Türlerin Kökenini İngilizce okumak için İngilizce seviyemin ne kadar olması gerekir?

Muhtemelen C seviyesinde olması iyi olacaktır; hatta yer yer o bile zorlayabilir. Mesela rastgele seçtiğim bir paragrafı bırakayım, anlayabiliyor musunuz bir bakın:

Natural instincts are lost under domestication: a remarkable instance of this is seen in those breeds of fowls which very rarely or never become “broody,” that is, never wish to sit on their eggs. Familiarity alone prevents our seeing how largely and how permanently the minds of our domestic animals have been modified. It is scarcely possible to doubt that the love of man has become instinctive in the dog. All wolves, foxes, jackals and species of the cat genus, when kept tame, are most eager to attack poultry, sheep and pigs; and this tendency has been found incurable in dogs which have been brought home as puppies from countries such as Tierra del Fuego and Australia, where the savages do not keep these domestic animals. How rarely, on the other hand, do our civilised dogs, even when quite young, require to be taught not to attack poultry, sheep, and pigs! No doubt they occasionally do make an attack, and are then beaten; and if not cured, they are destroyed; so that habit and some degree of selection have probably concurred in civilising by inheritance our dogs. On the other hand, young chickens have lost wholly by habit, that fear of the dog and cat which no doubt was originally instinctive in them, for I am informed by Captain Hutton that the young chickens of the parent stock, the Gallus bankiva, when reared in India under a hen, are at first excessively wild. So it is with young pheasants reared in England under a hen. It is not that chickens have lost all fear, but fear only of dogs and cats, for if the hen gives the danger chuckle they will run (more especially young turkeys) from under her and conceal themselves in the surrounding grass or thickets; and this is evidently done for the instinctive purpose of allowing, as we see in wild ground-birds, their mother to fly away. But this instinct retained by our chickens has become useless under domestication, for the mother-hen has almost lost by disuse the power of flight.

Viktoryen Dönem İngilizcesi ile ilgili en büyük problem, çok fazla "yan cümle" kullanıyor olması (bir cümle içinde, iki virgül arasına yazılmış ek cümlecikler). Bu da kimi zaman 8-9 satırlık bir paragrafın 1-2 cümleden oluşmasına neden oluyor. Tabii bir de devrik cümle kullanımıyla da karşılaşabiliyoruz. Bu, bizdeki bazı ağır metinlerde olduğu kadar sık kullanılan bir şey değil; fakat yine de karşımıza çıkıyor.

Dolayısıyla bu uzun cümlelerle (ve bazı eskimiş kelimelerle) başa çıkabildiğiniz sürece Köken'i de anlayabilirsiniz. Çünkü konu akışı aslında inanılmaz sade, inanılmaz rasyonel. Sadece stil biraz ağdalı bir stil...

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