What if our history was written in our grammar?

Date:
August 18, 2021
Source:
University of Zurich
Summary:
Humans have been always on the move, creating a complex history
of languages and cultural traditions dispersed over the globe. An
international team has now traced families of related languages over
more than 10,000 years by combining data from genetics, linguistics
and musicology using novel digital methods. Their findings: grammar
reflects best the common prehistory of a population and therefore
mirrors genetics more than any other cultural feature.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Humans have been always on the move, creating a complex history
of languages and cultural traditions dispersed over the globe. An
international team under UZH's lead has now traced families of related languages over more than 10,000 years by combining data from genetics, linguistics and musicology using novel digital methods. Their findings:
grammar reflects best the common prehistory of a population and therefore mirrors genetics more than any other cultural feature.


========================================================================== Since the beginning of their existence, some populations have split up
while others have come together, leaving a deep mark on local languages
and cultural traditions. Reconstructing this complex history remains a
gigantic challenge.

Depending on the places of origin, with more than 7000 languages are
currently spoken in the world.

This huge range is also found in genetic variation. According to Charles Darwin, genes and culture evolve in a similar way, transmitted from
generation to generation with slight variations in each step. "When
their evolution no longer corresponds, it is the sign of contact in the
history of a population, be it friendly, such as trade, or unfriendly,
such as conquests," says Balthasar Bickel, professor at the Department
of Comparative Language Science of the University of Zurich.

Northeast Asia as crossroads between Asia and Native America An
international team under UZH's lead has now identified which data
reveal the best correlation between genetic and cultural diversity by
combining data from genetics, linguistics and musicology using novel
digital methods. The team selected Northeast Asia as a particularly
interesting region for this study.

"Northeast Asia is the central crossroad in the prehistory of Asia
and Native America. Indeed, while their populations are genetically
contiguous, the region is culturally and linguistically highly diverse,"
says Hiromi Matsumae, former postdoctoral researcher at UZH and now
professor at Japan's Tokai University.

Her team at UZH analyzed data spanning 11 language families incuding
such as Tungusic, Chukuto-Kamchatkan, Eskimo-Aleut, Yukagir, Ainu,
Korean and Japanese.

They furthermore obtained new genetic data from speakers of Nivkh,
an isolated language spoken on Sakhalin Island in Siberia.

Analogies and differences in genes, language and culture The researchers compared the genomes of these populations with digital data on their
language (grammar rules, sounds, word lists) and their music (structure, style). "Our results suggest that grammar reflects population history more closely than any other cultural data. We found significant correlations
between genetics and grammar," explains co-lead author Peter Ranacher
of UZH.

Word lists for example differ from each other in their own ways. And since
word lists are the core data for reconstructing language families, such reconstructions remain elusive in the region. The researchers concluded
that the correspondence between grammar and genetics reflects a complex
maze of vertical descent and contact in prehistory.

Grammar as a mirror of cultural and genetic evolution "It's through a
unique collaboration between genetics and geography with modern digital linguistics and musicology that we have been able to take one small step
closer to understanding human cultural history," adds last author Bickel.

Further analysis will be needed to understand the complex web of cultural
and genetic evolution. But discovering the importance of the grammatical
factor is a first step in the right direction.

This joint work was made possible by the University Research Priority
Programs (URPPs) "Language & Space" and "Evolution in Action,"
Switzerland's National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) "Evolving Language," and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Evolinguistics project.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Zurich. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Hiromi Matsumae, Peter Ranacher, Patrick E. Savage, Damia'n
E. Blasi,
Thomas E. Currie, Kae Koganebuchi, Nao Nishida, Takehiro Sato,
Hideyuki Tanabe, Atsushi Tajima, Steven Brown, Mark Stoneking,
Kentaro K. Shimizu, Hiroki Oota, Balthasar Bickel. Exploring
correlations in genetic and cultural variation across language
families in northeast Asia. Science Advances, 2021; 7 (34):
eabd9223 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd9223 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210818153710.htm

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