TED2007
Murray Gell-Mann: The ancestor of language
Murray Gell-Mann parle de l'ancêtre du langage
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Après une intervention à TED2007 sur l'élégance en physique, l'étonnant Murray Gell-Mann donne un aperçu rapide d'un autre intérêt passionnant : trouver l'ancêtre commun de nos langues modernes
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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Et bien, je suis impliqué dans d’autres choses que la physique.
00:17
In fact, mostly now in other things.
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En fait, à présent, principalement dans d’autres choses.
00:19
One thing is distant relationships among human languages.
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Une de ces choses est les parentés éloignées entre les langues humaines.
00:24
And the professional, historical linguists in the U.S.
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Et les linguistes historiques professionnels aux Etats-Unis
00:28
and in Western Europe mostly try to stay away
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et en Europe de l’Ouest essayent pour la plupart de se tenir à l’écart
00:31
from any long-distance relationships, big groupings,
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de toute relation longue distance; de grands regroupements,
00:35
groupings that go back a long time,
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des regroupements qui remontent à il y a longtemps,
00:38
longer than the familiar families.
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plus longtemps que les familles qui leur sont familières.
00:41
They don't like that. They think it's crank. I don't think it's crank.
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Ils n’aiment pas ça, ils pensent que c’est farfelu. Je ne crois pas que ce soit farfelu.
00:45
And there are some brilliant linguists, mostly Russians,
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Et il y a des linguistes brillants, pour la plupart des Russes,
00:48
who are working on that, at Santa Fe Institute and in Moscow,
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qui travaillent là-dessus à l’Institut de Santa Fe et à Moscou,
00:52
and I would love to see where that leads.
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et j’adorerais voir où cela conduit.
00:56
Does it really lead to a single ancestor
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Est-ce que cela amène à un ancêtre unique
00:59
some 20, 25,000 years ago?
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il y a quelques 20 000 à 25 000 ans ?
01:02
And what if we go back beyond that single ancestor,
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Et si on remonte au-delà de cet ancêtre unique,
01:05
when there was presumably a competition among many languages?
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quand il y avait vraisemblablement une compétition entre de nombreux languages ?
01:09
How far back does that go? How far back does modern language go?
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Jusqu’où est-ce que ça remonte ? Jusqu’où est-ce que le language moderne remonte ?
01:13
How many tens of thousands of years does it go back?
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A combien de dizaines de milliers d’années est-ce que ça remonte ?
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 : Avez-vous une petite idée ou un espoir de ce que peut être la réponse à cette question ?
01:19
Murray Gell-Mann: Well, I would guess that modern language must be older
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Murray Guell-Mann : Et bien, je dirais que le language moderne doit être plus ancien
01:22
than the cave paintings and cave engravings and cave sculptures
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que les peintures, les gravures et les sculptures rupestres,
01:26
and dance steps in the soft clay in the caves in Western Europe,
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et que les traces de pas de dance dans l’argile molle des grottes d’Europe de l’Ouest
01:31
in the Aurignacian Period some 35,000 years ago, or earlier.
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dans la période aurignacienne il y a quelques 35 000 années ou avant cela.
01:37
I can't believe they did all those things and didn't also have a modern language.
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Je ne peux pas croire qu’ils aient fait tout ça et n’aient pas eu un language moderne.
01:40
So, I would guess that the actual origin goes back at least that far and maybe further.
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Alors je dirais que la véritable origine remonte au moins aussi loin et peut-être plus loin encore.
01:45
But that doesn't mean that all, or many, or most
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Mais ça ne veut pas dire que tous, ou beaucoup, ou la plupart des langues
01:48
of today's attested languages couldn't descend perhaps
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d'aujourdhui qui ont été testés ne puissent pas descendre peut-être
01:52
from one that's much younger than that, like say 20,000 years,
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d'une langue qui soit bien plus jeune que, disons, 20 000 ans
01:56
or something of that kind. It's what we call a bottleneck.
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ou quelque chose comme ça. C'est ce que j'appelle un goulot.
02:00
CA: Well, Philip Anderson may have been right.
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CA : :Et bien, Philip Anderson avait peut-être raison,
02:01
You may just know more about everything than anyone.
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Vous en savez peut-être plus que tout le monde sur tout,
02:04
So, it's been an honor. Thank you Murray Gell-Mann.
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Et donc ce fut un honneur. Merci Murray Guell-Mann
02:06
(Applause)
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(Applaudissements)
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