Perc used data collected by Google for the company's Ngram Viewerapplication – a tool that lets users see the changing popularity of certain written words over time. Once he had downloaded data for books published between 1520 and 2008, he used an algorithm to search for the most commonly used words and groups of words in each year.
可怜的"Pope"过时了，它（他）已经失去了它（他）一直以来在书写（英语）上的地位。斯洛文尼亚马里博尔大学的Matjaž Perc如是说道，他鉴定出了在过去5个世纪出版的520万册书中最常见的（英文）单词。
The most popular words stayed the same. "The" was top in both 1520 and 2008. Common groups of words have changed, though. The most common three-word phrase in 2008 was "one of the"; in 1520, it was "of the Pope". References to religion featured heavily in early literature, Perc notes. For example, "the Pope and his followers", "the laws of the Church" and "the body and blood of Christ" all feature in the 10 most popular five-word phrases of 1520. By 2008, the most frequently written five-word phrases were along the lines of "at the end of the", "in the middle of the" and "on the other side of".
Perc是利用谷歌公司的Ngram Viewer设备收集数据，这么个设备能帮助读者看到书面文字的变迁。他下载了1520年到2008年间出版的书籍的相关数据，然后用一个算法找到每一年使用最多的词及词组。
A closer inspection of the changing use of English words revealed that, while changes in popularity of some words were quite dramatic during the 16th and 17th centuries, rankings have stayed pretty constant in the 20th and 21st centuries. That said, recently the words "United States" have increased in popularity.
（结果发现）使用频率最高的词并没有变化——"The"在1520年是最高频的，在2008年仍然是。不过最高频的词组发生了变化。在2008年最常见的词组是"one of the"，而在1520年则是"of the Pope"。宗教是早期文学作品的特点，Perc解释到，例如"the Pope and his followers", "the laws of the Church", 和"the body and blood of Christ"都属1520年10个最常用的5词词组之列。到2008年，使用最频繁的5词词组则属"at the end of the", "in the middle of the"和"on the other side of"之类。对英文单词使用频率变迁的进一步的探究发现，尽管从16世纪到17世纪一些词的使用情况发生了巨大的变化，但是在20世纪和21世纪使用排名相当稳定。那也就是说，"United States"的使用频率在近代呈上升（的趋势）。
Because the most frequently written words are changing little over the years, the English language might be particularly easy to learn, says Perc. "If phrases reappear in a book, it's easier to follow, " he says. "In China, where globalisation is still taking place, there's still a lot of change in the language, and that probably makes it harder to learn."
“看来英语书写语已经成熟，”Perc说道， “There is a statistical coming of age of the language." 因为高频使用的书写语并不随着时间的变化而变化，这样英语也许会特别地容易学，Perc又说道。”在书中反复出现的词组更容易掌握，“他补充道，”在中国全球化正在发生，所以语言仍然在变化，也许这个使得汉语更难学。“
Journal reference: Royal Society Interface, DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2012.0491
Journal reference: Royal Society Interface, DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2012.
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