从《教授与疯子》谈起
The Professor and the Madman
）中有这样一幕令天下语文学家动容的场景： 梅尔·吉普森（Mel Gibson）饰演的詹姆斯·穆雷（James Augustus Henry Murray， 1837—1915）被带进牛津大学基督教堂学院一间神圣庄严的学堂里，面对着牛津大学出版社的代表们——一群维多利亚时期最桀骜不驯的精英知识分子，穆雷神色凝重，开始了以下这样一段陈述：
我不得不说语文学，不管是比较的还是专门的，都是我毕生挚爱的追求。我对雅利安和叙利亚—阿拉伯语系的语言和文学有一般的了解，并不是说我对它们全部或者说它们中的全部都很熟悉。但我拥有一般的词汇的和结构性的知识，故只需要有机会应用就能够获得更精通的知识。同时，我熟习罗曼语种，包括意大利语、法语、加特罗语、西班牙语、拉丁语，还懂得一定程度的葡萄牙语、瓦尔多和诸多地区方言。在条顿语支系中，我完全掌握荷兰语、弗莱明语、德语和丹麦语。而我自己专注于盎格鲁—撒克逊和莫西亚天主教研究，出版过不少文章和专著。我懂一点点凯尔特语，目前正在学习斯拉夫语系，俄语水平已经够用了。我也看得懂一些波斯语、梵语支系的，主要是为了做比较语文学研究。当然，为了研读《旧约》和伯西托本《圣经》，我掌握了希伯来文和叙利亚文……
（《教授与疯子》这部电影改编自西蒙·温彻斯特[Simon Winchester]于1998年发表的一部畅销历史小说《克劳索恩的外科医生： 一段有关谋杀者、疯狂和对语词之爱的传奇》[
The Surgeon of Crowthorne： A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words]，此书同年在美国和加拿大出版时改名为《教授与疯子： 一段关于谋杀者、疯狂与〈牛津英语词典〉成书的传奇》[
The Professor and the Madman： A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary， Harper Collins， 1998]。这段话的原文为：“I have to state that Philology, both Comparative and special, has been my favorite pursuit during the whole of my life, and that I possess a general acquaintance with the languages and literature of the Aryan and Syro-Arabic classes—not indeed to say that I am familiar with all or nearly all of these, but that I possess that general lexical and structural knowledge which makes the intimate knowledge only a matter of a little application. With several I have a more intimate acquaintance as the Romance tongues, Italian, French, Catalan, Spanish, Latin & in a less degree Portuguese, Vaudois, Provençal and various dialects. In the Teutonic branch, I am tolerably familiar with Dutch （having at my place of business correspondence to read in Dutch, German, French & occasionally other languages）, Flemish, German, Danish. In Anglo-Saxon and Meoso-Gothic my studies have been much closer, I have prepared some works for publication upon these languages. I know a little of the Celtic, and am at present engaged with the Sclavonic, having obtained a useful knowledge of Russian. In the Persian, Achaemenian Cueiform, & Sanscrit branches, I know for the purposes of Comparative Philology. I have sufficient knowledge of Hebrew and Syriac to read at sight the Old Testament and Peshito； to a less degree I know Aramaic Arabic, Coptic and Phoenician to the point where it was left by Genesius.”电影台词改编自穆雷提交给大英博物馆职位申请的自荐信中。穆雷虽然被大英博物馆拒绝，却被伦敦语文学协会[London Philological Society]接纳，从而得到了《牛津英语词典》主编的职位，详见温彻斯特： 《教授与疯子》，第63页。值得一提的是，“对语词之爱”正是《牛津英语词典》对“语文学”一词所做的定义。）