Murray Gell-Mann: Do all languages have a common ancestor?

Prevoditelj: Mislav Ante Omazić - EFZG Recezent: Željko Babić

Well, I'm involved in other things, besides physics.

Dakle, uključen sam i u druge stvari osim fizike.

In fact, mostly now in other things.

U stvari, sada se uglavnom bavim drugim stvarima.

One thing is distant relationships among human languages.

Jedna stvar su daleka srodstva među ljudskim jezicima.

And the professional, historical linguists in the U.S.

A profesionalni, povijesni jezikoslovci u SAD-u

and in Western Europe mostly try to stay away

i Zapadnoj Europi uglavnom pokušavaju ostati po strani

from any long-distance relationships, big groupings,

od bilo kakvih dalekih povezanosti; velikih grupiranja,

groupings that go back a long time,

grupiranja koja sežu daleko u prošlost,

longer than the familiar families.

dalje od poznatih porodica jezika.

They don't like that. They think it's crank. I don't think it's crank.

Oni to ne vole; misle kako je to neozbiljno. Ja se ne slažem s time.

And there are some brilliant linguists, mostly Russians,

I postoje neki briljantni jezikoslovci, uglavnom Rusi,

who are working on that, at Santa Fe Institute and in Moscow,

koji na tome rade u Santa Fe institutu i u Moskvi,

and I would love to see where that leads.

I volio bih vidjeti gdje će nas to odvesti.

Does it really lead to a single ancestor

Vodi li to zaista ka jednom pretku

some 20, 25,000 years ago?

nekih 20, 25 tisuća godina unazad?

And what if we go back beyond that single ancestor,

I što ako odemo još dalje od tog jedinstvenog pretka.

when there was presumably a competition among many languages?

kada je, po svoj prilici, postojalo suparništvo između mnoštva jezika?

How far back does that go? How far back does modern language go?

Koliko daleko moramo ići? Koliko dugo postoji moderan jezik?

How many tens of thousands of years does it go back?

Koliko desetina tisuća godina to seže u povijest?

Chris Anderson: Do you have a hunch or a hope for what the answer to that is?

Chris Anderson: Imate li osjeća ili nadu kakav bi mogao biti odgovor?

Murray Gell-Mann: Well, I would guess that modern language must be older

Murray Gell-Mann: Pretpostavljam kako moderni jezik mora biti stariji

than the cave paintings and cave engravings and cave sculptures

od špiljskih crteža, gravura, skulptura

and dance steps in the soft clay in the caves in Western Europe,

i plesnih koraka u mekanoj glini u pećinama Zapadne Europe

in the Aurignacian Period some 35,000 years ago, or earlier.

u razdoblju orinjasijena prije nekih 35,000 godina ili ranije.

I can't believe they did all those things and didn't also have a modern language.

Ne mogu vjerovati kako su radili sve te stvari, a da nisu imali moderni jezik.

So, I would guess that the actual origin goes back at least that far and maybe further.

Tako da pretpostavljam kako stvarno porijeklo seže barem dotle, a možda i dalje.

But that doesn't mean that all, or many, or most

Ali to ne znači kako svi, ili puno, ili većina

of today's attested languages couldn't descend perhaps

danas poznatih jezika možda ne vodi porijeklo

from one that's much younger than that, like say 20,000 years,

od nekog koji je mnogo mlađi od toga, recimo 20,000 godina

or something of that kind. It's what we call a bottleneck.

ili tako nešto. To je ono što nazivamo uskim grlom.

CA: Well, Philip Anderson may have been right.

CA: Dakle, Philip Anderson je možda bio u pravu.

You may just know more about everything than anyone.

Vi možda doista znate više o svemu od bilo koga drugoga.

So, it's been an honor. Thank you Murray Gell-Mann.

Zaista mi je bila čast. Hvala vam Murray Gell-Mann.

(Applause)

(Pljesak)