TED2007
Murray Gell-Mann: The ancestor of language
Murray Gell-Mann o praotci lidského jazyka
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Po prezentaci na TED2007 na téma elegance ve fyzice přináší Murray Gell-Mann krátký úvod do jiné své vášně: snahu nalézt společného předska moderních jazyků.
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. Full bio
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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Mimo fyziky se rád zapojuji i do jiných věcí.
00:17
In fact, mostly now in other things.
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Vlastně, nyní většinou do jiných věcí.
00:19
One thing is distant relationships among human languages.
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Kupříkladu vzdálené vztahy mezi lidskými jazyky.
00:24
And the professional, historical linguists in the U.S.
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Profesionálové, historičtí lingvisté ve Spojených státech
00:28
and in Western Europe mostly try to stay away
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a v západní Evropě se většinou drží dál
00:31
from any long-distance relationships, big groupings,
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od jakýchkoliv vzdálených vztahů; dál od vekých skupin,
00:35
groupings that go back a long time,
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skupin, které jdou daleko do minulosti,
00:38
longer than the familiar families.
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dále než známé rodiny.
00:41
They don't like that. They think it's crank. I don't think it's crank.
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Nemají to rádi; myslí si, že to je hloupost. Já si nemyslím, že to je hloupost.
00:45
And there are some brilliant linguists, mostly Russians,
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Existuje několik skvělých lingvistů, zejména Rusů,
00:48
who are working on that, at Santa Fe Institute and in Moscow,
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kteří pracují na Institutu v Sante Fe a v Moskvě,
00:52
and I would love to see where that leads.
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a já bych velmi rád viděl, kam nás to dovede.
00:56
Does it really lead to a single ancestor
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Skutečně najdeme jediného předka
00:59
some 20, 25,000 years ago?
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z doby před 20, 25 tisíci let?
01:02
And what if we go back beyond that single ancestor,
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A co když se vydáme ještě dále před tohoto jediného předka,
01:05
when there was presumably a competition among many languages?
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do doby, kdy pravděpodobně existovaly boje mezi mnoha jazyky?
01:09
How far back does that go? How far back does modern language go?
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Jak daleko můžeme jít? Jak daleko do minulosti můžeme jít s moderními jazyky?
01:13
How many tens of thousands of years does it go back?
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O kolik desítek tisíc let se musíme vrátit?
01:16
Chris Anderson: Do you have a hunch or a hope for what the answer to that is?
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Chris Anderson: Doufáte nebo tušíte, co by mohlo být tou odpovědí?
01:19
Murray Gell-Mann: Well, I would guess that modern language must be older
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Murray Gell-Mann: Hm, tipuji, že moderní jazyky jsou starší
01:22
than the cave paintings and cave engravings and cave sculptures
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než jeskynní kresby a rytiny, jeskynní sochy
01:26
and dance steps in the soft clay in the caves in Western Europe,
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a taneční kroky v jemné hlíně v jeskyních v západní Evropě
01:31
in the Aurignacian Period some 35,000 years ago, or earlier.
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z Aurignacianského období před 35 tisíci lety, nebo dříve.
01:37
I can't believe they did all those things and didn't also have a modern language.
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Nevěřím tomu, že by byli schopni vytvořit všechna tato díla a zároveň nemít moderní jazyk.
01:40
So, I would guess that the actual origin goes back at least that far and maybe further.
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Takže odhaduji, že skutečný vznik je nejméně takto daleko a možná dále.
01:45
But that doesn't mean that all, or many, or most
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Ale to vůbec neznamená, že všechny, mnoho, nebo většina
01:48
of today's attested languages couldn't descend perhaps
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současných doložených jazyků nemohla vzniknout z jiného,
01:52
from one that's much younger than that, like say 20,000 years,
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který je o mnoho mladší než těch řekněme 20 tisíc let,
01:56
or something of that kind. It's what we call a bottleneck.
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nebo některého podobného. Říkáme tomu úzké hrdlo.
02:00
CA: Well, Philip Anderson may have been right.
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CA: Hm, Philip Anderson měl možná pravdu.
02:01
You may just know more about everything than anyone.
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Možná skutečně víte o všem něco více než kdokoli jiný.
02:04
So, it's been an honor. Thank you Murray Gell-Mann.
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Byla to pro nás čest. Děkujeme, Murray Gell-Mann.
02:06
(Applause)
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(Potlesk)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Murray Gell-Mann - PhysicistMurray 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.
Murray Gell-Mann | Speaker | TED.com