TED2007
Murray Gell-Mann: The ancestor of language
Murray Gell-Mann om språkets ursprung
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Efter sitt TED2007-tal om fysikens elegans ger den fantastiske Murray Gell-Mann här en snabb översikt om en annan passion: att finna ett gemensamt ursprung till våra moderna 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.
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Jag sysslar med annat än bara fysik.
00:17
In fact, mostly now in other things.
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Mest andra saker faktiskt, nuförtiden.
00:19
One thing is distant relationships among human languages.
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En är avlägsna relationer mellan mänskliga språk.
00:24
And the professional, historical linguists in the U.S.
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De professionella språkforskarna i USA
00:28
and in Western Europe mostly try to stay away
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och i Västeuropa försöker hålla sig undan
00:31
from any long-distance relationships, big groupings,
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från alla långdistansrelationer; stora grupperingar,
00:35
groupings that go back a long time,
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grupperingar som sträcker sig långt bakåt i tiden,
00:38
longer than the familiar families.
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längre tillbaka än kända språkfamiljer.
00:41
They don't like that. They think it's crank. I don't think it's crank.
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Dom gillar det inte, dom tycker det är strunt. Jag tycker inte det är strunt.
00:45
And there are some brilliant linguists, mostly Russians,
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Det finns några brillianta språkforskare, mest ryssar,
00:48
who are working on that, at Santa Fe Institute and in Moscow,
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som arbetar med det här på institutet i Santa Fee och i Moskva,
00:52
and I would love to see where that leads.
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och jag längtar efter att se vart deras arbete tar oss.
00:56
Does it really lead to a single ancestor
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Leder det verkligen till ett gemensamt ursprung
00:59
some 20, 25,000 years ago?
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cirka 20, 25.000 år bakåt i tiden?
01:02
And what if we go back beyond that single ancestor,
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Och om vi fortsätter bortom detta,
01:05
when there was presumably a competition among many languages?
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var det då en tävling mellan många olika språk?
01:09
How far back does that go? How far back does modern language go?
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Hur långt tillbaka är det? Hur långt tillbaka kan vi härleda moderna språk?
01:13
How many tens of thousands of years does it go back?
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Hur många 10.000-tals år tillbaka?
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: Har du en aning vad svaret kan vara?
01:19
Murray Gell-Mann: Well, I would guess that modern language must be older
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Murray Gell-Mann: Jag gissar att det moderna språket måste vara äldre
01:22
than the cave paintings and cave engravings and cave sculptures
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än grottmålningarna och grottristningarna och grottskulpturerna
01:26
and dance steps in the soft clay in the caves in Western Europe,
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och dansstegen i mjuk lera i Västeuropas grottor
01:31
in the Aurignacian Period some 35,000 years ago, or earlier.
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från Aurignacienkulturen för ungefär 35.000 år sedan, eller tidigare.
01:37
I can't believe they did all those things and didn't also have a modern language.
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Jag tror inte att de kunde göra allt det utan ett modernt språk.
01:40
So, I would guess that the actual origin goes back at least that far and maybe further.
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Så jag antar att det faktiska ursprunget sträcker sig minst dit.
01:45
But that doesn't mean that all, or many, or most
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Men det betyder inte att alla, eller många, eller de flesta
01:48
of today's attested languages couldn't descend perhaps
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av dagens erkända språk inte har sitt ursprung
01:52
from one that's much younger than that, like say 20,000 years,
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från ett som är mycket yngre än så, kanske 20.000 år,
01:56
or something of that kind. It's what we call a bottleneck.
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eller åt det hållet. Det är vad vi kallar för en flaskhals.
02:00
CA: Well, Philip Anderson may have been right.
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CA: Kanske hade Philip Anderson rätt.
02:01
You may just know more about everything than anyone.
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Du kanske vet mer om det mesta än de flesta.
02:04
So, it's been an honor. Thank you Murray Gell-Mann.
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Det har varit en ära. Tack Murray Gell-Mann.
02:06
(Applause)
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(Applåder)
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