Name: 全世界最複雜的語言？語言學家帶你揭祕！ (The Most Complex Language in the World)
Uploaded: 2026-01-25T17:02:50.000Z
Duration: 11 min 55 s

You are cells, your muscles, organs, skin and hair.

你就是細胞，你的肌肉、器官、皮膚和頭髮。

They are in your blood and in your bones.

它們就在你的血液裡，也在你的骨頭裡。

They don't want anything, they don't feel anything.

它們什麼都不想要，什麼都感覺不到。

They're as conscious as a stone or a chair or a neutron star.

它們的意識就像石頭、椅子或中子星一樣。

Cells just follow their programming that's been evolving and changing for billions of years.

細胞只是遵循著數十億年來不斷演化和改變的編程。

Molded by natural selection, they are machines.

在自然選擇的塑造下，它們就是機器。

And yet here they are, driven entirely by the fundamental forces of the universe.

然而，它們就在這裡，完全由宇宙基本力驅動。

Right at the border where physics becomes biology.

就在物理學轉變為生物學的邊界。

Sometimes to get a truer understanding of how amazing something is, you need to hold your breath and dive in really deep.

有時候，要真正瞭解某樣東西有多麼令人驚嘆，你需要屏住呼吸，深入其中。

那麼，細胞是什麼？它們又是如何運作的呢？

Look around the room you're sitting in right now.

Let's fill it top to bottom with trillions of grains of sand, billions of grains of rice, hundreds of thousands of grapes, a few thousand apples and a dozen watermelons.

讓我們把房間從上到下填滿數兆粒沙子、數十億粒米、數十萬顆葡萄、幾千顆蘋果和幾顆西瓜。

This is what the inside of your cells looks like in terms of numbers.

這就是你細胞內部的數字規模。

They're mostly filled up with water molecules.

Water gives the cells insides the consistency of soft jelly and enables other things to move around easily.

水讓細胞內部呈現軟果凍般的稠度，也讓其他東西更容易在裡面移動。

Almost all the other things, the rice and fruit, are proteins.

其他大部分的東西，像是米和水果，都是蛋白質。

More than 10,000 different kinds, depending on the function of the cell.

超過一萬種不同的種類，取決於細胞的功能。

Your cells are basically protein robots, as is all life really.

你的細胞基本上是蛋白質機器人，所有生命其實都是如此。

In fact, all solid, non fat parts of your body are mostly made out of protein.

事實上，你身體裡所有固體、非脂肪的部分，也大多是由蛋白質組成的。

Proteins are dead things that make life happen.

蛋白質是讓生命發生的無生命物質。

Cells need to do many very hard things to stay alive, get food in and waste out, grow and build structures, escape danger or react to stimuli, make copies of themselves and so on.

細胞為了維持生命，需要做很多很辛苦的事情，像是獲取食物、排出廢物、生長和建造結構、逃離危險或對刺激做出反應、複製自己等等。

All of this is done by speaking the language of life.

這一切都是透過說生命語言來完成的。

And the words of this language are proteins.

而這門語言的字彙就是蛋白質。

This is how this language works in a nutshell.

這就是這門語言的運作方式，簡單來說。

It all begins with amino acids, tiny organic molecules.

一切都從胺基酸開始，這些是微小的有機分子。

They're the Alphabet of the language of Life.

There are 21 different ones, like different amino acid, A, amino acid B, C, and so on.

有 21 種不同的胺基酸，像是胺基酸 A、胺基酸 B、胺基酸 C，以此類推。

If you put around 50amino acids together, they form a protein, which in the language of life is a word.

如果你把大約 50 個胺基酸組合在一起，它們就會形成一個蛋白質，在生命語言裡，這就是一個單字。

And if you put many of these protein words together, you get a sentence called a biological pathway.

如果你把許多這樣的蛋白質單字組合在一起，你就會得到一個句子，叫做生物途徑。

Let's oversimplify a bit and say, for example, your cell needs to down sugar.

我們稍微簡化一下，舉例來說，你的細胞需要分解糖。

With the language of life, it may take the amino acids for the letters B, R, E, A and K to form the protein word break, then combine this word with other protein words to form a biological pathway sentence.

用生命語言來說，可能需要胺基酸字母 B、R、E、A、K 組合成蛋白質單字 break，然後再把這個單字跟其他蛋白質單字組合成一個生物途徑句子。

In reality, this language of life is so complex that it defies imagination.

實際上，這生命語言複雜到難以想像。

You need to know about 8,000 words to speak a human language really well.

要精通一門人類語言，你大概需要知道 8,000 個單字。

But in the language of life, there are an estimated 20,000.

但在生命語言裡，估計有 20,000 個。

And while the average English word has five letters, human proteins have an average of 375amino acids.

而且，英文單字平均有五個字母，但人體蛋白質平均有 375 個胺基酸。

The longest protein has more than 30,000.

最長的蛋白質有超過 30,000 個。

And cells need to execute thousands of steps at any moment.

而且細胞在任何時刻都需要執行數千個步驟。

If they ever stop speaking the language of life, they die.

如果它們停止說生命語言，就會死亡。

Ok, but how do mindless cells speak a language this complex?

好，但這些沒有意識的 cells 是怎麼說這麼複雜的語言的呢？

There are 21amino acids that can be combined to form proteins.

有 21 種胺基酸可以組合形成蛋白質。

And proteins are made up of dozens to hundreds to thousands of amino acids.

而蛋白質是由數十到數百到數千個胺基酸組成的。

For the average protein length of a human cell of 375amino acids, you get a stunning 6.8 times 10 to the power of 495 possible proteins.

對於人體 cells 平均 375 個胺基酸的蛋白質長度，你可以得到驚人的 6.8 乘以 10 的 495 次方種可能的蛋白質。

Your cells can make a quadrillion googol, googol, googol, googol times more than there are atoms in the universe.

你的 cells 可以製造的數量，比宇宙中的原子總數還要多出 quadrillion googol, googol, googol, googol 倍。

Most of these possible proteins are useless.

大部分的這些可能的蛋白質都是沒用的。

Just like with human language, most random letter combinations are just gibberish.

就像人類的語言一樣，大多數隨機的字母組合都只是胡言亂語。

So you need to know which words, which proteins make up a language to speak it properly.

所以你需要知道哪些字、哪些蛋白質組成了語言，才能正確地說出來。

If you untangled a cell's DNA, it would be about two metres long.

如果你把一個細胞的 DNA 攤開，大約有兩公尺長。

All of your body's DNA combined into one long string would reach to the sun and back over 20 times.

你身體裡所有的 DNA 加起來，可以從地球到太陽來回超過 20 次。

Around 1% of your DNA is made up of genes, which are basically protein dictionaries that contain all the words of the language of life your cells speak.

你 DNA 大約有 1% 是基因，基因基本上就是蛋白質字典，裡麵包含了你 cells 所說的生命語言的所有單字。

But genes are also the building manuals for all the proteins your cells need to function.

但基因也是你 cells 需要運作的所有蛋白質的製造手冊。

The rest of your DNA is probably not useless, but basically like a set of rules.

你 DNA 的其餘部分可能不是沒用的，但基本上就像一套規則。

It's like the book of grammar of the language of life.

Which proteins need to be built, at which time?

什麼時候需要製造哪些蛋白質？

哪些蛋白質單字可以組合在一起，為什麼？

Ok, letters, words, sentences, dictionary and grammar.

好的，字母、單字、句子、字典和文法。

But of course, this is all just a metaphor for something mind numbingly complex.

當然，這一切都只是一個比喻，用來形容一些複雜到令人難以置信的事物。

Let's dive a little deeper to catch a glimpse of reality.

讓我們深入一點，一窺現實的樣貌。

Now that we have some basic principles, we have a chance to understand how dead things make life together.

既然我們已經掌握了一些基本原則，我們就有機會瞭解無生命的物質是如何共同創造生命的。

And for that, we need a fundamental force of the universe.

而對此，我們需要一種宇宙基本力。

The elementary particles that make up atoms which make up amino acids have different charges that attract or repel each other.

構成原子的基本粒子，而原子又構成胺基酸，它們帶有不同的電荷，會互相吸引或排斥。

The 21 different amino acids all have slightly different charges.

這 21 種不同的胺基酸，它們的電荷都略有不同。

Some are more negative, others more positive.

When your cells build proteins, they put different amino acids Together in chains, basically long strings.

當你的 cells 建構 proteins 時，它們會把不同的胺基酸串在一起，基本上就是長長的鏈條。

Now, because of the different charges of the amino acids used, these strings begin to fold in on themselves.

現在，因為胺基酸帶有不同的電荷，這些鏈條就會開始自己折疊。

This folding process is so complex that we still haven't completely understood how exactly it works.

這個折疊過程非常複雜，我們還沒完全搞懂它到底是如何運作的。

But In a nutshell, 1D strings become 3D structures.

但總之，一維的鏈條變成了三維的結構。

Proteins are basically 3D puzzle pieces with a very specific shape.

Proteins 基本上就是有特定形狀的三維拼圖塊。

In the world of proteins, shape is everything.

在 proteins 的世界裡，形狀就是一切。

Because its 3D shape determines which areas of a protein are charged in which way.

因為它的三維形狀決定了 protein 的哪些區域帶有哪種電荷。

And this determines how it can interact with other proteins.

這就決定了它如何與其他 proteins 互動。

All of these differently charged puzzle pieces can snap together or repet each other.

所有這些帶有不同電荷的拼圖塊可以互相結合或排斥。

When they snap together, their charge changes, which can make them change their shape, which then makes them a new protein, a new tool that can do new things.

當它們結合時，電荷就會改變，這可能會讓它們改變形狀，進而變成一個新的 protein，一個能做新事情的新工具。

This is what makes proteins so incredibly powerful.

這就是讓蛋白質如此強大的原因。

You can do basically everything with them.

They can snap together like Lego pieces to build complex structures.

它們可以像樂高積木一樣組合，建造複雜的結構。

They can form complex micro machines that use energy to do work.

它們可以形成複雜的微型機器，利用能量來工作。

And maybe most stunningly, they can convey information.

而且，最令人驚訝的是，它們可以傳遞資訊。

Let's say there's a toxic chemical entering your cell.

假設有一種有毒化學物質進入你的細胞。

There may be a protein shaped to snap to that toxin.

可能會有一種蛋白質的形狀正好能結合那個毒素。

If the protein finds that toxin, it changes its shape.

如果蛋白質找到了那個毒素，它就會改變形狀。

With that new shape, it can now snap into a different protein that changes its shape again.

有了這個新形狀，它就能結合另一個蛋白質，進而再次改變形狀。

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全世界最複雜的語言？語言學家帶你揭祕！ (The Most Complex Language in the World)

incredibly

sophisticated

metabolism

basically