Across language families: Genome diversity mirrors linguistic variation within Europe. Issue 4 (8th June 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Longobardi, Giuseppe; Ghirotto, Silvia; Guardiano, Cristina; Tassi, Francesca; Benazzo, Andrea; Ceolin, Andrea; Barbujani, Guido
• Is Part Of: American journal of physical anthropology. Volume 157:Issue 4(2015)
• Page Start: 630
• Page End: 640
• Publication Date: 2015-06-08
• Subjects: Physical anthropology -- Periodicals; Anthropology -- Periodicals; Anthropologie physique -- Périodiques; 599.9
• DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.22758
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0002-9483

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title>ABSTRACT</title> <p> <italic>Objectives</italic>: The notion that patterns of linguistic and biological variation may cast light on each other and on population histories dates back to Darwin's times; yet, turning this intuition into a proper research program has met with serious methodological difficulties, especially affecting language comparisons. This article takes advantage of two new tools of comparative linguistics: a refined list of Indo‐European cognate words, and a novel method of language comparison estimating linguistic diversity from a universal inventory of grammatical polymorphisms, and hence enabling comparison even across different families. We corroborated the method and used it to compare patterns of linguistic and genomic variation in Europe. <italic>Materials and Methods</italic>: Two sets of linguistic distances, lexical and syntactic, were inferred from these data and compared with measures of geographic and genomic distance through a series of matrix correlation tests. Linguistic and genomic trees were also estimated and compared. A method (Treemix) was used to infer migration episodes after the main population splits. <italic>Results</italic>: We observed significant correlations between genomic and linguistic diversity, the latter inferred from data on both Indo‐European and non‐Indo‐European languages. Contrary to previous observations, on the European scale, language proved a better predictor of genomic differences than geography. Inferred episodes of genetic admixture following the main population splits found convincing correlates also in the linguistic realm. <italic>Discussion</italic>: These results pave the ground for previously unfeasible cross‐disciplinary analyses at the worldwide scale, encompassing populations of distant language families. Am J Phys Anthropol 157:630–640, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.</p> </abstract>