TED2007
Murray Gell-Mann: The ancestor of language
Murray Gell-Mann om opphavet til språk
Filmed:
Readability: 3.6
944,446 views
Etter å ha talt på TED2007 om eleganse i fysikk gir den makelause Murray Gell-Mann eit raskt oversyn over ei anna interesse: søket etter eit felles opphav til våre moderne språk.
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.
0
1000
4000
Vel, eg driv med andre ting i tillegg til fysikk.
00:17
In fact, mostly now in other things.
1
5000
2000
Faktisk, hovudsakleg andre ting for tida.
00:19
One thing is distant relationships among human languages.
2
7000
4000
Ein ting er fjerne slektskap mellom menneskelege språk.
00:24
And the professional, historical linguists in the U.S.
3
12000
4000
Og profesjonelle, historiske lingvistar i USA
00:28
and in Western Europe mostly try to stay away
4
16000
3000
og i Vest-Europa held seg helst unna
00:31
from any long-distance relationships, big groupings,
5
19000
4000
slektskap over store avstandar; store grupperingar,
00:35
groupings that go back a long time,
6
23000
3000
grupperingar som går langt attende i tid,
00:38
longer than the familiar families.
7
26000
3000
lenger enn dei vanlege familiane.
00:41
They don't like that. They think it's crank. I don't think it's crank.
8
29000
4000
Dei liker det ikkje; dei tykkjer det er vrøvl. Eg tykkjer ikkje det er vrøvl.
00:45
And there are some brilliant linguists, mostly Russians,
9
33000
3000
Og det finst glimrande lingvistar, hovudsakleg russarar,
00:48
who are working on that, at Santa Fe Institute and in Moscow,
10
36000
4000
som arbeider med det ved Santa Fe-instituttet og i Moskva,
00:52
and I would love to see where that leads.
11
40000
4000
og eg vil veldig gjerne sjå kva det fører til.
00:56
Does it really lead to a single ancestor
12
44000
3000
Fører det verkeleg til eit enkelt opphav
00:59
some 20, 25,000 years ago?
13
47000
3000
for omtrent 20--25.000 år sidan?
01:02
And what if we go back beyond that single ancestor,
14
50000
3000
Og kva om me går vidare bakover, forbi det eine opphavet,
01:05
when there was presumably a competition among many languages?
15
53000
4000
då det truleg var konkurranse blant mange språk?
01:09
How far back does that go? How far back does modern language go?
16
57000
3000
Kor langt tilbake går det? Kor langt tilbake går moderne språk?
01:13
How many tens of thousands of years does it go back?
17
61000
3000
Kor mange titals tusen år går det tilbake?
01:16
Chris Anderson: Do you have a hunch or a hope for what the answer to that is?
18
64000
3000
Chris Anderson: Har du ei forventing eller ei von om kva svaret er?
01:19
Murray Gell-Mann: Well, I would guess that modern language must be older
19
67000
3000
Murray Gell-Mann: Vel, eg trur moderne språk må vere eldre
01:22
than the cave paintings and cave engravings and cave sculptures
20
70000
4000
enn holemåleria og helleristingene og holeskulpturane
01:26
and dance steps in the soft clay in the caves in Western Europe,
21
74000
5000
og dansetrinna i den mjuke leira i holene i Vest-Europa
01:31
in the Aurignacian Period some 35,000 years ago, or earlier.
22
79000
6000
i Aurignackulturen for omtrent 35.000 år sidan, eller tidlegare.
01:37
I can't believe they did all those things and didn't also have a modern language.
23
85000
3000
Eg klarer ikkje å tru at dei gjorde alle dei tinga utan å ha eit moderne språk.
01:40
So, I would guess that the actual origin goes back at least that far and maybe further.
24
88000
5000
Så eg gjettar at det faktiske opphavet iallfall er så langt tilbake og kanskje endå lenger.
01:45
But that doesn't mean that all, or many, or most
25
93000
3000
Men det vil ikkje seie at ikkje alle, eller mange, eller dei fleste
01:48
of today's attested languages couldn't descend perhaps
26
96000
4000
av språka me har funne i dag, kanskje kunne stamme frå
01:52
from one that's much younger than that, like say 20,000 years,
27
100000
4000
eit som er mykje yngre enn det, til dømes 20.000 år,
01:56
or something of that kind. It's what we call a bottleneck.
28
104000
3000
eller noko slikt. Det er dette me kallar ein flaskehals.
02:00
CA: Well, Philip Anderson may have been right.
29
108000
1000
CA: Vel, Philip Anderson kan ha hatt rett.
02:01
You may just know more about everything than anyone.
30
109000
3000
Kanskje du rett og slett kan meir om alt enn nokon andre.
02:04
So, it's been an honor. Thank you Murray Gell-Mann.
31
112000
2000
Så det har vore ei ære. Takk skal du ha, Murray Gell-Mann.
02:06
(Applause)
32
114000
4000
(Applaus)
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