Re: [tied] Re: Europeans descend from Basques...

Genetics and languages often correlate, but the fact remains that
if speakers of one language move into an area where another
language is spoken by the existing inhabitants, either the incoming
language prevails, or the indigenous language prevails, (or, very
occasionally, one survives but is profoundly affected by the other
which doesn't) and the genes don't necessarily do the same thing.

Elite linguistic dominance does not mean elite genetic dominance,
as we can see from Turkey for example, where only a small number of
invaders from Central Asia imposed their language on a previously
Indo-European speaking populace which is still genetically very
much like the neighbouring Greeks. One cannot argue that such
events have no role in shaping the big picture just because they
only occur some of the time. Assuming that such events didn't
occur as much in prehistory would also be quite a big assumption.

As for the paper itself, it tells us what we could have guessed
already: the migrants into Europe were mostly male. The real
genetic picture is provided by studies which analyse all DNA, not
just mtDNA. No linguistic conclusions can be made from genetic
data without the archaeological, palaeoclimatic, historical and
linguistic evidence which provides the possible models which the
genetic data can support.


Ed.

In a message dated 10/06/02 08:38:43 GMT Daylight Time, jdcroft@...
writes:

> 1. The number of languages spoken today largely belong to one of a
> dozen or so different major language families (with about as many
> isolates thrown in for good measure). This is only a very small
> number of the 10,000 or so langauges that existed 10,000 years ago.
> 2. A language family spreads because the number of speakers of that
> proto-language increases. The number of speakers of other languages
> declines.
> 3. The numbers of speakers of any language increase because
> (a) It becomes temporarily fashionable to speak a particular language
> (i.e. it confers social standing upon the speakers)
> (b) Because the population of speakers of a particular language
> increases (reduced deaths, increased births).
> 4. People of higher social standing are generally able to command
> access to more diverse and better resources than those of low
> standing. They are therefore likely to leave more surviving
> offspring (all else being equal).
>
> Glen, whilst in 3(a) linguistics and genetics are totally independent
> (as you keep asserting), in 3(b) there is a correlation between the
> spread of a language and the spread of particular genes. And as
> point 4 shows, even in the case of a shift in fashion, those who can
> bargain social status into command over resources, even that one will
> have a genetic effect (as a result of lower death rates amongst their
> offspring).
>
> This is the reason why languages like Latin has, whilst languages
> like Iberian or Thracian have dissappeared. One would find that
> whilst Latin tended to spread faster than did Italian genes through
> the subject people, there was an intertwining of the two. Glen, to
> keep arguing, as you do, that genetics and languages dobn't correlate
> at all is specious in the extreme. Thus to find examples in history
> in which one population grew fast, at the expense of a collapse in
> populations in neighbouring peoples can be an indication of an
> expansion in the numbers of speakers of that language too.