Thursday, February 21, 2008

Lineage and Language-0.1

Caucasian languages: Y-Hg-J1
Indo-European languages: Y-Hg-R1a1
Dravidian languages: mtDNA-M
Basque language: mtDNA-H
Austro-Asiatic languages: Y-Hg-O2a
Sino-Tibetan languages: Y-Hg-O3a5
Mongolic languages: Y-Hg-C3
Austronesian languages: Y-Hg-O1
Sumerian language: Y-Hg-J2a
Afro-Asiatic languages: Y-Hg-E3b
Niger-Congo & Nilo-Saharan languages: mtDNA-L2

3 comments:

Maju said...

"Basque language: mtDNA H"

Maybe, maybe not. The language could be a Neolithic import. That's something I don't have very clear yet.

Specially intriguing for me are the names of rivers in Ibar, Hebros and maybe others toponymics from the Balcans. European Neolithic had its origines there and these names appear to be clear cognates of Iberus (Ebro), that everybody agrees is cognate of Basque "ibai" (river), "ibar" (river bank) and "ibon" (creek).

The genetics are Paleolithic in any case. Genetics and language may have nothing to do often: you and I are writing in English without descending from any English person. Languages spread more easily and maybe last less than genetics. After all a parent (of either gender) can only have so many children but a king can have thousands or even millions of subjects and a trading town can have also many many customers and providers, all of which may need and even desire to speak the dominant language.

With time and patience whole nations can change their languages. In other cases repression can make that cultural change faster, even if at risk of rebellion.

Enjoy.

VM Weber said...

Genetics and language may have nothing to do often:

True.

Let me try to rationalize my assignment.

1. I have assumed R1a1 with IE, O3a5 with Sino-Tibetan, O2a with Austro-Asiatic, O1 with Austronesian and E3b with Afro-Asiatic as given as they are widespread.

2. If a male haplogroup show greater frequency across two linguistic families, I don't consider it(R1b, Basque and Indo-European).

3. In the above case I have assigned that group to a dominant female haplogroup(Basque) even if it may be dominant across other linguistic families.

4. When (3) eliminates that female haplogroup's claim for another linguistic family then haplogroup that shows pattern of (2) can be assigned to that linguistic family(Caucasian languages).

5. Sometimes the given (1) can allow male haplogroup that shows pattern of (2) to be assigned to a certain linguistic family (Caucasian languages).

6. When both male and female haplogroups do not show any difference but restricted a certain region again I have considered dominant female haplogroup(SSA languages).

7. When there is no clear dominant male haplogroup I have assigned that group to female haplogroup (Dravidian).

Maju said...

I do not mean to judge other groupings. I mean: it's very possible that O3a5 and R1a1 are associated with Sinotibetan and Indoeuropean language families for instance (though it's not fully clear if Sinotibetan is really a single family or two - but they ae in sprachbund anyhow, like IE and Uralic).

In any case, it's surely worth mentioning that Caucasian languages are three families:

- Southern Caucasian (Georgian and a few others)
- NW Caucasian (Kabardian, etc.)
- NE Caucasian (Chechnyan, etc.)

The three languages do not form a unified group and tenstatives to aggregate NW and NE Caucasian are extremely feeble too. Southern Caucasian would if anything be related to the so-called Nostratic languages.

NW Caucasian seems related to ancient Hatti.

NE Caucasian could be related to Hurrite. Some have tried to relate it to Basque too (but again lots of difficulties).

In any case, with few exceptions as that of R1a1 with Indoeuropean, I fear it's very difficult to associate genes and languages. They have largely different dynamics.