シャドーイング練習: The Babylonian Map of the World with Irving Finkel | Curator’s Corner S9 Ep5 - YouTubeで英語スピーキングを学ぶ
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In the British Museum we have objects of all sizes,
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In the British Museum we have objects of all sizes,
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some pinheads and some gigantic and everything in between.
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And once in a while,
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one of the very smallest things turns out to have information in it which is totally unexpected.
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My name is Irving Finkel
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and I'm a curator in the British Museum in the Middle East apartment and welcome to my corner.
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So what we have here is a clay tablet.
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As a matter of fact,
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it is not a real clay tablet,
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it is a replica, because the real clay tablet has to be on exhibition all the time.
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And also it's very delicate.
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We couldn't wave it around in front of the screen and say,
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look at this, look at that.
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That would be terribly irresponsible.
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So, but we can use this replica for demonstration purposes with impunity.
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The ancient Mesopotamians, Sumerians, Babylonians,
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all those people, they wrote on clay,
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that was their natural activity,
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and clay tablets, which have impressions of writing on,
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are pretty good, they're pretty stable,
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you can handle them, you can't play football with them,
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but they're pretty reliable.
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But what happens in antiquity is there are wars and buildings collapse
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and fires and disasters and people die and they go away,
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and other people come and trample on things.
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And when archaeologists find them,
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it is not often that an ancient inscription on a piece of clay comes to light in perfect condition.
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So this tablet, you can easily see that it's not complete.
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There's stuff missing here, there's stuff missing there,
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and it also looks like elephants have danced a polka over the surface,
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because many of the signs are damaged or squashed.
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But nevertheless, this piece of cuneiform inscription is a remarkable thing.
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This is the oldest map of the world in the world.
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It has two sides.
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This is the front or obverse,
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and this is the back or the reverse.
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And the reverse consists of lots of lines of cuneiform in different ruled sections.
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So it's full of information,
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even though it's a bit damaged.
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But the other side is the remarkable thing.
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Firstly, there are some lines of cuneiform ruled across very firmly at the top
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and this is about the early creation of the world
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and how animals were put in the sea in different parts of the universe.
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It's a kind of brief summary of creation
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which has nothing to do with the map
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because it's a clear border between that and this and it's this
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which is so exciting because if you look carefully you will see
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that the flat surface of the clay has a double circle drawn in the surface of the clay.
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Now the double ring is very important because it has cuneiform writing in it which says it's the bitter river.
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And this water was deemed to surround the known world because the area inside the double ring is ancient Mesopotamia itself.
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Now this word Mesopotamia is the ancient Greek word for what is modern Iraq.
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So inside the drawing of this circle we have very interesting things.
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There is a great river that runs from north to south,
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which is the Euphrates River.
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And the river is straddled by a long oblong,
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which is obviously the city of Babylon.
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So this is a very important ring of water
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because it meant for the Babylonians they had a sort of idea of the limits of their world,
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where they live, in about the 6th century BC.
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with these important rivers which brought life and food to them,
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waterways for transport, all the way down to the Persian Gulf.
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It was kind of depicted in small.
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And if you look carefully at the picture,
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you will see in the surface of the known world,
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there are these rings drawn with little bits of tuneiform inside those.
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And those tell you the name of the city which it represents or sometimes the tribe.
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So you have encapsulated in this circular diagram the whole of the known world in which people lived,
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flourished and died.
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However, there's more to this map than that,
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because if you look at the outer ring,
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you will see that going off at different angles are triangles.
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Sometimes people say they are islands,
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sometimes people say they are districts,
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but in point of fact they are almost certainly mountains,
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because the idea is that if you go across the water you see these jutted,
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pointed things above the horizon which are remote lands far beyond the limits of the known world,
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which go out in different directions from the perimeter of existence.
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and they are, for the Babylonians,
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places full of magic and full of mystery.
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Now when you look at the diagram sort of geometrically,
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it is evident there were originally eight of them
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and we can be sure of this partly by calculation of what makes sense,
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but also on the other side,
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the inscription which I showed you before,
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tells you what is on each of those triangles.
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There was a place where the sun was never seen,
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there was a tree that had jewels instead of fruit,
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and there were giant birds that couldn't fly,
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all those sorts of things.
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There were traditional stories associated with each of these districts,
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recorded together with the diagram to show where they were.
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Well, of course, probably nobody ever went there there we're talking about the imaginative world of cosmology,
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of theology, of tradition, of inherited ideas,
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but the thing is this.
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Up until quite recently we didn't know which description on one side went with which triangle on the front.
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And this is an irksome matter because we know there's supposed to be eight
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but there was nowhere near eight on there so we had to work out which place,
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the three which we could read clearly,
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matched up with the descriptions on the back and it wasn't really possible.
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And then something happened.
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One of those missing triangles came to light in the collection.
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Now, in the 19th century,
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when tablets were excavated, they were very careful to bring back everything.
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So a big lump of clay,
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any small bits lying around it,
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any small bits not lying around it,
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anything they could find with writing on was carefully,
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carefully excavated and sometimes the very small pieces,
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which we couldn't join to anything,
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were put in special trays for the long-term future,
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when it might be possible to see what we could do about them.
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Now what happened was this.
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Once upon a time, there was a lady called Edith Horsley and Edith Horsley loved cuneiform stuff
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And she came to classes that I used to teach after work once a week to learn about cuneiforma.
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She was very, very enthusiastic about it and very attentive and a good student.
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And when the class came to an end after several months,
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she said she wanted to do something more.
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For as long as anyone can remember,
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this has been a map with a central piece missing.
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But from today, no longer.
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Nicholas Glass reports on an unexpected moment of archaeological excitement in the British Museum.
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The British Museum has boxes of tablet fragments,
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but it's only in the last two months or so,
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when Edith Horsley was first invited to work at the museum,
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that they began trying to sort things out.
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Well, even as a child,
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I was intrigued by the signs that are used in cuneiform,
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but it wasn't until I attended Irving Finkel's lectures that I became an addict.
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As a volunteer, Edith comes in just once a week.
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she was asked to keep an eye out for any piece with a geographical or astronomical image on it.
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I saw this quite small piece with this triangle on it
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and the signs inside and I thought it was probably a map
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so I put it in the little section where I put the pieces
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that I think are of special interest because Dr Finkel can't go through all of these trays, obviously.
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So I put those aside and he became quite excited when he saw it.
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She put aside a little pile of half a dozen pieces
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that didn't look like everything else and I went through them one by one and she said,
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look, this one's got some lines on it,
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and as soon as I saw it,
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I knew it must belong to this tablet because,
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as I say, it's such an unusual thing.
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It's actually rather funny because the map wasn't in its normal place,
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it was downstairs on exhibition.
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And so I got out an old photograph of it,
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and the photograph was at a different scale.
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So when I put the fragment on the photograph,
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I was sure that it must be long,
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but I couldn't quite see where it would fit.
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And it was only the following morning that I took the fragment downstairs to the exhibition where it's on public view.
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And by looking at the original tablet,
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I could see straight away it fitted perfectly in the hole.
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And it did.
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And as a matter of fact,
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when I put it in experimentally in the gallery in front of Edith,
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we couldn't get it out again afterwards.
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It was such a snug fit and
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and it had to go down to conservation to be dealt with properly and glued in position.
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So having opened a bottle of bubbly and danced around in the gallery,
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the time came to think very seriously about what this meant,
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because the tablet is very famous.
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It's often reproduced in all sorts of different encyclopedias and books about ancient ideas and histories of maps,
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of course, and it's quite a famous object.
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And to make a joy into that was an extraordinary thing.
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Then there was the question of what did it tell us?
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Against one of the diagonals there was in cuneiform the expression the Great Wall.
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I'm going to read you what the scribe tells us about this triangle.
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To the fifth, which you must travel seven leagues.
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That means you have to row across the bitter river for
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seven leagues before you can land at the foot of the mountain.
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The Great Wall, its height is 840 cubits.
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Its tree is up to 120 cubits.
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By day you can't see in front of yourself,
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by night lying on dot dot dot it's still Brampton.
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Then you must go another seven leagues in the sand and you must dot dot dot,
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because there's always dot dot dots,
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because nothing is perfectly preserved.
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But the important thing is,
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we now know which of the triangles goes with the description of this gigantic wall.
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As a result of an Edith's discovery,
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we've got three of these triangles in a row.
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And that is a great boon because,
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as you can imagine, if you have isolated triangles,
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trying to match them to the description on the back,
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it's very difficult to get anywhere seriously and reliably.
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But when you've got three in a row,
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all you have to do is to find three descriptions in a row,
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and it stands to reason that you'll be able to somehow match them up and that is what we did.
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And the discovery was very clear once you realise that the counting was anti-clockwise and not clockwise.
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So number four says, to the fourth,
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to which you must travel seven leagues because it's like a kind of fairy tale everybody knows,
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it's always the same introduction.
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So each time you have to travel seven leagues across the water.
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Then it gets a bit broken,
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then it says, you see something which are as thick as a parsictum vessel.
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This parsictum measurement is something to an Assyriologist which makes their ears prick
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and the fact is it's only once otherwise known from cuneiform tablets.
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And it's rather an interesting cuneiform tablet too because it is the description of the Ark
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which was built theoretically in about 1800 BC by the Babylonian version of Noah
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and in this account the details are given and the god says you have to do this,
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this and this and then the Babylonian Noah said I did this,
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this and this, I've done it
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and I made these structures as thick as a parsektu vessel he says out of his own mouth in the original story.
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So this word, Parsec, is like a kind of grrrr, grrrr, grrrr noise.
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It immediately locks into this thing on the map.
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Immediately and incontrovertibly.
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So what it means, speaking plainly here,
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if I may speak plainly here,
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is that if you went up this mountain all the way with your sandwiches and breaking regularly for lungfuls of fresh air,
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eventually you would see it against the night sky or the dark sky of the outer universe,
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silhouetted the ribs, the ribs made of wood,
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as thick as a Parthictu vessel,
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of the wreck of the Babylonian Ark,
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which, like the one in the Bible,
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came to rest on a mountain.
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And if you come down the mountain and cross over the water back to the homeland,
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the first place you come to is called Urartu.
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It's drawn on the map.
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Now the interesting thing about that is that in the Bible Noah,
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in his ark, landed on a mountain where the name is Ararat and Ararat is the Hebrew equivalent of the Assyrian Urartu.
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That's quite a meaty thing,
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quite an interesting thing to think about
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because it shows that the story was the same and of course that one led to the other
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but also that from the Babylonian point of view this was a matter-of-fact thing,
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that if you did go on this journey you would see the remnants of this historic boat
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which saved all the life of the world for the long-term future,
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from which we of course profit today,
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still there in the crags against the dark sky.
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So what does this actually mean to us?
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Well let's imagine that we can borrow a time machine and go back to ancient Mesopotamia.
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I've always thought this was a good idea.
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We'll have a party.
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We'll all go together.
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And when we get there somebody might say,
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any idea where the ark is?
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And I go, well, we have the map.
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Here it is.
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And in fact it's there.
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That's where it is.
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And what we have to do is get in our rowing boat.
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Off we go and we will see it for ourselves.
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So although this is a map which would not encourage you,
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perhaps, to moat across Iraq today in a Land Rover,
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when it comes to operating beyond the limits of the known world,
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into the world of imagination, it's indispensable.
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So for the first time we can pronounce with authority that if we were an ancient Babylonian,
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we would know where to go to see the remains of that wonderful boat.
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But then there's the actual question of who wove it together?
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Well, it's often the case with cuneiform tablets
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that at the bottom of the reverse there's a bit that tells you the name of the scribe,
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what's called the colophon.
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And unfortunately the scribe's name is broken.
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There's no trace of it left.
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But his father's name is there because in Babylonia they always said Mr. So-and-so,
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son of Mr. So-and-so and the dad was called Itsuru.
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Now, Itsuru is the Babylonian word for bird.
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Now, this is a rather interesting thing,
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because we know all about people's names in Mesopotamia.
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They usually meant something intelligible,
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like servant of such and such a god,
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or she's beautiful beyond compare.
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No one is called Bird.
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There's no other case of a person called Bird.
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It's not a very good name.
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So what does that mean?
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You look at this for the first time in the museum case,
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which I hope you will now do and peer through and make out the details,
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you would think, ah, I see,
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it's a sort of bird's eye view of the world.
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Well, I think that's what it is.
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It's a birdie birdie family,
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and this is a bird's eye view of the known world and what lies beyond it.
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So that gives it a special kind of warmth of understanding because its failings,
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as it were, from a cartographical point of view, are irrelevant.
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It is not what they're interested in and it's given us a tremendous insight into many aspects of Mesopotamian thinking.
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It's also a triumphant demonstration of what happens when you have a very small,
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totally uninformative and useless fragment of dead,
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boring writing that no one can understand stand
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and you join it onto something in the collection which is much bigger and a whole new adventure begins all over again.
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Hey you cuneiform nerd, do you want some more cuneiform?
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Of course you do.
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Below is a playlist full of all the videos we've ever made concerning cuneiform
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and you can see in the top left corner right now a preview of the next episode of Curatis Corner
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which also covers cuneiform.
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We are going to the ancient Sumerian city of Girsu in
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southern Iraq where Sebastian Ray will talk you through two bricks that were found in the same building.
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It's pretty normal, buildings are made of bricks.
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The weird thing is is that these bricks were made 1500 years apart from each other but were in the same building.
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Also crazy thing, Sebastian's excavated both of these bricks
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but one of those bricks has been excavated twice previously and the first time it was excavated was 2,300 years ago.
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Archaeology is weird.
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このレッスンについて
このレッスンでは、古代メソポタミアの歴史に関連した興味深い内容を通じて、リスニングとスピーキングの練習を行います。特に、バビロンの世界地図に関する話題を通じて、専門的なトピックに関する英語表現を身につけることができます。リスニング後には、自分の言葉で要約する練習も含まれ、英語の発音を良くするためのサポートが得られます。このレッスンは、IELTS スピーキング対策や効果的なコミュニケーションに役立つスキルを鍛える良い機会です。
重要な語彙とフレーズ
- 粘土板 (clay tablet) - 古代の書き込みがされた物体。
- 楔形文字 (cuneiform) - 古代メソポタミアの文字記号。
- 古代メソポタミア (ancient Mesopotamia) - バビロニアを含む地域の歴史。
- 世界地図 (map of the world) - 古代の地理的認識の表現。
- 創造 (creation) - 物事が創り出される過程や事象。
- 川 (river) - 地図に描かれた重要な自然の特徴。
- 情報 (information) - データ、知識としての内容や事実。
- 復製 (replica) - 本物に基づいて作られた模造品。
練習のコツ
このレッスンの映像は、発音やアクセントを学ぶのに非常に良い教材です。映像のスピードは適度で、さまざまな表現が含まれているため、shadowspeak（影のスピーキング）を練習するのに最適です。最初は映像に合わせて声を出してみて、その後で自分のペースで繰り返しましょう。特に、楔形文字や古代の地図に関連する部分では、重要なフレーズを繰り返すことで、リズム感をつかむことができます。映像を見ながらリスニングし、独自の言葉で要約する練習も行うことで、自然な表現力を高められます。このように、日常的に英語に触れ、英語の発音を良くするためには、shadow speech（影のスピーチ）の技法を活用し、一貫した練習を続けることが大切です。
シャドーイングとは？英語上達に効果的な理由
シャドーイング（Shadowing）は、もともとプロの通訳者養成プログラムで開発された言語学習法で、多言語習得者として知られるDr. Alexander Arguelles によって広く普及されました。方法はシンプルですが非常に効果的：ネイティブスピーカーの英語を聞きながら、1〜2秒の遅延で声に出してすぐに繰り返す——まるで「影（shadow）」のように話者を追いかけます。文法ドリルや受動的なリスニングと異なり、シャドーイングは脳と口の筋肉が同時にリアルタイムで英語を処理・再現することを強制します。研究により、発音精度、抑揚、リズム、連音、リスニング力、そして会話の流暢さが大幅に向上することが確認されています。IELTSスピーキング対策や自然な英語コミュニケーションを目指す方に特におすすめです。