Guillaume in reply to an earlier post
> > Why couldn't we say based on this 90,000 year-old gene that Welsh
and
> Papuan
> > lgs are related? How does one choose "good" genes from "bad" genes
> for the
> > purposes of this research? By what arbitrary criteria?
wrote
> That's also a question I wanted to ask to geneticists. I suppose the
> mutation that could generate such a gene is estimated very improbable,
> so it is not likely it appeared two times independently at
> approximately the same period. However, how do you mesure the
> probability for a mutation to happen or not ? We don't have yet the
map
> of the human genome, have we, so we don't how many aminoacids were
> replaced. Besides, how do you estimated when a gene appeared ? We
can't
> do that in linguistics with any precision (who can tell me which
> millenium proto-IE split ?), so how come you geneticists can ?
Presumably, if humans were already talking when they came out of Africa
about 90,000 years ago, then the Welsh and Papuan lanugaes (like all
non-African human languages except perhaps Klingon, Auslan and Amerslan
and other especially "created tongues") would be related. And if we go
back far enough, then perhaps all the African ones are too.
For Guillaume and Glen and any others interested in these subjects, I
would recommend they read L.B.Jorde et al "Origins and affinities of
modern humans: a comparison of mitochondrial and nuclear genetic data"
in the American Journal of Human Genetics 57 (1995) pp. 523-538.
Alternatively, for a more popular approach to the whole issue, but
infuriatingly quirky too, is Steve Jones' recent book "In the Blood,
God, Genes and Destiny" (Harper) which states "Patterns of
mitochondrial genes across Europe do not follow the trends of those
passing through both sexes. This suggests that .... most of the
trensfer of genes from the East was from invading males to local
females. Women moved less and their genes stayed where they were. The
family tree of European mitochondria contains a surprise. The lineages
from a small patch of mid-Wales are destinct from all the others. They
are less related to the mitochondria of England or anywhere else in
Europe than those, from of all all places, Papua New Guinea. Perhaps,
unknown to anyone, there is a lost tribe of women (or at least a lost
clan of female lineages) living in these remote Welsh valleys. They
may be the remnant of an ancient people who have been overwhelmed
elsewhere in Europe; possibly early migrants from Africa, obliterated
in other places by later waves of emigrants from the same continent"
(p.167)
Continuing this line of speculation, we could argue that here we have
some remote genetic evidence of the common ancestor of both the
Dene-Caucasian family, and of the Indo-Pacific family. A grouping that
would enable the union of all non-African linguistic families (and
maybe even the Africans too)!
> I already told Glen by private email my personnal opinion on the
> proto-languages issue : I think ORAL language is more ancient that the
> human race (homo sapiens), that it existed already by the time of homo
> erectus. I also think that nobody can prove that homo sapiens is a
> different specie from neandertal or erectus, so how how modern
cultures
> and languages might be homo sapiens expansion on a erectus/neandertal
> substrate.
Guillaume, there is accumulating evidence that H.sapiens and
H.neanderthalis may have been different species. Recent genetic work
sequencing DNA samples from Neanderthal bones show that they last had a
common ancestor from 350-500,000 years ago. Since the last H.sapiens
common ancestors are estimated as only 130,000 years ago this would
suggest significant accumulation of genetic differences sufficient to
possibly prevent cross breeding within the sapiens and neanderthal
lineages. After all, similar genetic work shows that Polar Bears
evolved from Kodiak bears about 60,000 years ago, and this has
established genetic isolation and a species division. Genetic division
in H.sapiens has never been sufficient in our species, the only group
that has been shown to have been isolated for any length of time from
the H.sapiens gene pool were the Tasmanians, and in their case it was
for a period of about 8,000 years only.
Further evidence is found in the fact that H.sapiens and
H.neanderthalis shared the European continent for about 12,000 years
before the last (Iberian) neanderthals died out. In South East Asia,
the cohabiting of H.sapiens and H.erectus was even longer. Recent work
from Solo in Java suggests that H.erectus were still there as recently
as 27,000 years ago. H.sapiens arrived at least 70,000 years BP, so
for 43,000 years the two species lived side by side.... Thus the
folkloric beliefs found in many places of the world concerning the
presence of a non-human variety of hominoids, sharing the gifts of
language and culture, may in part be based on some reality!
Guillaume continued
> Language appeared at different times and places independently, and I
> think modern languages have a different origin from the begining of
> ages.
I feel this is a statement of Belief rather than of Reality (just as in
the absence of evidence either way the statement that "Modern languages
had the same origin from the beginning of our evolution out of Africa
would be a similar statement of Belief.)
What about those that have followed up using Greenberg's methodology in
working towards Proto-World? I understand Ruhlen and others have done
considerable work in this direction. A radio program on the Australian
Broadcasting Commission about 12 months ago suggested the following
words (amongst others) had been recovered
tik (finger, one)
pal (two)
mama (one parent, usually mother)
papa (the other parent)
akwa (water)
me (what?)
anka (I)
bak (not)
mena (know)
These are spelled as I heard them on the radio, so I may not have them
linguistically correct. Does anyone else on this list know of this
work or what state it is up to?
> I don't say that because I am a racist, but because I like VARIETY. I
> think linguistics would be desperately boring if there were only one
> language family. That is why (but not only why) I am an opponent of
> Nostratic. I fell sad to think that IE people and uralic people have a
> common origin.
I tend to think that the patterns of language overlay and split
probably contain more surprises than we think for the same reason. If
Proto-World can be recovered, I for one would be interested in
"learning it".
> Well John, could you tell me some serious references on genetics and
> languages (preferably a handbook, I don't want to spend a week looking
> for articles in specialized journals).
Undoubtably the best, that established the benchmark in the study of
comparative Human Genetics, and that links the findings with
historical, ethnographic, linguistic and archaeological data is the 411
page "The History and Geography of Human Genes" by L.Luca Cavalli
Sforza, Paolo Menozzi and Alberto Piazza. (Princeton Uni Press 1994).
A more accessible and popular introduction is Jared Diamon's 1998
Pulitzer Prise Winner "Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of
Everybody for the last 13,000 Years" (Vintage Books).
Hope this helps
> Glen, I think you should be more polite. You are behaving with John as
> you were with me a week ago. Please don't be so extremist. We are just
> talking about useless things that don't matter to anybody. No life is
> at stake, there is no need to insult each other.
>
> I think using genetics in some ^parts of the world might be very
risky,
> in china, for example. I have here an article by chinese geneticists,
> and when you look at the maps of "isogenes" whatever you call them in
> english, there is no correlation whatsoever with language families. In
> austronesia, in isolated islands, on the contrary, I believe that
> genetics can be useful to support the hypothesis that AN are
originated
> from Taiwan, for example.
Guillaume, actually the genetics in China are proving very interesting
indeed. They are confirming the hostorical divide, that is confirmed
archaeologically between north China and South China (overlain by the
spread of Modern Chinese) is in fact a very ancient one, and may even
by 90,000 years old. Northern Chinese seems to have more in common
with Northern Eurasian peoples (perhaps Glen's Dene-Caucasians, a split
which I put at about 40-30,000 years ago) than with Southern Chinese,
who may have originally been linked with a completely non-Aurignacian
movement out of Africa via Yemen and Southern Arabia (perhaps 90-75,000
years ago). Work proceeding is clarifying the dates with greater
precision.
As for Glen's rudeness, well it is really up to him... It only got
under my skin once when he was accusing me of racism. Apart from that,
I think it just behoves the rest of us to conduct ourselves with
civility and compassion.
Hope this helps
John