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（As she writes in Scientific Reports, ）however,
Maria
Lahtinen of the Finnish Museum of Natural History
thinks she might have the
answer
【 as to how wolves and people squared the competitive circle /while both species were still hunters.
然而，来自芬兰自然历史博物馆的玛丽亚·拉赫蒂宁在《科学报告》中写道，她可能已经知道了在狼和人仍同为捕食者的情况下，它们是如何打破竞争关系的。
squared the circle：例句It was like trying to square a circle. That is, it was impossible. 这就好比要把圆的变成方的。也就是说，是不可能的。
把圆的变成方的，也就是变不可能为可能，这里意译为打破竞争关系。
在中国为何多达12亿人共用100个姓？如果你在中国街头随便拦住一个人，那么他们很可能姓王、李、张、刘或陈，因为这些是中国最常见的5个姓。
With 1.37 billion citizens, China has the world's largest population, but has one of the smallest surname pools. Only about 6,000 surnames are in use, according to the Ministry of Public Security. And the vast majority of the population -- almost 86% -- share just 100 of those surnames.
中国有13.7亿人口，是世界上人口最多，但姓氏总量最小的国家之一。根据公//安///部的数据，人们采用的姓氏大约只有6000个。绝大多数人——几乎86%的人——只共用100个姓氏。
There are a few reasons for this: China is less racially diverse than countries such as the US, where a wealth of minority groups increase surname diversity. It also has to do with language; you can't just add a random
stroke
to a Chinese character and create a new surname, the way you can add a letter to an English name.
有几个原因造成了这一现象：与美国等国家相比，中国的种族多样性较低，美国大量少数族裔增加了姓氏的多样性。这和语言也有关系；你不能像给英文名字加个字母那样，随便给一个汉字加上一个笔画，就能创造出一个新的姓氏。
China's digital revolution has transformed daily life, and many of these systems rely on a limited list of standardized Chinese characters. That means people with rare characters in their names, which aren't compatible with existing computer systems, can get left behind -- pushing many to change their names for the sake of convenience, even if it means abandoning centuries of heritage and language.
中国的数字革命已经改变了日常生活，许多系统依赖于有限的标准化汉字。这意味着名字中包含罕见字的人，因为罕见字与现有的电脑系统不兼容，可能会因此被时代所抛弃——这迫使许多人为了方便而改名，即使这意味着要放弃传承了几个世纪的文化遗产和语言。
China's history, full of migration, political
turmoil
and
warfare
, meant people's names were often in flux -- which is partly why many have since vanished. Sometimes, ancient rulers and
clans
would adopt the names of their state or
fiefdom
; others were granted new royal surnames by emperors.
中国的历史充满了移民、政//治//动///荡和战//争，这意味着人们的名字经常在变化 -- -- 这就是为什么许多人的姓氏已经消失的部分原因所在。有时，古代统治者和氏族会采用他们国家或领地的名字；有的人则由皇帝赐予新的皇家姓氏。
People sometimes changed their names for convenience, too -- for instance, simplifying complex characters by adopting similar-sounding ones with fewer strokes. Other times they
did it out of
superstition, abandoning a name believed to bring
ill fortune
, said Chen, the associate professor.
Name extinction is also a naturally occurring phenomenon called the Galton-Watson process, which
posits
that in
patrilineal
societies, surnames are lost or
die out
over time with each new generation as women take on their husbands' surnames.
人们有时也会为了方便而改变自己的姓氏，比如，用发音相似、笔画更少的名字来简化复杂的汉字。副教授陈说，有些时候，他们会出于迷信的原因，抛弃掉人们认为会带来厄运的姓氏。
翻译划线句，长按文末小程序码打卡，答案下期公布~
本文节选自：CNN
发布时间：2021.01.17
作者：Jessie Yeung
原文标题：Why 1.2 billion people share the same 100 surnames in China
