ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Murray Gell-Mann - Physicist
Murray Gell-Mann brings visibility to a crucial aspect of our existence that we can't actually see: elemental particles. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics for introducing quarks, one of two fundamental ingredients for all matter in the universe.

Why you should listen

He's been called "the man with five brains" -- and Murray Gell-Mann has the resume to prove it. In addition to being a Nobel laureate, he is an accomplished physicist who's earned numerous awards, medals and honorary degrees for his work with subatomic particles, including the groundbreaking theory that the nucleus of an atom comprises 100 or so fundamental building blocks called quarks.

Gell-Mann's influence extends well beyond his field: He's a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He also serves on the board of the Wildlife Conservation Society and is a director of Encyclopedia Britannica. Gell-Mann, a professor emeritus of Caltech, now heads the evolution of human languages program at the Santa Fe Institute, which he cofounded in 1984.

A prolific writer -- he's penned scores of academic papers and several books, including The Quark and the Jaguar -- Gell-Mann is also the subject of the popular science biography Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in 20th-Century Physics.

More profile about the speaker
Murray Gell-Mann | Speaker | TED.com
TED2007

Murray Gell-Mann: The ancestor of language

मुरे गेल-म्यान-- भाषाको पूर्वजको बारेमा

Filmed:
944,446 views

TED२००७ मा भौतिक विज्ञानको शालिन कुरा गरेपछि, बिचित्रका गेल-म्यानले अर्को उत्साहजनक रुचि: आधुनिक भाषाहरूको साझा पूर्वज पत्ता लगाउने बारेमा छोटो समीक्षा गर्छन।
- Physicist
Murray Gell-Mann brings visibility to a crucial aspect of our existence that we can't actually see: elemental particles. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics for introducing quarks, one of two fundamental ingredients for all matter in the universe. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:13
Well, I'm involved in other things, besides physics.
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अँ, म भौतिकविज्ञान बाहेक अरु कुराहरूमा पनि संलग्न छु।
00:17
In fact, mostly now in other things.
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वास्तवमा, अहिले चाहिँ धेरैजसो अरु कुराहरूमा।
00:19
One thing is distant relationships among human languages.
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एउटा कुरा चाहिँ मानव भाषाहरूबिचको टाढाको सम्बन्ध।
00:24
And the professional, historical linguists in the U.S.
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र अमेरिका र पश्चिमी यूरोपका व्यावसायिक, ऐतिहासिक
00:28
and in Western Europe mostly try to stay away
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भाषाविज्ञहरू प्राय:जसो कुनै पुरानो सम्बन्धबाट
00:31
from any long-distance relationships, big groupings,
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टाढै बस्न खोज्छन; ठूला समूहहरू,
00:35
groupings that go back a long time,
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त्यस्ता समूहहरू जो धेरै समय अगाडि जान्छन,
00:38
longer than the familiar families.
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परिचित परिवार भन्दा अगाडि।
00:41
They don't like that. They think it's crank. I don't think it's crank.
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ऊनीहरू त्यो मन पराउँदैनन; ऊनीहरू सोच्छन यो सनक हो। मलाई लाग्दैन कि यो सनक हो।
00:45
And there are some brilliant linguists, mostly Russians,
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र केहि प्रतिभाशाली भाषाविदहरू छन, धेरैजसो रसियनहरू,
00:48
who are working on that, at Santa Fe Institute and in Moscow,
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जो सान्टा-फे संस्थान र मस्कोमा यसमा काम गरिराखेका छन,
00:52
and I would love to see where that leads.
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र मलाई यसले कहाँ पुर्याउँछ भन्ने हेर्न मन छ।
00:56
Does it really lead to a single ancestor
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के यसले साँच्चै एउटा एक्लो पूर्वजसम्म पुर्याउँछ
00:59
some 20, 25,000 years ago?
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जुन २०--२५००० वर्ष अघिको होस?
01:02
And what if we go back beyond that single ancestor,
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अनि यदि हामी त्यो एक्लो पूर्वजभन्दा अगाडि गयौँ भने,
01:05
when there was presumably a competition among many languages?
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जतिबेला सायद धेरै भाषाहरूको बिचमा प्रतिस्पर्धा थियो?
01:09
How far back does that go? How far back does modern language go?
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त्यो कतिसम्म पुरानो होला त? आधुनिक भाषा कतिसम्म पुराना होलान त?
01:13
How many tens of thousands of years does it go back?
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यो कति दशौँ हजार वर्ष अगाडि पुग्छ त?
01:16
Chris Anderson: Do you have a hunch or a hope for what the answer to that is?
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क्रिस एन्डर्सन: के तपाईँलाई यसको उत्तर के हो त भन्ने कुराको अन्दाज वा आशा छ त?
01:19
Murray Gell-Mann: Well, I would guess that modern language must be older
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मुरे गेल-म्यान: हजुर, मेरो अनुमानमा आधुनिक भाषा गुफाका चित्रकला र
01:22
than the cave paintings and cave engravings and cave sculptures
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गुफाका अभिलेख र गुफाका मुर्तिहरूभन्दा पुरानो हुनुपर्छ
01:26
and dance steps in the soft clay in the caves in Western Europe,
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अनि पश्चिमी युरोपका गुफाभित्र लगभग ३५ हजार वर्ष वा अझ अघि
01:31
in the Aurignacian Period some 35,000 years ago, or earlier.
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पाषाण युगमा माटोमा कुँदिएका नृत्य कदमहरूभन्दा।
01:37
I can't believe they did all those things and didn't also have a modern language.
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ऊनीहरूले यी सब चिजहरू गरे अनि ऊनीहरूसँग आधुनिक भाषा पनि थिएन भन्ने मलाई विश्वास लाग्दैन
01:40
So, I would guess that the actual origin goes back at least that far and maybe further.
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त्यसैले मेरो अनुमानमा वास्तविक उत्पत्ति कम्तिमा त्यति अघिसम्म पुग्छ र अझ अघि हुन पनि सक्छ।
01:45
But that doesn't mean that all, or many, or most
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तर त्यसको अर्थ त्यतिमात्रै होईन कि सबै अथवा धरैजसो, अझ प्राय:जसो
01:48
of today's attested languages couldn't descend perhaps
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आजका प्रामाणिक भाषाहरू सायद त्योभन्दा नयाँ भाषाबाट
01:52
from one that's much younger than that, like say 20,000 years,
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उत्पत्ति भएका त हैनन, जस्तो मानौँ २० हजार वर्ष वा यस्तै।
01:56
or something of that kind. It's what we call a bottleneck.
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यसलाई नै हामी सङ्कुचन भन्छौँ।
02:00
CA: Well, Philip Anderson may have been right.
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क्रिस: अँ, फिलिप एन्डर्सन ठिक पनि हुनसक्छन।
02:01
You may just know more about everything than anyone.
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तपाईँलाई हरेक चिजको बारेमा अरू कसैलाई भन्दा बढी थाहा छ होला।
02:04
So, it's been an honor. Thank you Murray Gell-Mann.
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यो एउटा सम्मानयोग्य कुरा हो। धन्यवाद मुरे गेल-म्यान।
02:06
(Applause)
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(ताली)
Translated by Anantha Swami
Reviewed by Deepak Basyal

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Murray Gell-Mann - Physicist
Murray Gell-Mann brings visibility to a crucial aspect of our existence that we can't actually see: elemental particles. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics for introducing quarks, one of two fundamental ingredients for all matter in the universe.

Why you should listen

He's been called "the man with five brains" -- and Murray Gell-Mann has the resume to prove it. In addition to being a Nobel laureate, he is an accomplished physicist who's earned numerous awards, medals and honorary degrees for his work with subatomic particles, including the groundbreaking theory that the nucleus of an atom comprises 100 or so fundamental building blocks called quarks.

Gell-Mann's influence extends well beyond his field: He's a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He also serves on the board of the Wildlife Conservation Society and is a director of Encyclopedia Britannica. Gell-Mann, a professor emeritus of Caltech, now heads the evolution of human languages program at the Santa Fe Institute, which he cofounded in 1984.

A prolific writer -- he's penned scores of academic papers and several books, including The Quark and the Jaguar -- Gell-Mann is also the subject of the popular science biography Strange Beauty: Murray Gell-Mann and the Revolution in 20th-Century Physics.

More profile about the speaker
Murray Gell-Mann | Speaker | TED.com