I have the answer to a question that we've all asked. The question is, Why is it that the letter X represents the unknown? Now I know we learned that in math class, but now it's everywhere in the culture -- The X prize, the X-Files, Project X, TEDx. Where'd that come from?
E kam pergjigjien e nje pyetje qe e bejme te gjithe. Pyetja eshte, Pse shkronja "X" perfaqeson te panjohuren? E di qe e kemi mesuar ne lenden e Matematikes por tani eshte kudo ne kulture cmimi X, dokumentet-X, Projektet X, TEDx. Nga vjen kjo?
About six years ago I decided that I would learn Arabic, which turns out to be a supremely logical language. To write a word or a phrase or a sentence in Arabic is like crafting an equation, because every part is extremely precise and carries a lot of information. That's one of the reasons so much of what we've come to think of as Western science and mathematics and engineering was really worked out in the first few centuries of the Common Era by the Persians and the Arabs and the Turks.
Rreth gjashte vite te shkuara vendosa me mesuar Arabisht, gjuhe e cila rezulton te jete shume logjike. Per te shkruar nje fjale ose nje fjali ne arabisht eshte si te perpilosh nje ekuacion, sepse cdo pjese eshte shume precize edhe mbart shume informacion. Kjo eshte nje nga arsyet se nje pjese e mire e atyre cka mendojme si shkencë perendimore a matematikë dhe inxhinieri ishte punuar në shekujt para "Epokës së Përbashkët" nga Persianet, Arabet edhe Turqit.
This includes the little system in Arabic called al-jebra. And al-jebr roughly translates to "the system for reconciling disparate parts." Al-jebr finally came into English as algebra. One example among many.
Kjo perfshin edhe sistemin e vogel ne Arabisht Te quajtur al-jebra. Nje perkthim per al-jebra eshte "Sistemi për pajtimin e pjeseve te ndara." Al-jebra arriti te vinte ne gjuhen anglesze si algjebra. Nje shembull nder shume.
The Arabic texts containing this mathematical wisdom finally made their way to Europe -- which is to say Spain -- in the 11th and 12th centuries. And when they arrived there was tremendous interest in translating this wisdom into a European language.
Textet arabike qe mbaritn kete urtesi matmatikore me ne fund mberrijne ne Europe-- ose me saktesisht, Spanje-- ne shekullin e 11-te dhe 12-te. Kur ata mberriten kishte nje interes shume te madh ne perkthimin e kesaj urtesije ne gjuhet Europiane.
But there were problems. One problem is there are some sounds in Arabic that just don't make it through a European voice box without lots of practice. Trust me on that one. Also, those very sounds tend not to be represented by the characters that are available in European languages.
Por kishte probleme. Nje problem ishte fakti se disa tinguj ne arabisht nuk eshte e mundur ti shqiptosh nëpërmjet një zëri Evropian pa shume mund e praktike. Me besoni kur e them kete. Gjithashtu, keto tinguj priren te mos jene te perfaqesuara nga shkronjat e perdorura ne gjuhet Evropiane.
Here's one of the culprits. This is the letter sheen, and it makes the sound we think of as SH -- "sh." It's also the very first letter of the word shayun, which means "something" just like the the English word "something" -- some undefined, unknown thing.
Ketu esht nje prej fajtoreve. Kjo eshte shkronja SHeen, e cila tingellon si SH-- ''sh'.' Kjo eshte gjithashtu shkronja me te cilen fillon fjala shalan, e cila do te thote ''diçka'' pikerisht si fjala Anglisht ''something''-- disa gjera te pa identifikuara, te panjohura.
Now in Arabic, we can make this definite by adding the definite article "al." So this is al-shayun -- the unknown thing. And this is a word that appears throughout early mathematics, such as this 10th-century derivation of roots.
Ne gjuhen Arabe, ne mund ta shquajm kete fjale duke shtuar nyjen shquese ''al.'' Pra, kjo eshte al-shalan-- gjeja e panjohur. Kjo eshte nje fjale e cila shfaqet qe ne gjenezen e matematikes, si ky derivim i provave i shekullit te 10-te.
The problem for the Medieval Spanish scholars who were tasked with translating this material is that the letter sheen and the word shayun can't be rendered into Spanish because Spanish doesn't have that SH, that "sh" sound. So by convention, they created a rule in which they borrowed the CK sound, "ck" sound, from the classical Greek in the form of the letter Kai.
Problemi per dijetaret Mesjetare Spanjoll te cilet kishin per detyre perkthimin e ketij materiali esht se shkronja SHeen dhe fjala shalan nuk mund te kthehen ne Spanjisht sepse spanjishtja (si gjuhe) nuk e njeh shkronjen SH, ose me mire, tingullin ''sh''. Pra per marreveshje, ata krijuan nje rregull, ne baze te se ciles ata huazuan tingullin CK, nga Greqishtja klasike ne formen e shkronjes Kai.
Later when this material was translated into a common European language, which is to say Latin, they simply replaced the Greek Kai with the Latin X. And once that happened, once this material was in Latin, it formed the basis for mathematics textbooks for almost 600 years.
Me vone, kur ky material u perkthye ne nje gjuhe te perbashket Evropiane, e cila ishte Latinishtja, ato thjeshte zevendsuan shkronjen greke Kai me shkronjen latine X. Ne momentin kur ky zevendesim u krye, dhe materiali u mundesua ne latinisht, formoi bazen per librat shkollor te matmatikes per pothuajse 600 vjet.
But now we have the answer to our question. Why is it that X is the unknown? X is the unknown because you can't say "sh" in Spanish. (Laughter) And I thought that was worth sharing.
Por tanime e kemi pergjigjien per pyetjen tone. Pse eshte X e panjohura? X eshte e panjohura per pamundesine e te thenit ''sh'' ne Spanjisht. (Te qeshura) Dhe une mendova se ky informacion ja vlente te shperhapej.
(Applause)
(Duartrokitje)