TED2007
Murray Gell-Mann: The ancestor of language
Murray Gell-Mann puhuu kielen esi-isästä
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TED2007:ssä pitämänsä fysiikan eleganssia käsittelevän puheen jälkeen hämmästyttävä Murray Gell-Mann teki nopean yhteevedon toisesta intohimoisesta kiinnostuksen kohteestaan: nykyisten kielien alkukielen löytämisestä.
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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Fysiikan lisäksi olen ollut tekemisissä myös muiden asioiden parissa.
00:17
In fact, mostly now in other things.
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Oikeastaan, enemmän nykyisin muiden asioiden parissa
00:19
One thing is distant relationships among human languages.
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Yksi kohde on kielien kaukaiset sukulaisuussuhteet
00:24
And the professional, historical linguists in the U.S.
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Ammattimainen, historiallinen kielitiede Yhdysvalloissa
00:28
and in Western Europe mostly try to stay away
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ja Läntisessä Euroopassa usein pyrkii olemaan etäällä
00:31
from any long-distance relationships, big groupings,
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kaukaisista sukulaissuhteista, suurista ryhmittymistä,
00:35
groupings that go back a long time,
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ryhmittymistä, jotka ovat peräisin kaukaa historiasta,
00:38
longer than the familiar families.
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kauempaa, kuin tutut kieliperheet
00:41
They don't like that. They think it's crank. I don't think it's crank.
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He eivät pidä siitä. Heidän mielestä se on liiallista intoilua, minusta ei.
00:45
And there are some brilliant linguists, mostly Russians,
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Eräät loistavat kielitieteilijät, useimmat venäläisiä,
00:48
who are working on that, at Santa Fe Institute and in Moscow,
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työskentelevät asian parissa Santa Fe -instituutissa ja Moskovassa
00:52
and I would love to see where that leads.
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Ja haluaisin nähdä mihin tämä johtaa.
00:56
Does it really lead to a single ancestor
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Johtaako se yhteen alkukieleen
00:59
some 20, 25,000 years ago?
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noin 20, 25000 vuotta sitten?
01:02
And what if we go back beyond that single ancestor,
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Ja entä jos menemme tätä yhtä alkukieltä kauemmas,
01:05
when there was presumably a competition among many languages?
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kun oletettavasti käynnissä oli kilpailu usean kielen välillä?
01:09
How far back does that go? How far back does modern language go?
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Kuinka kauas taaksepäin mennään? Kuinka kauas taaksepäin moderni kieli ylettyy?
01:13
How many tens of thousands of years does it go back?
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Kunka monta kymmentä tuhatta vuotta taaksepäin se ylettyy?
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: Onko sinulla aavistusta tai toivetta mikä vastaus voisi olla?
01:19
Murray Gell-Mann: Well, I would guess that modern language must be older
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Murray Gell-Mann: Arvelisin, että nykyisen kielen täytyy olla vanhempi
01:22
than the cave paintings and cave engravings and cave sculptures
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kuin luolamaalaukset, -kaiverrukset ja -veistokset
01:26
and dance steps in the soft clay in the caves in Western Europe,
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ja tanssiaskelten jäljet pehmeässä savessa Länsi-Euroopan luolissa
01:31
in the Aurignacian Period some 35,000 years ago, or earlier.
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Aurignacian kaudella noin 35000 vuotta sitten tai aiemmin
01:37
I can't believe they did all those things and didn't also have a modern language.
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En voi uskoa, että he tekivät kaikki nämä asiat ilman modernia kieltä.
01:40
So, I would guess that the actual origin goes back at least that far and maybe further.
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Joten arvelisin, että kielen todellinen alkuperä sijoittuu vähintään näin kauas, ehkä kauemmas.
01:45
But that doesn't mean that all, or many, or most
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Mutta tämä ei tarkoita, että kaikki, monet tai useimmat
01:48
of today's attested languages couldn't descend perhaps
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nykyisistä kielistä eivät voisi polveutua ehkä
01:52
from one that's much younger than that, like say 20,000 years,
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paljon nuoremmasta kielestä, sanotaan 20 000 vuotta,
01:56
or something of that kind. It's what we call a bottleneck.
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tai jostakin sellaisesta. Kutsumme sitä pullonkaulaksi.
02:00
CA: Well, Philip Anderson may have been right.
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CA: Philip Anderson on saattanut olla oikeassa.
02:01
You may just know more about everything than anyone.
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Sinä taidat tietää eniten kaikesta.
02:04
So, it's been an honor. Thank you Murray Gell-Mann.
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Tämä on ollut kunnia. Kiitos Murray Gell-Mann.
02:06
(Applause)
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(Taputuksia)
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