Recent studies in language prehistory with special reference to South Asia.
Taraka Rama K.
1
Introduction
The idea that languages and genes have correlated
evolutionary paths was observed at least since Darwin (1871). The recent advances in genetics and
comparative linguistics have allowed researchers to
make bold claims about the correlation between linguistic history and the speakers’ history. The tools
developed in genetic studies allow researchers to test
specific hypotheses about population prehistory and
the prehistory of the languages spoken by those populations.
One such original study is the study of CavalliSforza et al. (1988), who attempt to combine evidence from genes, language, and archaeology to
make findings about the history of modern humans.
There is also another strand of work by Bolhuis et al.
(2014) – who mainly work with generative linguistics – claiming that there is an abstract language organ present in the human mind that allows infants to
learn the language from milieu on an astonishingly
rapid rate. A third strand of work summarized by
Heggarty (2014) attempts to look into the prehistory
of a language population(s) through the evidence obtained from archaeology.
Akin to idea of modern human migrations from
Africa (Stoneking, 2006; Vigilant et al., 1991) there
is the idea of a putative homeland for reconstructed
proto-languages in historical linguistics. Again, the
posited homeland for a language family can either
be modified or discarded from extra-linguistic evidence. An example of one such study concerns the
putative homeland of Austro-Asiatic language family (Sidwell and Blench, 2011). Closely related to
homelands is the problem of dating the migratory
movements of a human population and its subsequent divergence that can be tracked in terms of linguistic diversity (Wichmann et al., 2010).
There is also some research working the reverse
way. It consists of using the accumulated findings
from genetics such as Neandertal intermixing with
humans and looking at the Hominin anatomical findings to make conclusions about the origins of human
language itself. This research consists of looking
at the Hominin phylogeny and employing the most
parsimonious explanation for human language origin (Dediu and Levinson, 2014; Dediu and Levinson, 2013).
Proposals for long-range family relationships are
treated with caution in historical linguistics. DeneYeniseian language connection is a demonstrated
example of a long-range relationship. Scott and
O’Rourke (2010) is a study which uses evidence
from physical anthropology to substantiate the longdistance proposal.
2
2.1
1
Genetic diversity and prehistory
Early studies and problems
There are at least two early studies that combine genetic history with that of linguistic and archaeological history: Sokal (1988) and Cavalli-Sforza et al.
(1988).
Sokal (1988) followed a relatively simple procedure when compared to the recent Bayesian methods
employed for phylogenetic inference (Ronquist and
Huelsenbeck, 2003). Sokal compared three different distances – genetic, geographic, and linguistic
– in the form of matrix correlations. The individual datapoints were clustered beforehand so that the
comparisons are made within systems. Genetic distance is computed as the the mean absolute difference between two allele frequencies. Spatial distances are computed as the great-circle distances.
Linguistic distances follow the notorious classification of Ruhlen (1991).1
Sokal performed all possible correlations between
the distance matrices. Partial correlations are conducted to negate the effect of one factor while testing the correlation between the other two.2 Sokal
noticed that there are strong partial correlations between genetic distance and linguistic distance as
well as geographic distance – if the other distance
is kept constant. Sokal observed that more systems
show stronger and significant genetic–geographical
partial correlations than genetic–language partial
correlations. Overall, the paper concludes by pointing out that there is correlation between language
and genes even after accounting for geographical
factor.
Now, I will move to review some studies on language prehistory that involve genetic studies.
2.2
et al., 1988; Sokal, 1988). The past studies, undertaken from this angle, suffer from misinformed linguistic classifications.
The second angle of investigation focuses on the
undocumented prehistoric contact between two different language groups which can be revealed from
genetic analysis. In contrast to the macro-scale correlation studies, this line of investigation focuses
on language group specific hypotheses concerning
the extant spatial distribution of language speakers.
Identifying the reasons behind the spread of click
consonants in Bantu languages is an example of such
a study. The reason for the borrowing is attributed
to maternal ancestors (female speakers) belonging
to click consonant language groups (Bostoen and
Sands, 2012). There are similar studies for Khoisan
populations3 (Pickrell et al., 2012) placed alongside
the Kx’a language family speakers that shows a deep
genetic split but have different linguistic affinities.
Another study from Burkina Faso (Barbieri
et al., 2011) showed that languages belonging
to two vastly different phyla from Niger-Congo
language family – Mande and Gur – have no
within-population difference in the maternal lineage
whereas a significant difference shows up in the paternal lineage. This evidence is in line with the patrilocal marriage pattern observed in these language
groups and the subsequence spread of grammatical
patterns of maternal language group into the child
language.
The third angle of investigation uses language
family histories to infer the language family’s prehistory. This is done by analyzing the lexical cognate data for members of a language family and inferring a phylogenetic tree through a off-the-shelf
phylogenetic software and test the different possible
hypotheses of homelands. Some examples of such
studies for different language families are:
• Indo-European: Bouckaert et al. (2012), Gray
and Atkinson (2003).
• Austronesian: Gray and Jordan (2000), Jordan
et al. (2009).
• Bantu: Holden (2002), Holden and Gray
(2006).
Genetic studies: A world-wide scenario
Pakendorf (2014) reviews three different angles of
prehistory investigation that forms the recent interdisciplinary field:
• Coevolution of language and genes.
• Prehistoric contact and its effect on language
change and evolution.
• Demographic history of language families and
its effect on the prehistory of the language
speakers.
The first angle of investigation is concerned whether
linguistic boundaries also act as barriers to genetic
flow (admixture). There are two models in this
investigation: branch-split model and isolation-bydistance model. The branch-split model hypotheses that languages and genes coevolve in a successive split fashion and subsequent isolation. The
isolation-by-distance hypothesis is characterized by
an inverse relation between increasing linguistic distance and decreasing genetic affinity (Cavalli-Sforza
3
1
Traditional language families are called phyla and subgroups are labeled as language families.
2
Significance testing is performed by means of Mantel test.
2
Note that some linguistic experts dispute the evidence that
was used to establish Khoisan languages since the family was
postulated from the evidence based on shared click consonants
and not demonstrated through the comparative method.
• Tupian: Walker et al. (2012).
• Dene-Yeniseian: Sicoli and Holton (2014)
(Also uses structural features).
• Melanesia: Hunley et al. (2008).
• Southeast Asia: Donohue and Denham (2011)
and Denham and Donohue (2012).
There are also studies which employ structural features for inferring phylogenies (Dunn et al., 2008)
to distinguish Papuan languages vs. Oceanic languages.
Finally, there are some genetic studies which were
performed on a geographical micro-scale for language groups from rest of the world.
• Native America: Reich et al. (2012), Amorim
et al. (2013) (Only for South America)
• Indo-European: Balanovsky et al. (2013) and
Burlak (2014).
• Bantu languages: Quintana-Murci et al. (2008).
Now, I will review some literature on genetic
studies in South Asia and their relation to different
linguistic families spoken in India.
2.3
Genetic studies in South Asia
Tamang et al. (2012a) and Tamang et al. (2012b)
describe the three-dimensional view on peopling of
South Asia – social stratification, language affiliation, and genetic affiliation – when trying to reconstruct the history of the peopling of South Asia. The
authors begin their review by introducing two scenarios of human spread from Africa. One possible
route is the southern coastal route which went along
the rim of the Arabian sea and then into the Andaman and Nicobar islands (Thangaraj et al., 2005),
finally terminating in Australia (Pugach et al., 2013).
The authors also account for the recent Muslim and
Siddi (Bantu language speakers) migrations by doing a genetic study regarding the gene flow in the
aftermath of different migrations. The Muslim migrations did not leave a large genetic imprint but left
a strong imprint on the culture through conquest and
conversions.
The authors also perform another study on two
populations who speak Indo-Aryan and Dravidian
languages but with a plausible Austro-Asiatic descent. Their study reveals that the speakers are actually of Austro-Asiatic origin but the whole community underwent a language shift.
The authors also take a stab at the origin of
3
Austro-Asiatic populations and note that their genetic study suggests a spread of the populations from
a South-East Asian homeland. This study seems to
be in congruence with the recent view on the original divergence of Austro-Asiatic populations (Sidwell and Blench, 2011).
The scholars also summarize the work on likely
origins of the Andaman islanders who are divided
into two distinct tribes: Great Andaman and Little Andaman islanders. Little Andaman islanders
are divided into Onge, Sentinelese, and Jarawa
groups. With evidence from phylogenetic analysis, the scholars propose that the Onges and Andamanese are the descendants of the early group of
humans who migrated out of Africa about 65,000
BP. Their studies reveal that the Andaman populations shared a common genetic affinity with Ancient
South Indian populations (ASI) and also were genetically isolated for a long time.
In continuing study from Redd et al. (2002), Pugach et al. (2013) examine the hypotheses regarding the common origin of Papua New Guinea and
Australian aboriginals. The common origin hypothesis implies that the ancestral group of this two populations reached Sahul (the undivided landmass of
New Guinea and Australia) about 45,000 years ago.
Further, this ancestral group split from the ancestral
Eurasian population about 62,000–75,000 years ago
before the migration out of Africa. The migration
route followed by this population is a Southern route
along the Arabian sea.
The scholars examine the genetic evidence from
Australian aborigines (AUA), New Guinea Highlanders (NGH), European (EUR), South Indian
populations (DRA), Indian populations (IND), and
Han Chinese in Beijing (CHB). They perform a
divergence-time estimate for the populations and
reaffirm the earlier estimates that CHB and EUR
populations diverged about 43,000 years ago. The
divergence times between AUA and NGH are estimated around 36,000 years, which is 9,000 years
earlier than the consensus date of 45,000 years. The
authors do not provide a satisfactory answer for this
disagreement but move on to explain the possible
signal for admixture found in Australian populations. The authors perform a maximum-likelihood
based on an ADMIXTURE analysis for determining
the Indian ancestry in Australian populations. The
analysis assumes that each person’s genome has K
hypothetical ancestors and tries to find the analysis which has the lowest error rate. They find that
K = 4 has the lowest error rate and also shares the
genetic component that occurs uniquely with highest
frequency in Indian populations. This study was performed only on Australian aborigines, New Guinea
Highlanders, European, and Indian populations.
To reaffirm the findings from this study, the scholars also performed another test by including African
and Dravidian speakers (after removing other Indian
language groups). This study revealed that the lowest error rate occurs at K = 5 and that the ancestry profile of Australian aborigines populations
– not shared with New Guinea Highlanders – shows
the highest similarity profile with Dravidian speakers. A divergence-time estimate of the similarity
profile shows that the time period of divergence is
around 4,230 years ago which agrees with the sudden change in the archaeological record in Australia:
namely, change in stone tool technologies, processing of plants, and at least a morphological resemblance between dingo and Indian dog.
Rai et al. (2012) is a study which investigates the
likely Indian origins of European Roma populations.
Rai et al. analyze DNA samples from 57 linguistic groups and determine that the European Roma
populations followed a migratory route through
Afghanistan and into Europe starting around the
13th century. The authors report a founder population study on Roma population along with the northwestern Indian population to determine the age of
the migration initiated by the founder population.
The study yields a age estimate of 1405 ± 688 BP.
This date is in conformity with the alternate hypothesis of van Driem that Roma people are the descendants of the original Northwestern populations who
were recruited to defend the Hindu Northwestern region. The successful incursions of Ghazni raids triggered the migrations of the Roma ancestors. The
study also finds that the descendant Roma population are closest to the Scheduled Tribes and Castes
found in the Northwestern India.
Now I will list some fine-scale genetic studies that
have been performed in the Indian subcontinent and
investigate various hypotheses regarding the peopling of South Asia.
• Austro-Asiatic: Kumar and Reddy (2003), Ku-
•
•
•
•
•
3
mar et al. (2007), Kumar et al. (2006).
South India (predominantly Dravidian): Kumar
et al. (2012).
Caste studies: Thanseem et al. (2006),
Bamshad et al. (2001), Thangaraj et al. (2010),
Sharma et al. (2012), Reddy et al. (2005).
Andaman islanders: Thangaraj et al. (2005),
Thangaraj et al. (2003).
Tibeto-Burman: Gazi et al. (2013), Su et al.
(2000), Chaubey et al. (2014), Kraaijenbrink et
al. (2014), Van Driem (2014b).
Indo-Aryan invasion: Kivisild et al. (1999).
Linguistic diversity and prehistory
Linguistic diversity, as defined by Nettle (1999),
refers to one of the following: language diversity
(language richness), phylogenetic diversity (number of different families), and typological diversity
(amount of typological variation) in a unit geographical area. Linguistic diversity provides a quantification of the geographical and (indirectly) temporal
spread of languages. Explaining the when, where,
and why of linguistic diversity has been gaining the
attention of scholars in the last few years. These
questions have been addressed from different perspectives such as biology, language contact, ecology, and socio-linguistics.
3.1
Diversity through non-historical linguistics
Gavin et al. (2013) is a recent survey of various efforts to explain the extant linguistic diversity in the
world. The authors also outline a methodological
and theoretical program for future research on linguistic diversity. The paper describes some caveats
when employing correlation or regression studies
in studying the causes behind linguistic diversity.
Then, the authors propose the following four different processes as drivers of linguistic diversity.
4
• Neutral change: This change is analogous to
vertical transmission change in biology where
hereditary units, genes, are transmitted from
parents to children. Children learn new languages from their parents and environment.
When a speech community is isolated from
its parent community for a sufficiently long
amount of time, the isolated community’s language undergoes sufficient neutral changes so
• Just as physical barriers shape language diversification, the same factor also effects the outcome of the language diversification by accelerating the isolation of a particular speech community.
that it is no longer mutually intelligible with the
parent community.
• Movement and contact: Although movement and contact are different factors, they
are strongly interrelated drivers of language
change. Physical and social barriers are also
drivers of language diversification. As such,
movement of population groups over long geographic distances followed by subsequent isolation caused languages to diversify. One
example is the diversification of Vedic Sanskrit into middle Indo-Aryan languages that
caused the western Indo-Aryan languages to
become mutually unintelligible with eastern
Indo-Aryan languages. Population movement
can also replace the previously existing languages when entire populations shift from one
language to another (usually living some trace
of the shift). Contact can also result in language
change through the process of borrowing parts
of vocabulary or syntax from one language to
another; or can result in the development of
new languages (creolization).
• Time is the most important factor that allows
the above processes to gain sufficient momentum to alter the boundaries of speech groups.
The article ends with a note on linguistic complexity – causal factors of linguistic disparity (also
called typological diversity by Nettle 1999). The authors admit that socio-linguistic factors play a major
role in the generation of linguistic variation. The
factors which lead to the development of linguistic
complexity are:
1. Small group size: Whether small group size
causes greater linguistic change or not is debated, but there seems to be not much relation
between size or spatial spread of language families to the subsistence type of a particular language family (Hammarström, 2010; Bowern,
2010).
• Selection: This driver of linguistic diversification has two senses. In one sense, it is the social factor that drives the leveling of linguistic
varieties in a bounded mutually intelligible linguistic area. Factors such as age, gender, and
social class also drive the linguistic diversification of a single language. In another sense, it
is individual choice that can drive linguistic diversification. individual choice can stem out of
adoption or borrowing from a prestige language
that can lead to upward movement in the social
or economic status.
2. Low levels of contact: There are studies which
show that both grammatical as well lexical
units can be borrowed in contact situations.
There are two other factors – large amounts of
shared information, high stability – which are not
discussed at all.
3.2
The paper also identifies three key variables – demography, environmental heterogeneity, and time –
that influence the above four processes of linguistic
diversification.
• Technological innovation such as agriculture
can spur the population growth rate that gave
rise to complex societies which in turn, replaced or assimilated the hunter-gatherer languages present in those areas.
5
Diversity through historical linguistics
Now, I will try to link different prehistory studies in
South Asia from a historical linguistic point of view
(Heggarty, 2014). Historical linguists posit a reconstructed language (proto-language) through the
application of the comparative method. The reality of those reconstructions are always questionable
and need to fit with the stories told by other prehistoric disciplines such as genes and archaeology.
Heggarty poses the following high-level questions
regarding the reality of the reconstructed language
families and the corresponding proto-languages.
• When was the proto-language spoken? This
question refers to the age or time-depth of
the proto-language. An extension would be
the time depth of various splits in the protolanguage’s descendants.
– Language divergence: This technique is
based on correlating the amount of divergence in a language group with its documented time-depth. This approach is at
least in two forms. In one form, Holman
et al. (2011) employs a regression model
to predict the time depths of new families
based on linguistic divergence. Another
paper of Bouckaert et al. (2012) employs
Bayesian phylogenetic techniques to date
the proto-Indo-European to 9,000 years
BP. In the case of Austro-Asiatic, Holman
et al. give a date of 3600 years which is
close to the beginning of the rice cultivation period in Mekong river – 4300 BP.4
– Cultural reconstruction: This technique
attempts to correlate the reconstructed
proto-forms with technological or material advances recorded in archaeology.
Presence of cultivation of specialized
forms of agriculture or pastoralist related
products are supposed to be interpreted as
part of the culture of the proto-speakers.
• Where was the proto-language spoken? This
question refers to the putative homeland of the
language family.
– Linguistic paleontology has played a major role in narrowing down the plausible
homelands of language families. AustroAsiatic language family is a classic example where the reconstructed flora and
fauna were used to propose a tropical,
coastal homeland and reject any homeland
in Southern China (Sidwell, 2010).
– Focus of diversity principle is another
guiding principle in locating the homeland for a language family. The principle originates with Sapir (1916), who proposed that the geographical location with
the largest number of deep branches is
supposed to be the homeland. Wichmann
et al. (2010) used lexical divergence as an
index to triangulate the homelands of ma-
jor language families of the world. The
focus of diversity principle was also employed by the Austro-Asiatic scholars to
propose that the Mekong river axis served
as the original homeland for the family.
– Phylogeography is a technique which attempts to ground the language family’s
phylogeny into the language areas so that
a population movement model can explain
conflicting hypotheses (Bouckaert et al.,
2012).
• Why did the family come into existence? A
partial answer to this question has been given
by Gavin et al. (2013) in terms of environment,
subsistence patterns, conquest, and prestige.
3.3
4
http://icaal.org/abstract/
sidwell-family.pdf
6
Linking genes, archaeology, and historical
linguistics in South Asia
South Asia is a linguistically diverse region with
six different language families and three isolates.
Blench (2008) is a recent study that evaluates the linguistic prehistory of South Asia from genetic and archaeological perspectives. Blench takes up the case
of each language family and evaluates the proposals
for dating the spread of each language family and
tries to fit the evidence given by genetic and archaeological studies.
I will concentrate on the Dravidian language
group since that is the only language group that has
been left out in the previous sections. Also, studies referring to the Dravidian homeland or the dating
naturally includes Indo-Iranian group. I will survey
the proposal for homelands, dating of the homelands
(through linguistic archaeology; Southworth 2005)
and attempt to reconcile these with the genetic studies’ findings since 2007.
Dravidian: The Dravidian language family is a
well-researched language family with a reconstruction of Proto-Dravidian. Krishnamurti (2003) lists
only 26 languages whereas the latest version of Ethnologue lists 83 languages. There is a need for
fresh field work on these languages (or dialects).
Fuller (2003) performs a cultural reconstruction of
Proto-Dravidian populations by considering the reconstructed crop vocabulary based on the Dravidian etymological dictionary (Burrow and Emeneau,
1984). However, the dictionary suffers from two
drawbacks: Reconstructions are not given in this
resolved by employing structural data for inferring a
phylogenetic tree and then dating the internal nodes
of the tree. Finally, the genetic studies in South Asia
reject a Aryan invasion hypothesis in favor of admixture between Ancestral North Indian and Ancestral
South Indian populations. However, one thing that
misses from their rejection is the placement of the
ancestral population’s migrations into South Asia.
This missing link is also evident in linguistic studies in the form of words of unknown origin.
I will conclude with a note on Sino-Tibetan languages. The origin of Sino-Tibetan languages is a
much debated issue. What is the position of Chinese in Sino-Tibetan (Van Driem, 2007)? van Driem
(2014a) hypothesizes about the possible links between the peopling of Asia – north of Himalayas
– and disputed language families whose time depth
goes beyond historical linguistics’ ken.
dictionary; there is a data collection bias towards literary languages.
Scholarly opinion, traditionally, stresses the geographical location of Brahui to determine the the
Dravidian homeland. This proposal argues for a
eastern and southern spread of Dravidian languages
from Northwestern India. However, Fuller (2007)
argues for a peninsular homeland for Dravidian by
invoking the parsimony principle. The proponents
of the former homeland posit a agriculturalist expansion of Proto-Dravidian society. However, the
reconstructed vocabulary of life-stock and crop vocabulary speaks a different story.
The other story would be that the original populations were hunter-gatherer populations but had technologies for dehusking, grinding and some form of
storage (mesolithic culture) who transitioned into a
agricultural society. If such is the case, then Brahui
would just be a migration during the mesolithic stage
of Proto-Dravidian society. The agricultural complex in South India is linked to the Southern Neolithic and is dated to about 4000 BP. This seems
to fit with the recent study of Moorjani et al. (2013)
claiming that the Indian population descended from
a admixture of Ancestral South Indian and Ancestral
North Indian population (related to West Eurasian).
It is interesting to note that Moorjani et al. (2013)
date the Indian population admixture to about 4,2001,900 BP well after the first appearance of agriculture in South Asia (about 7,000 BP).
3.4
Acknowledgements
I thank Søren Wichmann for the comments on an
earlier draft. This draft was submitted to satisfy the
requirements for a course on language prehistory.
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