TED2007
Murray Gell-Mann: The ancestor of language
Murray Gell-Mann o predniku jezika
Filmed:
Readability: 3.6
944,446 views
Po govoru o eleganci v fiziki na TED2007 Murray Gell-Mann na kratko predstavi še svojo drugo strast: iskanje skupnega prednika modernih jezikov.
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
Poleg fizike se ukvarjam še z drugimi stvarmi.
00:17
In fact, mostly now in other things.
1
5000
2000
V bistvu se trenutno ukvarjam predvsem z drugimi stvarmi.
00:19
One thing is distant relationships among human languages.
2
7000
4000
Ena stvar je daljna povezava med človeškimi jeziki.
00:24
And the professional, historical linguists in the U.S.
3
12000
4000
Profesionalni zgodovinski jezikoslovci v ZDA
00:28
and in Western Europe mostly try to stay away
4
16000
3000
in Zahodni Evropi se večinoma poskušajo izogniti
00:31
from any long-distance relationships, big groupings,
5
19000
4000
vsakršnim daljnim povezavam; velikim skupinam,
00:35
groupings that go back a long time,
6
23000
3000
skupinam, ki izvirajo iz daljne preteklosti,
00:38
longer than the familiar families.
7
26000
3000
ki so bolj oddaljene kot znane družine.
00:41
They don't like that. They think it's crank. I don't think it's crank.
8
29000
4000
To jim ni všeč; menijo, da je to noro. Jaz ne menim, da je noro.
00:45
And there are some brilliant linguists, mostly Russians,
9
33000
3000
Nekateri drugi sijajni jezikoslovci, predvsem Rusi,
00:48
who are working on that, at Santa Fe Institute and in Moscow,
10
36000
4000
pa preučujejo to temo na Inštitutu Santa Fe in v Moskvi.
00:52
and I would love to see where that leads.
11
40000
4000
Zelo me zanima, kaj bodo ugotovili.
00:56
Does it really lead to a single ancestor
12
44000
3000
Ali jeziki res izvirajo iz enega samega prednika
00:59
some 20, 25,000 years ago?
13
47000
3000
izpred 20 ali 25 000 let?
01:02
And what if we go back beyond that single ancestor,
14
50000
3000
Kaj pa je bilo še pred tem edinim prednikom,
01:05
when there was presumably a competition among many languages?
15
53000
4000
ko naj bi številni jeziki tekmovali med seboj?
01:09
How far back does that go? How far back does modern language go?
16
57000
3000
Koliko časa nazaj sega to? Koliko časa nazaj sega moderni jezik?
01:13
How many tens of thousands of years does it go back?
17
61000
3000
Koliko deset tisočev let sega to nazaj?
01:16
Chris Anderson: Do you have a hunch or a hope for what the answer to that is?
18
64000
3000
Chris Anderson: Imate kakšno idejo ali upanje, kako se glasi odgovor?
01:19
Murray Gell-Mann: Well, I would guess that modern language must be older
19
67000
3000
Murray Gell-Mann: Menim, da je moderni jezik starejši
01:22
than the cave paintings and cave engravings and cave sculptures
20
70000
4000
kot jamske poslikave, jamske grafike, jamske skulpture
01:26
and dance steps in the soft clay in the caves in Western Europe,
21
74000
5000
in plesni koraki v mehki glini v jamah Zahodne Evrope
01:31
in the Aurignacian Period some 35,000 years ago, or earlier.
22
79000
6000
iz aurignacienskega obdobja pred 35 000 leti, ali še prej.
01:37
I can't believe they did all those things and didn't also have a modern language.
23
85000
3000
Ne morem verjeti, da so naredili vse te stvari in da hkrati niso imeli modernega jezika.
01:40
So, I would guess that the actual origin goes back at least that far and maybe further.
24
88000
5000
Menim, da jezik v resnici izvira iz tega časa ali še od prej.
01:45
But that doesn't mean that all, or many, or most
25
93000
3000
Toda to ne pomeni, da vsi ali veliko ali večina
01:48
of today's attested languages couldn't descend perhaps
26
96000
4000
danes potrjenih jezikov ne bi mogla izvirati
01:52
from one that's much younger than that, like say 20,000 years,
27
100000
4000
iz enega jezika, ki je veliko mlajši, na primer 20 000 let.
01:56
or something of that kind. It's what we call a bottleneck.
28
104000
3000
Temu pravimo ozko grlo.
02:00
CA: Well, Philip Anderson may have been right.
29
108000
1000
CA: Philip Anderson je morda imel prav.
02:01
You may just know more about everything than anyone.
30
109000
3000
Morda res veste več o vsem kot kdorkoli drug.
02:04
So, it's been an honor. Thank you Murray Gell-Mann.
31
112000
2000
Bilo nam je v čast. Hvala, Murray Gell-Mann.
02:06
(Applause)
32
114000
4000
(Aplavz)
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