩猩chimpanzee偶然发现stumbles across了一大堆过熟overripe的李子plum。许多李子都裂开了split open，吸引他去闻它们令人陶醉的intoxicating果香fruity oder。他大快朵颐gorges himelf，开始体验到一些......奇怪的效果。这只不知情的unwitting猿猴ape偶然发现了一个过程，人类最终将利用harness这个过程来制造啤酒、葡萄酒和其他酒精饮料alcoholic drinks。

The sugars in overripe fruit attract microscopic organisms known as yeasts. As the yeasts feed on the fruit sugars they produce a compound called ethanol— the type of alcohol in alcoholic beverages. This process is called fermentation. Nobody knows exactly when humans began to create fermented beverages. The earliest known evidence comes from 7,000 BCE in China, where residue in clay pots has revealed that people were making an alcoholic beverage from fermented rice, millet, grapes, and honey.

microscopic: so small as to be visible only with a microscope.

过度成熟的水果中的糖分吸引了attract被称为酵母yeast的微观生物体microscopic organisms。当酵母菌以水果糖为食时，它们产生一种叫做乙醇ethanol的化合物--酒精饮料alcoholic beverages中的酒精类型。这个过程被称为发酵fermentation。没有人确切知道人类何时开始制造发酵饮料。最早的证据来自于公元前7000年的中国，那里的陶罐clay pot中的残留物residue显示reveal，人们用发酵的大米、小米millet、葡萄和蜂蜜制作酒精饮料。

Within a few thousand years, cultures all over the world were fermenting their own drinks. Ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians made beer throughout the year from stored cereal grains. This beer was available to all social classes, and workers even received it in their daily rations. They also made wine, but because the climate wasn’t ideal for growing grapes, it was a rare and expensive delicacy.

在几千年的时间里，世界各地的文化都在发酵他们自己的饮料。古代美索不达米亚人和埃及人全年都在用储存的谷类谷物cereal grains制作啤酒。所有社会阶层都能喝到这种啤酒，工人们甚至在他们的日常配给daily rations中得到这种啤酒。他们也制造葡萄酒，但由于气候climate不适合种植葡萄，所以葡萄酒是一种罕见而昂贵的美味delicacy。

By contrast, in Greece and Rome, where grapes grew more easily, wine was as readily available as beer was in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Because yeasts will ferment basically any plant sugars, ancient peoples made alcohol from whatever crops and plants grew where they lived. In South America, people made chicha from grains, sometimes adding hallucinogenic herbs. In what’s now Mexico, pulque, made from cactus sap, was the drink of choice, while East Africans made banana and palm beer. And in the area that’s now Japan, people made sake from rice. Almost every region of the globe had its own fermented drinks.

相比之下，在希腊和罗马，葡萄更容易生长，葡萄酒就像埃及和美索不达米亚的啤酒一样容易获得。由于酵母菌基本上可以发酵任何植物糖分，古代人用他们居住地生长的任何作物和植物制造酒精。在南美洲，人们用谷物制作Chicha，有时加入致幻药草hallucinogenic herbs。在现在的墨西哥，用仙人掌汁液cactus sap制成的Pulque是首选饮料，而东非人则制造香蕉和棕榈palm啤酒。而在现在的日本地区，人们用大米制作Sake。全球几乎每个地区都有自己的发酵饮料。

As alcohol consumption became part of everyday life, some authorities latched onto effects they perceived as positive— Greek physicians considered wine to be good for health, and poets testified to its creative qualities. Others were more concerned about alcohol’s potential for abuse. Greek philosophers promoted temperance. Early Jewish and Christian writers in Europe integrated wine into rituals but considered excessive intoxication a sin. And in the middle east, Africa, and Spain, an Islamic rule against praying while drunk gradually solidified into a general ban on alcohol.

随着饮酒alcohol consumption成为日常生活的一部分，一些当局authorities抓住了latched onto他们认为是积极的影响--希腊医生physicians 认为酒对健康有益，诗人见证了它的创造性品质。其他人则更关注酒精的潜在滥用abuse。希腊哲学家们philosophers 提倡节制temperance。欧洲早期的犹太教和基督教作家将酒融入到仪式rituals 中，但认为过度陶醉excessive intoxication是一种罪sin。而在中东、非洲和西班牙，伊斯兰教禁止在醉酒时祈祷的规定逐渐gradually 固化solidified into为对酒精的普遍禁止general ban。

Ancient fermented beverages had relatively low alcohol content. At about 13% alcohol, the by-products wild yeasts generate during fermentation become toxic and kill them. When the yeasts die, fermentation stops, and the alcohol content levels off. So for thousands of years, alcohol content was limited. That changed with the invention of a process called distillation. 9-th century Arabic writings describe boiling fermented liquids to vaporize the alcohol in them. Alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water, so it vaporizes first. Capture this vapor, cool it down, and what’s left is liquid alcohol much more concentrated than any fermented beverage.

capture: take into one's possession or control by force.

古代的发酵饮料的酒精含量相对较低。在大约13%的酒精含量时，野生酵母菌在发酵过程中产生的副产品变得有毒toxic 并杀死它们。酵母菌死亡后，发酵停止，酒精含量也随之下降。因此，数千年来，酒精含量是有限的。这种情况随着一种叫做蒸馏distillation的工艺的发明而改变。9世纪的阿拉伯著作描述了将发酵的液体煮沸，使其中的酒精汽化。酒精沸腾的温度比水低，所以它首先蒸发vaporize。捕获capture这种蒸汽，将其冷却，剩下的就是比任何发酵饮料都要浓缩concentrated 的液体酒精。

At first, these stronger spirits were used for medicinal purposes. Then, spirits became an important trade commodity because, unlike beer and wine, they didn’t spoil. Rum made from sugar harvested in European colonies in the Caribbean became a staple for sailors and was traded to North America. Europeans brought brandy and gin to Africa and traded it for enslaved people, land, and goods like palm oil and rubber. Spirits became a form of money in these regions.

起初，这些更烈的烈酒被用于医疗目的。然后，烈酒成为一种重要的贸易商品trade commodity，因为与啤酒和葡萄酒不同，它们不会变质spoil。在加勒比海的欧洲殖民地colonies 收获harvested 的糖制成的Rum成为水手们sailors 的主食，并被交易到北美。欧洲人把brandy和gin带到非洲，用它来换取被奴役的人enslaved people、土地以及 palm oil 和橡胶等货物。烈酒spirits 在这些地区成为一种货币形式。

During the Age of Exploration, spirits played a crucial role in long distance sea voyages. Sailing from Europe to east Asia and the Americas could take months, and keeping water fresh for the crews was a challenge. Adding a bucket of brandy to a water barrel kept water fresh longer because alcohol is a preservative that kills harmful microbes.

crew: n. a group of people who work on and operate a ship, boat, aircraft, spacecraft, or train. ex.  "he was one of nine members of the crew killed when the plane went down"

          n. a group of people who work closely together.  ex. "an ambulance crew"

在探险时代，烈酒在长距离的海上航行long distance sea voyages 中发挥了关键作用。从欧洲到东亚和美洲的航行可能需要几个月，为船员保持水的新鲜度是一个挑战。在水桶中加入一桶白兰地可以使水保持更长时间的新鲜，因为酒精是一种可以杀死有害微生物harmful microbes的防腐剂preservative。

So by the 1600s, alcohol had gone from simply giving animals a buzz to fueling global trade and exploration— along with all their consequences. As time went on, its role in human society would only get more complicated.

因此，到了16世纪，酒精已经从简单地给动物带来嗡嗡声buzz 变成了推动全球贸易global trade和探索exploration--以及它们的所有后果consequences。随着时间的推移，它在人类社会中的作用只会变得更加复杂complicated。