TED2007
Murray Gell-Mann: The ancestor of language
Muray Gell-Mann despre strǎmoşul limbii vorbite
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Dupǎ discursul de la TED2007 despre eleganţa fizicii, uimitorul Murray Gell-Mann oferǎ o scurtǎ descriere a unei alte pasiuni ale sale: gǎsirea unui strǎmoş comun al limbilor noastre de astăzi.
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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Ei bine, sunt implicat şi în alte lucruri în afarǎ de fizicǎ.
00:17
In fact, mostly now in other things.
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De fapt, acum mai mult în alte lucruri.
00:19
One thing is distant relationships among human languages.
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Una din ele este relaţia distantǎ dintre limbile umane.
00:24
And the professional, historical linguists in the U.S.
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Şi profesioniştii istoriei lingvistice din SUA
00:28
and in Western Europe mostly try to stay away
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şi vestul Europei încearcǎ, în general, sǎ se fereascǎ
00:31
from any long-distance relationships, big groupings,
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de subiectul înrudirii distante; grupuri majore,
00:35
groupings that go back a long time,
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grupuri care îşi au originea în trecutul îndepǎrtat
00:38
longer than the familiar families.
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mai îndepǎrtat decât familiile cunoscute.
00:41
They don't like that. They think it's crank. I don't think it's crank.
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Nu le place subiectul; li se pare cǎ-i aiurealǎ. Eu nu cred cǎ-i aiurealǎ.
00:45
And there are some brilliant linguists, mostly Russians,
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Şi existǎ nişte lingvişti excepţionali, majoritatea ruşi,
00:48
who are working on that, at Santa Fe Institute and in Moscow,
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care lucreazǎ la asta la Institutul Santa Fe şi la Moscova
00:52
and I would love to see where that leads.
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şi mi-ar plǎcea sǎ vǎd unde duce asta.
00:56
Does it really lead to a single ancestor
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Chiar duce la un strǎmoş comun
00:59
some 20, 25,000 years ago?
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de acum 20-25.000 de ani?
01:02
And what if we go back beyond that single ancestor,
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Şi dacǎ ne întoarcem în trecut înainte de acel unic strǎmoş,
01:05
when there was presumably a competition among many languages?
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când probabil exista o competiţie între mai multe limbi?
01:09
How far back does that go? How far back does modern language go?
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Cât merge asta în trecut? Cât de departe în trecut ajunge limbajul modern?
01:13
How many tens of thousands of years does it go back?
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Câte zeci de mii de ani se întinde în trecut?
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: Aveţi vreo presimţire sau speranţǎ cam care ar putea fi răspunsul?
01:19
Murray Gell-Mann: Well, I would guess that modern language must be older
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Murray Gell-Mann: Pǎi, aş presupune cǎ limbajul modern trebuie sǎ fie mai vechi
01:22
than the cave paintings and cave engravings and cave sculptures
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decât picturile rupestre şi gravurile rupestre şi sculpturile rupestre
01:26
and dance steps in the soft clay in the caves in Western Europe,
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şi paşii de dans din lutul moale din peşterile vest-europene
01:31
in the Aurignacian Period some 35,000 years ago, or earlier.
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din perioada aurignacianǎ, de acum 35.000 de ani, sau char mai vechi.
01:37
I can't believe they did all those things and didn't also have a modern language.
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Nu pot sǎ cred cǎ au fǎcut toate astea şi nu aveau şi un limbaj modern.
01:40
So, I would guess that the actual origin goes back at least that far and maybe further.
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Aşa cǎ aş presupune cǎ îşi are originea cel puţin în acea perioadǎ, poate chiar mai devreme.
01:45
But that doesn't mean that all, or many, or most
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Dar asta nu înseamnǎ ca toate, sau multe, sau majoritatea
01:48
of today's attested languages couldn't descend perhaps
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limbilor cunoscute azi nu ar putea proveni
01:52
from one that's much younger than that, like say 20,000 years,
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dintr-una care e mai recentǎ, sǎ zicem de acum 20.000 de ani,
01:56
or something of that kind. It's what we call a bottleneck.
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sau ceva asemǎnǎtor. E ceea ce numim o gâtuire.
02:00
CA: Well, Philip Anderson may have been right.
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C.A.: Se pare cǎ Philip Anderson avea probabil dreptate.
02:01
You may just know more about everything than anyone.
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Ştiţi mai multe despre orice decât oricine altcineva.
02:04
So, it's been an honor. Thank you Murray Gell-Mann.
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Aşa cǎ a fost o onoare. Vǎ mulţumim, Murray Gell-Mann
02:06
(Applause)
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(Aplauze)
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