进化与语言之间的联系 | 理查德·道金斯

仅限Boost Mobile

Only Boost Mobile

Boost Mobile。

Boost Mobile.

将为您提供一年的免费服务

Will give you a free year of service

免费一年。

Free year.

当您购买一部新的5G手机时。

When you buy a new five g phone.

新的5G手机？够了。但我是你的宣传员。当您购买符合条件的设备时，您每月可获得25美元的折扣，持续十二个月，总信用额度相当于一年的免费服务。

New five g phone? Enough. But I'm your hype man. When you purchase an eligible device, you get $25 off every month for twelve months with credits totaling one year of free service.

设备需额外缴税

Taxes extra for the device

以及服务计划。仅限在线。

and service plan. Online only.

使用Capital One银行服务能让您钱包里的钱更多，因为其支票账户无费用或最低余额要求，也没有透支费。问问Capital One银行的家伙就知道了。他基本上都在用积极的方式谈论这些。他还会告诉你，这个播客也是他最喜欢的播客。啊，真的吗？

Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Ah, really?

谢谢，Capital One银行的家伙。你的钱包里有什么？条款适用。详情请见capital1.com/bank。Capital One NA是FDIC成员。

Thanks, Capital One bank guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com/bank. Capital One NA member FDIC.

本信息由Apple Card提供。每款苹果产品，如iPhone，都是由技艺精湛的设计师精心设计的。钛金属Apple Card也不例外。它采用激光蚀刻，没有数字，且您每笔消费都能获得每日返现，包括在苹果购买的所有商品享受3%返现。几分钟内即可在iPhone上申请Apple Card。

This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Each Apple product like the iPhone is thoughtfully designed by skilled designers. The titanium Apple Card is no different. It's laser etched, has no numbers, and it earns you daily cash on everything you buy, including 3% back on everything at Apple. Apply for Apple Card on your iPhone in minutes.

须经信用审批，Apple Card由高盛银行美国盐湖城分行发行。条款及更多信息请访问applecard.com。您正在收听的是TED Talks每日播客，我们每天为您带来激发好奇心的新想法。我是主持人Elise Hu。据传奇进化生物学家理查德·道金斯所言，跨物种的交流实际上塑造了世界上的一切。

Subject to credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com. You're listening to TED Talks daily where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Across species, communication shapes literally everything in the world according to the legendary evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.

在这场与语言学家兼TED客座策展人约翰·麦克沃特引人入胜的对话中，理查德剖析了为何交流是将我们所有人联系在一起的纽带，以及我们的基因可能是幕后操纵者。

In this fascinating conversation with linguist and TED guest curator John McWhorter, Richard dissects why communication is the thread that ties us all together and how our genes may be the ones pulling the strings.

那么理查德，让我们直接开始吧，就像人们在这种访谈开头常说的那样。我想探讨——我相信您也有兴趣——一个事实：如果作为语言学家的我阅读《自私的基因》，我总是会想，哦，这和语言简直一模一样。您对语言进化与生物进化之间的相似性很感兴趣。因此，为了探索这些相似之处，我一直想问您的第一个问题是关于冗余性。在任何语言中，语言所规定的内容总是超出其实际需要的。

So Richard, let's just get right started as people say at the beginning of interviews like this. I want to explore, and I think you do too, the fact that if linguist me reads The Selfish Gene, I'm always thinking, oh, this is just like language. And you have an interest in how the evolution of language is similar to the evolution of creatures. And so, just to explore the parallels, the first thing that I've always wanted to ask you is about excess. And so, in any language, any language, the language specifies more things than it needs to.

如果你会说那种语言，你会觉得这很正常，但其实并非如此。举个例子，当你学习英语中的将来时态时，老师会教我们用‘will’。比如‘我会给你买些袜子’。但仔细想想，这其实不是一句常见的话。你什么时候会说‘我会给你买些袜子’呢？

If you speak that language, you think of it as normal, but it isn't. And so, example, if you learn about the future tense in English, you're taught that we say will. I will buy you some socks. But if you think about it, that's not a sentence. When would you say, I will buy you some socks?

这句话只可能在争论达到高潮时才会出现。实际上更可能说的是‘我打算给你买些袜子’，或者你也可以说‘明天我给你买袜子’，这样更强调事件本身，或者说‘我将给你买些袜子’，虽然这没什么实际意义，但又是另一种表达方式。我们的未来时态是不是有点过度了？我常觉得语言中有太多其实不需要的部分。

That would only be at the culmination of an argument. Really, more likely would be, I'm gonna buy you some socks. Or you could say, I buy you some socks tomorrow, which gives it a sense of event, or I shall buy you some socks, which doesn't really mean anything, but yet, it's another way of saying it. Our future tends over, does it? I've often thought so much of language really doesn't need to be there.

没有哪种语言需要像英语这样对将来时如此挑剔。生物们，植物种植者们，他们也会这样过度表达吗？如果是的话，为什么？

No language needs to be as picky about the future as English. Do creatures, do plant planters, do they overdo it in the same way? And if so, why?

我想可以说诗歌就是一种奢华夸张的表达。嗯。如果让我想野生动物中最接近诗歌的表现，那可能就是孔雀开屏，这完全不是实用主义的行为。其理念是雄性试图吸引雌性，存在巨大的过度展示。

I suppose you could say that poetry is, something extravagant and overdone. Mhmm. And, if I think about the nearest approach to poetry in Wild Creatures, it might be something like a peacock's tale, where it's far from utilitarian. The idea is that the male is attempting to seduce a female, and there's massive overkill.

这太过了。

It's too much.

确实太过了。当查尔斯·达尔文提出性选择理论时，与他共同发现自然选择的阿尔弗雷德·R·华莱士并不赞同，因为他希望理论更实用主义。而达尔文则乐于简单归因于‘雌性的任性’——雌性就是喜欢这种夸张的表现。这个争论直到20世纪30年代才真正解决，当时R.

It's too much. When Charles Darwin proposed his theory of sexual selection, his co discoverer of natural selection, Alfred r Russell Wallace, didn't like it because he wanted it to be more utilitarian. And Darwin was happy to say simply it's female whim. Females simply like this extravagant thing. This argument wasn't really settled until the nineteen thirties, when R.

A.费希尔从数学角度指出——更准确说是直觉性的数学论证——在特定假设下，存在一个失控的过程，一个指数级增长的失控过程：随着自然选择作用于雌性的审美偏好，雌性审美基因越来越追求夸张，雄性的尾羽也就越来越华丽。这种指数级失控最终产生了这种荒谬的夸张展示。当然还有其他理论，但我认为这可能是最接近的解释。你最终得到了你想要的东西。

A. Fisher pointed out mathematically, well, intuitively mathematically, that if you make certain assumptions, there is a runaway process, an exponential runaway process, as natural selection works upon female taste, genes of female taste getting more and more extravagant, male tails get more extravagant. And this runs away exponentially to produce this ridiculous extravagant advertisement. There are other theories, but I think that's perhaps the nearest approach. You get to what you want.

唯一能阻止它的就是尾巴变得如此之大，以至于会形成干扰。

And the only thing that could stop it is if the tail became so large That's that it right. Would interfere.

最终，功利主义的考量会介入。我有时在想，杰弗里·米勒是否提出过，人类的诗歌、史诗吟诵、歌唱可能是性选择的一种形式。人类可能进化出向异性展示的能力。

Eventually, utilitarian considerations will will interfere. I sometimes wonder whether I think Jeffrey Miller has suggested this, that it might be that human poetry, epic poems, recitals, singing is a form of sexual selection. And that humans might have evolved the capacity to advertise to the opposite sex

有一些

There's some

通过成为精湛的诗人、部落史诗的出色吟诵者之类的方式。这就像孔雀的尾巴。

of by that. Being virtuoso poets, virtuoso reciters of of tribal epic poems, something of that sort. That's Like a peacock's tail.

这是个令人愉悦的想法，尤其对语言工作者而言。是的。我有个相关问题。语言中很多内容就像婚礼后汽车后面拖着的锡罐——被拖着走。虽然我只在卡通里见过这场景，但现实中肯定发生过。

That that's a that that's a pleasing idea, especially for language people. Yeah. I have I have a related question then. A lot of what is in a language is dragged along, like to use an aging analogy, tin cans dragged along beside behind a car after a wedding. I've never actually seen that outside of a cartoon, but it must have happened at some point.

可能在上世纪五十年代吧。语言中大量现象都是如此。比如英语中'dribble'这个词，它源自'drip'。'drip'就是'dwip, dwip'的声音。

Probably in the fifties, but that. And so, so much of language is that. For example, in in the English language, we'll say something like to dribble. Now, that comes from drip. So a drip is just dwip, dwip.

而'dribble'则是'doop'这样的发音。你会觉得这只是个例。但再想想'nip'（轻咬）和'nibble'（小口咬）的关系。这种构词法还出现在'giggle'、'spackle'和'sparkle'等词中。

And then dribble is doop, like that. Now you think, well, okay, that's just that one. But then imagine you are nipping on something, so you just go like a wolf nipping. But then nibble is kind of like. And so that means and we use it in words like a giggle and spackle and sparkle.

一种火花是指保险丝熔断时你被电到的感觉。Sparkle（闪光）就是那样。现在，我们无法再用'ole'造新词了。你不能让'ole'走过舞台。它早已消亡。

One spark is you get shocked from a fuse that goes out. Sparkle is like that. Now, we can't make any new words with ole anymore. You cannot walk ole across the stage. It's long dead.

只有某些古日耳曼人才可能使用它。所以它已经死了。我认为，与之类似的DNA概念是垃圾DNA。是否真的存在像那样被拖拽的、曾经有意义但现已失效的DNA？还是这个类比不恰当？

Only some ancient Germanic person would have been able to use it. So, it's dead. Now, the analogy to this, I think, with DNA is junk DNA. Is it true that there is DNA dragged along like that that used to mean something but didn't? Or is that analogy off?

确实如此。'垃圾DNA'这个说法在不同语境中被过度使用了。但我想你指的是所谓的假基因，它们实际上是死亡的遗迹。这与你的...呃...零散例子略有不同。它是确切的死亡遗迹。

That is true. The phrase junk DNA is rather overused in in in different ways. But I think what you're talking about is what are called pseudogenes, where, they're just dead vestiges, actually. It's a little bit different than what your your your dribble. It's it's a dead vestige.

其中最有趣的例子就是嗅觉这种已经退化的化石功能。如你所知，相比许多其他哺乳动物，人类的嗅觉非常迟钝。有趣的是，我们仍保留着那些能让我们拥有那种嗅觉的基因，只是它们被关闭了。所以我们拥有一整套远古哺乳动物的嗅觉基因库。

And the most interesting example of this, this kind of fossil that's that's gone, is the sense of smell. As you know, humans have a very poor sense of smell compared to many other mammals. The interesting thing is that we still have the genes that would make us have that kind of sense of smell. They've just been turned off. So we have a whole repertoire of ancient mammal smell genes.

它们只是被简单地关闭了。这些是遗迹，是假基因。我总觉得如果能重新激活它们，我们将体验到无法想象的奇妙异域芬芳。我能想象那些葡萄酒鉴赏家们，他们的品鉴词将远超'铅笔芯混合黑莓的余韵'这类描述。

They've just simply been switched off. They're vestiges. They're they're pseudo genes. I sort of feel if only they could be turned back on again, it would we would experience wonderful exotic perfumes that we cannot imagine. And I could imagine the sort of wine connoisseurs who go far beyond the inklings of lead pencil mixed with blackberry in the in the satisfying finish, that kind of thing.

我是说，如果我们激活所有这些基因，品鉴体验将会达到难以企及的高度。

I mean, that would that would go way way beyond if when we had all these genes turned on.

确实如此。不过这些基因是可以被重新激活的。我刚想到个例子——这真是即兴发挥，可不是我一贯的风格。

Yes. It would. And so but these genes can be turned back. I just thought of an example. This truly is spontaneous and that's not my usual.

哦，wordle。所以，那本来不算个词，但现在它是了。我们正在重复使用那个后缀，让它变成一个可爱的小词儿。你可以让它活灵活现，或许现在还会有其他以o结尾的东西，比如你的税务评估工具之类的。

O, wordle. And so, that's not a word, but now it is. We're reusing that suffix and so it's a cute little wordy thing. And so you can kind of bring it alive, and maybe there'll be other things ending in o nowadays, such as your tax assessment tool or something like

hardle，顺便

hardle, by the

说一下。什么是hardle？

way. What is what's hardle?

Hardle。哦，它很棒。它只是比wordle难多了。

Hardle. Oh, it's wonderful. It's it's just much more difficult.

它比wordle难。是的，是的。太完美了。不管怎样，我还有另一个关于Dawkins教授的问题，是这样的。

It's hard it's hard than word. Yes. Yes. That is perfect. Anyway, I have another g professor Dawkins question, which is this.

我曾听你说过有一种方法可以区分语言和方言——这正好是我的领域。人们总是问语言学家，什么是方言？什么是语言？怎么区分？苏格兰语是英语的一种方言，还是另一种语言？

I have been present when you said that there was a way of telling a difference, this is getting into my thing, between a language and a dialect. People are always asking a linguist, what's a dialect? What's a language? How can you tell? Is Scots a dialect of English or is Scots another language?

你说过——我觉得这非常聪明——当你讲某种方言时，如果母语者要么嘲笑你要么感到被冒犯，那你就知道你说的是某种方言而非独立语言。

And you said, and I I thought this was very clever, that you know that someone's speaking a dialect of something else rather than a separate language if when you speak the dialect, the native speaker either laughs at you or is insulted.

是的。

Yes.

没错。他们不认为你在做重要的事。但如果你说日语，至少在日本当地没人会嘲笑你，反而会因你的尝试感到荣幸。那么，在区分物种与亚种时是否存在类似的标准呢？

Yeah. They don't see you as doing something important. Whereas if you're speaking Japanese, not going to laugh at you, at least when you're there. They are honored that you're trying. And so that Is there an equivalent to that in telling a difference between species and subspecies?

什么？是的。

What Yes.

驴子和...如果我在格拉斯哥酒吧喊一句'胡茨曼新闻'，可能会挨揍。但如果在阿姆斯特丹酒吧尝试说荷兰语，他们会热情包围我。

Donkeys and If I were to go into a Glasgow pub and say, Hootsman the new, I would probably get thumped. But if I were to go into an Amsterdam pub and attempt to speak Dutch, they would be all over me.

他们喜欢你这样。

They love you.

对。这就是方言与语言的差异。北美有两种青蛙：东部的卡罗莱纳小雨蛙和西部的橄榄小雨蛙。橄榄蛙的鸣叫声调更高——所以高音鸣叫的是橄榄蛙。

Right. And that that's the difference in a dialect and a language. Well, there is a there are two species of frog in North America, Microhyla carillonensis on the East side and Microhyla olivacea on the West side. And olivacea has a higher pitched call. So that's Olivacea with a high pitched call.

而卡罗莱纳蛙的鸣叫声调较低。两者差异不大。你或许以为，就像克莱因瓶渐变那样，这些亲缘极近的物种从西向东分布时，鸣叫声会逐渐变得越来越低沉。

And Caroline Ensys has a lower pitched call. A bit. There's not much difference between them. Now, you might expect that if it was like you might expect a Klein that we would gradually get out as you look for these are very closely related species. As you go from west to east, the call will get gradually deeper and deeper and deeper.

这正是你可能预料的情况。但事实恰恰相反。这是一种逆向攀升。当进入重叠区域时，Olivesia的叫声会升高，而Kerinensis的叫声会降低，这些生物正在夸大彼此间的差异。因此在重叠区域，它们之间的差异比非重叠区域更为显著。

That's what you might expect. The reverse happens. It's a reverse climb. As you get into a zone of overlap, the, Olivesia call goes up, and the Kerinensis call goes down, so that these creatures are exaggerating the difference between them. So in the zone of overlap, the difference between them is exaggerated compared to where they don't overlap.

这就像我走进格拉斯哥酒吧试图模仿苏格兰口音，结果被揍了一顿

This is equivalent to my going into the Glasgow pub and attempting to do a Scots dialect and being and being hit for

还被群殴了。是的。

And being jumped. Yes.

没错。我认为这很可能是真的。我是说，多布然斯基有个理论认为，当新物种形成时——嗯——当祖先物种分化形成新亚种，继而形成新物种时，会存在一个过渡期，那时自然选择会青睐任何能区分它们的特征，无论是叫声、外观还是气味上的差异。

Yeah. So and I think it's probably true. I mean, Dovzhansky had this theory that when new species form Mhmm. When species as an ancestral species diverges to form new subspecies, and then new species. There is an intermediate and interregnum when natural selection favors anything to differentiate them, anything to make them sound different or look different or or smell different.

嗯。为了放大差异。因此物种形成过程会出现某种加速现象。

Mhmm. To exaggerate the difference. And so there is a kind of acceleration of the speciation process.

很多人对人类语言也持相同观点。人们会刻意让自己与其他方言使用者区分开来——是的——出于社会...他们不属于那一类。身份认同。没错。

There are many people who say the same thing about human speech. The people deliberately try to distinguish themselves from speakers of other dialects Yes. For social They're not one of those. Identification. Right.

没错。

Right.

是的。坦白说，我怀疑这在很大程度上可能与一小部分词汇有关。我不认为人们会故意改变口音，因为这是根深蒂固的。不过，也有其他语言学家会反驳这一点。当然，对于词汇，你确实会尝试使用不同的表达方式。

Yes. Frankly suspect that a lot of that has to do with maybe a small collection of words. I am skeptical that people change their accent on purpose because it's so deeply seated. However, there are other linguists who would counter me on that. And certainly, it's true of words that you try to use different you try to use different words.

是的。对。

Yes. Yeah.

没错。那么这里还有一个问题要问你。自然选择意味着生物的变化全部或主要源于生存需求。比如长颈鹿的长脖子大概是为了够到更高处的食物。而霍加狓作为长颈鹿的近亲，却并未演化出这一特征。

Yeah. So here is another question for you. Natural selection means that creatures changes are all or maybe mostly due to survival. And so the longer neck of a giraffe presumably was so that it could reach higher that helped in terms of, you know, getting food. And then there's the okapi, which is a giraffe that didn't happen to do that.

当然，在语言演变中，我认为大多数变化——从古英语《贝奥武夫》到中古英语乔叟时期，再到现代英语——都与生存无关。古英语原本就运作良好，中古英语对乔叟而言也完全自然。现在的英语对我们而言似乎是唯一应有的形态，仿佛历来如此。这其实是语言漂变。

Now, of course, in language, the way I mainly think of it is that most change in a language, how you get from Old English, Beowulf, Middle English, Chaucer, Modern English, this, is not survival. You know, Old English was fine the way it was. Middle English sounded perfectly normal to Chaucer. This to us feels like the only way English should really be and that's the way it's always been. It's drift.

变化就在不知不觉中发生，终其一生你都难以察觉。待到发觉时，语言已然不同。其实自然选择中也存在类似的漂变现象，对吧？

It's just that things happen, and you don't know it in your lifetime. And next thing you know, it's a different language. Now, there's also drift in natural selection. Right?

某种程度上说，漂变与自然选择恰恰相反。进化改变可能通过漂变产生，此时并无选择压力作用。某个基因既无优势也无劣势，纯粹是随机漂变的结果。这很可能是进化中非常重要的驱动力。

Well, drift drift is in in a way the opposite of natural selection. Evolutionary change can come about through drift, where there's no selective force. There's no advantage in this gene or that gene. It's just it's just random, random drift. And that's probably very a very important force in evolution.

但它不会催生有趣的适应性特征——不会造就更优的翅膀、更健壮的腿脚或更动听的嗓音。嗯。特别是在分子层面观察进化时，你会发现多数变异是中性的。就像把文字处理器的字体从Geneva换成Times New Roman那样无关紧要。

It's not the force that produces interesting things. It's not the force that produces adaptation, that produces better wings, better legs, better voices. Mhmm. But if you especially if you look at a molecular level, if you look at evolution molecularly, what you see is that changes are neutral. They have no it's rather like changing the font on your word processor from Geneva to Times New Roman.

意义相同，但实际字母不同。这是一个极端漂移的例子，非常重要。但选择才是进化中有趣的部分。我现在想反问你的问题是，语言进化是否全是漂移现象，还是存在我们可以称之为模因选择的过程？如果把词汇视为模因（顺便一提，这里用的是模因的本义，而非所谓的网络迷因），那么是否存在一种自然选择之外的筛选机制？

The meaning is the same, but the actual letters are different. And so that that's an extreme example of drift, and it's very important. But but selection is the interesting part of evolution. What I wonder is, really putting a question back to you now, is there is it all drift in language evolution, or is there a we could call it memetic selection, where if you think of words as memes, then using the word meme in the proper sense, by the way, not the so called Internet meme. Is there a sense in which natural selection no.

不是自然选择。某种形式的筛选偏好某些...比如元音大推移是怎么回事？嗯。是否可能...我是说，为什么...

Not natural selection. A form of selection favors certain what what about the great vowel shift for it, for example? Mhmm. Is it is it possible that Meaning, why the

单词'made'（制作）为什么这样拼写？它原本是'mād'。为什么我们现在读作'made'？因为元音ah随时间演变成了e。

word I made a hat. Why is it spelled like that? It says, made. Why do we say made? Because the ah became e over time.

没人注意到，但这被称为元音大推移。

No one noticed, but that's called the great vowel shift.

好的。假设某个元音因故发生音变，这可能迫使其他元音为避免歧义而随之改变。因为首个元音变化可能导致混淆。那么整个元音连锁推移是否可能出于功能性原因？嗯...为了消除歧义。

Okay. So suppose one vowel shifted for some reason, then that might have caused a necessity for other vowels to shift in order to disambiguate. Because there might have been confusion resulting from the first vowel shift. And could the whole series, a cascade of vowel shifts have followed for functional reasons Mhmm. Disambiguation.

这个想法很棒。各位想象一下元音...你们谁养过龙猫？当然。把它们全关在笼子里时，它们总是在彼此周围移动。元音就像龙猫。

It's a great idea. Folks, imagine the vowels do any of you have chinchillas? Of course. So you put them all in a cage, and they're always kind of moving all around each other. Chinchillas are like vowels.

你口腔里的元音总在不停游移。确实存在所谓的链式音变，语言似乎试图保持发音清晰。这是种微弱的作用力，但同样常见的是元音合并产生令人困扰的同音词——这是非常典型的语言现象。我现在即兴发挥，所以很不幸要深入细节了。注意听这个细节。

The vowels in your mouth are always kind of moving around. And yes, there is a such thing as a chain shift where it almost seems like the language is trying to keep things clear. That's a weak force, but just as often the vowels fall together and create homonyms that give you trouble or a very typical language thing. I'm sitting here, I'm flying by the seat of my pants, and so unfortunately, I'm gonna have to go into a weed. Here's the weed.

东北西伯利亚地区有几种语言。我甚至不打算说出它们的名字，但就在那里。想想英语。我们有what（什么）、where（哪里）、why（为什么）、when（何时）。它们都以w开头。

There are languages spoken in Northeast Siberia. I'm not even gonna give their name, but that's where it is. And think about in English. So we have what, where, why, when. All of them begin with w.

你有点喜欢这样。这让所有疑问词更容易学习。在东北西伯利亚的这些语言中，五千年前有一系列以k开头的词，它们听起来都很相似。k音脱落了，因为词首音可能会脱落，就像你说‘那是什么？’而不是‘那是什么？’

You kinda like it that way. It makes them easier to learn all of those question words. In these Northeastern Siberia languages, you have a series of words like that five thousand years ago that all begin with k, and they all feel alike. The k dropped off because the first sound in a word might drop off like you say, what's that? Instead of what's that?

它们都脱落了。所以现在这些语言中，what、where、when、why变成了ut、air和I之类的。它们不那么清晰，也不那么容易学习。

They all dropped off. And so that means that in those languages now, instead of what, where, when, why, it's ut, air, and I. Like that. They're not as clear. They're not as learnable.

它们全乱套了。这种事情发生的频率和语言中让事物变得更清晰的变化一样多。没人在意，因为等孩子长大意识到不对劲时，已经来不及学别的了。所以我觉得语言变化可能比

They're all screwed up. That kind of thing happens every bit as much as things that help make things clearer in language. And nobody minds because by the time a child grows up with it and realizes that there's something off about it, it's too late to learn anything else. And so I feel like language changes may be randomer than

我认为特征就是如此。变化。是的。我不明白的是为什么北美人不对cam和cam加以区分。

I think feature they are. Change. Yes. What I don't understand is why North Americans don't differentiate between cam and cam.

因为我们没必要。

Because we don't have to.

你们有必要。因为cam它们完全相反。

You do. Because cam are they're the exact opposite of each other.

但语境能解释太多事情，所以我们只能忍受。好吧。

But context takes care of so much, and so we just suffer. Okay.

嗯，我们得承认关于那件事有不同的看法。听着，我想问你，我想讨论挑战某个问题。

Well, we'll have to to admit a different about that. Look, I I want to ask you I I want to chat challenge some something.

什么？好吧。好吧。

What? Okay. Okay.

原始印欧语，据说是大量语言的祖先，包括除巴斯克语外的所有欧洲语言及若干印欧语系语言。

Proto Indo European, supposed to be the ancestor of a very large number of languages, all European languages except Basque and several Indo European.

关键在于原始印欧语。它起源于现今乌克兰地区。继续。

The music for it is that's Proto Indo European. It's in what is now Ukraine. Continue.

在进化生物学中，有个事实：任意选取两种动物，比如你和袋鼠，存在一个单独的动物个体，它是你和袋鼠最近的共同祖先，那是个实实在在的个体。我指的是确有其物——曾有一只形似鼩鼱的母兽，它的两个幼崽在尘土中嬉戏。其中一个后代演化成人类的祖先，另一个则成为袋鼠的祖先。这是字面意义上的真实。

Well, in evolutionary biology, it is a fact that if you take any two animals you like, like for example, you and a kangaroo, there is a single individual animal, which is the most recent common ancestor of you and a kangaroo, and that's an individual. I literally mean an individual. There was a mother animal, looked a bit like a shrew or something like that, which had two children playing together in the dust. And one of those children became the ancestor of humans, and the other of those children became the ancestor of kangaroos. That is literally true.

一个具体个体。我怀疑语言学家们患上了——你听过'物理嫉妒'的说法吧？学科间会嫉妒物理学家。我认为语言学家嫉妒生物学家这种追溯单一祖先的能力。我不认为原始印欧语在那种意义上真实存在。我怀疑...当然，它确实存在过。

An individual now I suspect that linguists suffer from well, you've heard the phrase physics envy. It's academic disciplines envy physicists. Well, I suspect that linguists envy biologists, this ability to trace back to a single ancestor. I don't think there was such a thing as Proto Indo European in the in that sense. I suspect that I suspect that it was never a well, of course, there was.

但但那种认为存在单一语言，然后通过某种神秘影响遍及欧洲和印度次大陆的观点。它应该是某种混合体，就像我们可以说英语那样，因为英语是日耳曼语和罗曼语的混合。我打赌原始印欧语也是类似的混合体。正是这种嫉妒让语言学家试图追溯到一个单一的我们

But but the the idea that there was a single language, which then spread by some kind of mysterious influence all over Europe and the Indian Subcontinent. It would have been a hybrid of some sort, as I believe we could say English is, because English is a mixture of Germanic and Romance languages. I bet Proto Indo European was a hybrid in the same way. And it's it's envy that makes linguists try to trace back to a single We

我们确实有这种嫉妒。我每天醒来都带着它。但关于原始印欧语你是对的。我们永远无法确切知道，但毫无疑问它混杂着其他语言的词汇和语法。我最大的猜测是高加索山脉地区今天仍在使用的语言。

do have that envy. I wake up with it daily. But you are correct about Proto Indo European. We'll never know exactly, but no doubt it was shot through with probably words and grammar of other languages. My best guess would be languages spoken today in the Caucasus Mountains for one.

当然，没有理由不这样认为，因为人们总是在互相征服、交配和融合。这必然会发生。所以不，不存在纯粹的原始印欧语。我甚至可以给你更多证据。越来越清楚的是，印欧语系包含许多语言，数十种语言。

Certainly, there's no reason why not because the people were always conquering each other and mating and mixing together. It had to happen. And so, no, there was no pure proto Indo European. And even I'll give you even more. It's becoming clearer that, you know, Indo European is many, many languages, several dozen languages.

越来越清楚的是，它们至少可以追溯到原始印欧语的两种不同方言。我不会深入探讨这点。但显然存在这种情况。所有语言在某种程度上都是混合体。不过我认为理论上应该存在某种混合后的原始印欧语，后来演变成其他语言。

It's becoming clearer that they trace back to at least two different dialects of Proto Indo European. I won't go further than that. And it's clear that there's that. And all languages are hybrids to an extent. However, I would say that there would theoretically have been some one Proto Indo European language that was mixed that became the other ones.

这种混合是持续进行的，就像——如果我可以这样说的话——你描述基因生命的方式，它蜿蜒穿过各种生物，以至于很难准确说清（如果我理解错了请纠正），存在某种原始袋鼠、原始有袋动物，然后是原始胎盘动物，最后只有一种鼩鼱。我的印象是可能还有其他鼩鼱在进化过程中为这两个谱系贡献了基因？

And there was constant mixture kind of like, if I may, the way you talk about the life of a gene, which is snaking through all sorts of various creatures such that it's hard to say exactly, and tell me if I'm getting this wrong, that there was this proto kangaroo and this proto marsupial, and then a proto placental, and then there was just one shrew. My impression was that maybe there were other shrews that contributed genes to both of those strains as things went through?

在前几代中。嗯。我所说的只是你可以追溯到一个共同祖先。嗯。当然可以追溯到更早。然后这些基因自然就会从四面八方汇聚而来。

In previous generations Mhmm. All all that I said was that you can trace back to a single common ancestor. Mhmm. Admittedly, can go back before that. And then, of course, they will that all gene will come in from from from everywhere.

顺便说一句，细菌的情况很不同。在细菌中，我认为更像语言的情况，确实存在——确实存在——没错。细菌基因组之间时刻都在进行剪切粘贴。

By the way, in bacteria, it's quite different. In bacteria, it's much more like, I think, of language where you have really you really do have Sure. Cut and paste going on all the time between bacterial genomes.

我们可以假设语言始终存在混合。纯粹的语言可能只在非洲现今撒哈拉以北的某个地方，也许是东非，被使用了大约十分钟。之后，一旦出现第二种语言，两者之间就会产生混杂。是的，随着时间推移，混合始终存在。

We can assume there's always been mixture. The pure language would have been spoken for about ten minutes, probably in somewhere in Africa above what is now the Sahara, maybe in East Africa. After that, once you have more than one, there would have been a hybridity between the two. There was always Yes. Mixture as things went along.

所以是的。基本上是这样。你知道吗？理查德，我想我们的时间已经所剩无几了。

So Yes. Basically, yes. And you know what? Richard, I think that we have reached the limit of our time

确实如此。

We have.

这很不幸，因为我本可以一直这样聊到生命终结。

Which is unfortunate because I could do this until I expired.

但是

But

我们时间有限。非常感谢你们的到来，让我实现了人生中的一个幻想。这真是太棒了。

we have we have limited time. And so thank you very much for being here to allow me to live out one of my life's fantasies. This was wonderful.

非常感谢。谢谢。

Thank you very much. Thank you.

以上是理查德·道金斯在TED 2025大会上与约翰·麦克沃特的对话。若您对TED的内容筛选机制感兴趣，可访问ted.com/curationguidelines了解更多。今天的节目就到这里。TED每日演讲隶属于TED音频联盟，本演讲经TED研究团队事实核查，由玛莎·埃斯特瓦诺斯、奥利弗·弗里德曼、布莱恩·格林、露西·利特尔和坦西卡·松玛尼翁制作编辑完成。

That was Richard Dawkins in conversation with John McWhorter at TED twenty twenty five. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at ted.com/curationguidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED audio collective. This talk was fact checked by the TED research team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estevanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Greene, Lucy Little, and Tansika Sungmarnivong.

本期节目混音由克里斯托弗·费兹·博根完成，艾玛·陶伯纳与丹妮拉·巴拉雷索提供额外支持。我是艾莉丝·胡，明天将为您带来新的思想火花。感谢收听。

This episode was mixed by Christopher Faizy Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniella Balarezo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.

唯有Boost Mobile

Only Boost Mobile

Boost Mobile。

Boost Mobile.

将为您提供一年免费服务

Will give you a free year of service

免费一年。

Free year.

当您购买新款5G手机时。

When you buy a new five g phone.

新款5G手机？足够了。但我是你的推销员。购买符合条件的设备时，您每月可享受25美元折扣，持续十二个月，总计可获得一年免费服务的积分。

New five g phone? Enough. But I'm your hype man. When you purchase an eligible device, you get $25 off every month for twelve months with credits totaling one year of free service.

设备需额外缴税

Taxes extra for the device

及服务套餐。仅限线上办理。

and service plan. Online only.

如果您热爱旅行，Capital One有一款适合您的奖励信用卡。使用Capital One Venture X卡，您在所有消费上都能赚取无限双倍里程。此外，通过Capital One旅行预订时，您还能在一系列豪华酒店享受高级福利。持有VentureX卡，您还可全球范围内进入1000多个机场贵宾室。用Capital One VentureX卡开启旅行无限可能。

If you love to travel, Capital One has a rewards credit card that's perfect for you. With the Capital One Venture X card, you earn unlimited double miles on everything you buy. Plus, you get premium benefits at a collection of luxury hotels when you book on Capital One travel. And with VentureX, you get access to over 1,000 airport lounges worldwide. Open up a world of travel possibilities with the Capital One VentureX card.

您的钱包里有什么？

What's in your wallet?

条款适用。贵宾室使用权可能变更。详情请访问capitalone.com。

Terms apply. Lounge access is subject to change. See capitalone.com for details.

在这个剧变的世界里，您的企业将塑造未来还是被未来塑造？我们将如何激发未来消费者的想象力，克服困难，自信地塑造未来。

In a world of seismic change, will your business shape the future or be shaped by it? How will we capture the imagination of tomorrow's consumers, overcome in to shape the future with confidence.

开启您的转型之旅，请访问ey.com/transformation。

Start your transformation journey at ey.com/transformation.