A new paper in the journal Science Advances reveals just how complex the contact between genes and language can be. The interdisciplinary research team is directed by linguist Anna Graff from the University of Zurich. They found that language contact can enhance both convergence and diversification. Together, this art piece and the exhibit highlight an innovative, multifaceted study that combines linguistic and genetic data. It shows that when populations in contact meet, they commonly swap genes and linguistic features.
The new study’s findings upend long-held assumptions about how languages change. Yet in such times, they provide a wonderful reminder of how resourcefully languages adapt by borrowing from each other. The collaboration involved a multidisciplinary Team. It featured Balthasar Bickel, the Director of the NCCR Evolving Language, and Chiara Barbieri, a population geneticist from the University of Cagliari.
Multidisciplinary Approach to Language and Genetics
To find out, the research team analyzed genetic data from more than 4,700 survey respondents. They concentrated on 558 populations to investigate the ties between language and genetics. This rich dataset gave the researchers the opportunity to make important connections between genetic admixture and linguistic borrowing.
To conduct their research, the team used two large linguistic databases that list different grammatical, phonological, and lexical features of thousands of languages. Second, they incorporated linguistic data alongside genetic data. This made it possible for them to study how interactions between these two populations impacted their genomes and languages.
Graff noted that “when populations are in contact, they can exchange genes as well as language features.” This simple observation is key to understanding how languages change across space and time. This is particularly important in places where cultures collide and blend.
Implications of Genetic Contact on Language Sharing
A surprising relationship between genetic contact and language sharing Still, the study found a remarkable connection between genetic contact and linguistic contact. The more genetically mixed two populations were, the more likely they were to share linguistic features. This raised the chance of similar traits in unrelated languages by 4–9%. This observation implies that genetic admixture has had as much effect on linguistic forms and lexicon as it has caused hardwire biological changes in the flowering plant.
The work revealed many examples of genetic interaction, some of which were colonial encounters between different continental populations. It recovers the great movements of antiquity, the most important of which is arguably the Neolithic migrations. In the process, communities of the same continent communicated through gene transfer and vocabulary sharing.
To illustrate, the report points out the rich history of shared borrowing between the English and French languages. Like after all of the Norman conquests, English got words like “sausage” from the French. It was only later that French actually borrowed the term “sandwich” from English. This exchange shows the bi-directional nature of language contact, nationalism, and genetics.
Broader Insights into Language Evolution
This new experimental work lays an important foundation for a more general understanding of the dynamics governing language change. Recent studies have revealed just how dynamic the interaction of language truly is, much more so than we previously thought. Social and genetic factors jointly inform this complexity.
Keele University’s Balthasar Bickel underscored that this work creates thrilling new possibilities for research in linguistics. He brought attention to the importance of considering genomic data in conjunction with linguistic features. Chiara Barbieri urged participants to take a multidisciplinary approach. She explained how this approach shows the emergence of new languages due to the ebb and flow of populations and multilingual interactions.