"Human genetic and phenotypic diversity declines with distance from Africa, as predicted by a serial founder effect in which successive population bottlenecks during range expansion progressively reduce diversity, underpinning support for an African origin of modern humans. Recent work suggests that a similar founder effect may operate on human culture and language. Here I show that the number of phonemes used in a global sample of 504 languages is also clinal and fits a serial founder–effect model of expansion from an inferred origin in Africa. This result, which is not explained by more recent demographic history, local language diversity, or statistical non-independence within language families, points to parallel mechanisms shaping genetic and linguistic diversity and supports an African origin of modern human languages."
- Quentin D. Atkinson (source: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6027/346.abstract)
I will update you when I have looked into this further. Though I am aware of a few isolated cases that support this theory (such as those mentioned only vaguely in this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/15/human-language-africa_n_849809.html), I will reserve a few doubts because:
1. Even if there is some basic truth to it, this claim could be oversimplified-- not that I think Atkinson necessarilly meant it to be interpretted that way. You cannot expect this claim to be 100% accurate down to the very ratio of kilometers from Africa to the number of phonemes in a language, like a ripple effect in which a certain location in Africa is the origin and the expanding migration "rings" simply lose their phonemes as they keep going outwards. Migrations did not work that way. The same group could have, over hundreds and thousands of years, gone east, then north, and then divided themselves with one group going back west and the other continuing south.
2. What languages did Atkinson base his studies on? How do we know his research was not unbalanced?
3. There may be other factors involved than the actual distance from Africa (such as time or environment).
But despite a few doubts, I leave space in my imagination for this interesting possibility. If there is in fact a significant amount of accuracy to this claim, then the next question is why do languages lose phonemes when migrations expand outwards from Africa?
Not convinced, sorry. Spanish: c. 28 phonemes. Very close to Africa. Athabascan, c. 48 phonemes. Very far from Africa. Doesn't fit the data, does it?
ReplyDeleteAtkinson was already known to me from a very problematic earlier paper, in which he "demonstrated" that Indo-European was incredibly (& I mean that in the full sense of the term) young. He keeps massaging data to fulfill genetic models. But languages aren't genes!!! Take a look at the use of English, and "Anglo-Saxon DNA" to know what I mean.
Also- highly problematic to assume that the San languages are somehow "ancestral". Here's a better explanation of their rich phonemics-- since they were isolated longer than other groups, they gradually developed this complexity over time. Much more in line with what we know of linguistics, and the EXACT OPPOSITE explanation that Atkinson offers.....
Thank you for commenting. Well said, and nicely presented data and examples.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I tried to be diplomatic in this post and say that I can neither agree nor disagree without having looked into it further, I am also skeptical of this claim. I really appreciate reading feedback from someone who has looked into it a little further, and also knowing that there are others who reserve healthy skepticism.
Why on earth does he claim that the Indo-European family is young? How does he go about "demonstrating" that?!
And thank you (THANK YOU!) for pointing out that languages are not genes! That needed to be said.
Just 2 comments:
ReplyDelete1) In term of prehistoric humain migrations, Spain is far away from Africa than say India, since modern humans did crossed the Suez isthm into west asia, then central asia before turning North west to Europe.
2) Atkinsaon results are based on statistical analysis, so it makes no sense to compare individual languages.
Anonymous:
ReplyDelete1. Agreed. Well how can I disagree, actually. But anyways, I appreciate you pointing that out that if you trace the migration route of early humans from east Africa, Spain is in fact very far from not the African continent itself, but the actual location where humans are thought to originate.
2. How do we know that Atkinson's statistics are not faulty? And isn't his statistical analysis based on hundreds of, well, individual languages? And there are not hundreds of languages in the world-- there are thousands! So while I agree that we cannot sit down and examine a few of the world's languages, I feel that Atkinson has done just that on a larger scale and still not gotten as big of a scope of world languages as would produce the most accurate results. (Well, it is a huge undertaking, so let's give him some credit for trying.)