SPREADING THE WORD

Spreading the Word William Claxton and Tim Berners -Lee Written by Charlotte Gwaling Illustrated by Jim Mitchell

传播思想：威廉·卡克斯顿与蒂姆·伯纳斯-李 作者：夏洛特·格瓦林 绘者：吉姆·米切尔

Passing on ideas. All through history humans have invented things. We create new ideas and technology to help us in our everyday lives. Sometimes these inventions lead to huge changes. William Caxton understood the importance of a machine that printed books. His actions made sure that many more people were able to read books and learn from them. Tim Berners -Lee worked with a different technology, the internet, and created the World Wide Web. These two men lived hundreds of years apart, but they both changed the way we learn and how we communicate with each other. William Caxton, born around 1422. Tim Berners -Lee, born 1955.

传递思想。纵观历史，人类发明了各种各样的东西。我们创造新的想法和技术，来方便日常生活。 有时候这些发明会带来翻天覆地的变化。威廉·卡克斯顿深知印刷书籍机器的重要性。 他的行动让更多人有机会读书，从书中学习知识。 蒂姆·伯纳斯-李研究的是另一项技术：互联网，他创造了万维网。 这两个人生活的年代相隔数百年，但他们都改变了我们学习和彼此交流的方式。 威廉·卡克斯顿大约出生于1422年。蒂姆·伯纳斯-李出生于1955年。

What was life like when William Caxton was born? William Caxton was born around 1422 in Kent in the south east of England. When he was growing up, most people in England worked on the land as peasant farmers. The land they lived on was owned by a few rich men. The peasants had to pay the rich men rent so they could farm and live on the land. Peasant farmers working on the land. Cities such as London were starting to grow at this time. People were trading with other countries and the wall trade in particular was making many towns rich. At this time only a third of the people living in England could read or write. Every book had to be copied out by hand. It could take months or years for someone to copy out a single book. This meant there weren't many copies of books available for ordinary people to read.

威廉·卡克斯顿出生的时候，人们的生活是什么样的呢？ 威廉·卡克斯顿大约1422年出生在英格兰东南部的肯特郡。 在他成长的年代，英格兰的大多数人都是在地里劳作的农民。 他们居住的土地都归少数富人所有。 农民必须向富人交租金，才能在这片土地上耕种和生活。 在地里劳作的农民。 像伦敦这样的城市在这个时候开始发展起来。 人们和其他国家做贸易，尤其是羊毛贸易让很多城镇富裕了起来。 当时英格兰只有三分之一的人会读会写。 每一本书都得手工抄写出来。 抄完一本书可能要花几个月甚至几年的时间。 这意味着普通人能读到的书没有多少本。

Learning the Trade In 1438 William became an apprentice to a merchant in London. As an apprentice he learnt all about how trade works. Then in 1441 he moved to Bruges in Belgium because it was a big centre of trade. Merchants from all over Europe went there to buy and sell goods such as wool. In Bruges William became the leader of a group of English traders. This group was called the Merchant Adventures in the Low Countries. His job was to get foreign leaders to agree to trade treaties that helped English merchants. He learnt to speak different languages at this time and translated French books into English, which was hard to do by hand. This picture shows what Bruges looked like in the 1400s.

学习手艺 1438年，威廉成为了伦敦一名商人的 学徒。作为学徒，他学完了贸易运作的所有知识。1441年，他 搬到了比利时的布鲁日，因为那里是大型贸易中心。来自全 欧洲的商人都去那里买卖羊毛之类的商品。在布鲁日，威廉成了一个 英国商人团体的领袖。这个团体叫做“低地国家冒险商人协会”。 他的工作是说服外国领导人签署有利于英国商人的贸易条约。 这段时间他学会了说不同的语言，还把法语书籍翻译成英语， 手工翻译这件事非常不容易。这张图展示了15世纪布鲁日的样子。

Discovering the Printing Press Around 1471, William went on a trip to the city of Cologne, in Germany, and while he was there he saw an amazing new machine, the printing press. This machine could print books. The printing press had been created by the German inventor, Johannes Gutenberg, between 1430 and 1440. He used a wooden press that people used to make cheese. Then he fitted letters onto the press that could be taken off and rearranged. He also invented a special oily ink that stuck to the letters and printed onto paper. With the letters on the press and using his ink, Gutenberg could reproduce a page of writing over and over again. To start with, Gutenberg and his staff could print about six pages a day. This was much faster than copying out books. Between 1453 and 1454 they printed 180 copies of the Bible.

发现印刷机 大约1471年，威廉去德国科隆旅行，在那里他 见到了一台神奇的新机器：印刷机。这台机器可以印刷书籍。 印刷机是德国发明家约翰内斯·古腾堡在1430年到1440年间发明的。 他用了人们制作奶酪的木质压榨机，然后在上面装上可以取下和重新排列的字母。 他还发明了一种特殊的油性墨水，可以粘在字母上印到纸上。 有了压榨机上的字母和这种墨水，古腾堡可以一遍遍复制同一页文字。 最开始，古腾堡和他的助手一天大约能印刷6页内容。 这比手抄书快多了。1453到1454年间，他们印了180本《圣经》。

Using the technology. William Caxton spent a lot of time learning about the printing press and understanding how it worked. Then he took the idea back to Bruges because he knew how much time and effort this machine could save. William Caxton with his first printing press. Around 1473 William printed the first book in the English language. Then around 1475 he was the first person to bring a printing press to England. His press in London printed copies of more than a hundred titles. William himself translated many of these books from other languages before they were printed in English. One of the most famous books he printed was Joffrey Chowcer's The Canterbury Tales.

运用这项技术 威廉·卡克斯顿花了很多时间学习印刷机的相关知识，弄懂它的运作原理。 之后他把这个想法带回了布鲁日，因为他知道这台机器能节省多少时间和精力。 威廉·卡克斯顿和他的第一台印刷机。 大约1473年，威廉印刷了第一本英文书籍。 大约1475年，他成为第一个把印刷机带到英格兰的人。 他在伦敦的印刷机印刷了一百多种不同的书籍。 其中很多书都是威廉自己先从其他语言翻译成英语，再印刷出版的。 他印刷的最有名的书之一是杰弗里·乔叟的《坎特伯雷故事集》。