The British Government has decided to spend £1.5 million translating the complete works of Shakespeare into Chinese. The project will be delivered by the Royal Shakespeare Company, who has also received government funding for a tour of China.

The plays and poetry of William Shakespeare are arguably England’s greatest cultural treasure. Every schoolchild studies his work, and he is considered to be the greatest Englishman to ever use a pen. Until the 20th century though, Shakespeare was almost unknown in China. The new translations and accompanying tour will bring Shakespeare to a wider audience in China. What, though, do those from the land of Shakespeare’s birth feel about their government sponsoring this project?

Only a very few were angry about this use of taxpayers’ money, with most expressing pride that “their” playwright was to be presented again in the world’s most spoken language. However, there are some huge challenges involved in translating Shakespeare into Chinese.

The first translations of Shakespeare into Chinese were by Lin Shu (1852-1924). They were not direct translations, but taken from a children’s book of prose (散文) adaptations of Shakespeare’s stories. The first Chinese encounters (相遇) with Shakespeare were therefore not with the verse (韵文) of his plays but the stories and characters in a simplified format.

The influence of Shakespeare’s storylines has definitely been greater than that of his language. Shakespeare’s language does not easily submit to translation. Many of the words, figures of speech and references are too archaic (古体的) to be understood even by native English speakers. Much of Shakespeare is written in verse limited by rhythm and rhyme. This is particularly difficult when translating into Chinese.

Besides, Shakespeare’s “History Plays” present a different challenge to the Chinese translator. As dramatizations of real historical events, these plays require the translator to have a thorough knowledge of British history. Meanwhile, Shakespeare’s comedic moments are often based on puns (双关语). These are really difficult to translate directly.

Modern Europeans came from three major groups of ancient humans, not two as was thought before, according to a study published on Wednesday.

Until now, it was widely believed that Europeans evolved (进化) from two prehistoric groups. One was early farmers who moved into Europe from the Middle East about 7,500 years ago. The other was local hunter-gatherers who had lived in Europe for more than 40,000 years.

But a new study in the journal Nature says there was a third group in the mix: people from northern Eurasia. They lived in today’s Russia and northern Asia. The finding means that northern Eurasians contributed to the human genes (基因) both in Europe and North America.

Their influence on the Americas has been proved by previous studies which showed that they reached modern-day Alaska in the US more than 15,000 years ago. They crossed an “ice bridge” that connected islands in the Bering Strait, a narrow passage of water between Asia and North America, at the time.

Researchers collected genetic information in nine ancient humans’ bones. The remains were found in Sweden, Luxembourg and Germany. They were one farmer from about 7,000 years ago and eight hunter-gatherers who lived about 8,000 years ago, before the coming of agriculture.

The researchers compared the information with the gene pool of 2,345 present-day people living all over the world. They found almost all Europeans have ancestry from all three of those ancient groups.

The ancient northern Eurasians contributed up to 20% of the genetics of Europeans, although this was the smallest percentage among the three ancestral groups.

People in northern Europe, especially the Baltic states, have the highest percentage of western European hunter-gatherer ancestry. Up to 50% of the DNA of Lithuanians of northeast Europe comes from this group.

Southern Europeans had more of their genetic ancestry from the ancient farmers. Up to 90% of the DNA of Sardinians of Italy can be traced back to (追溯到) these early European immigrants.

Looking ahead, the researchers plan to find out when the ancient northern Eurasians arrived in Europe.