Africa the Birthplace of Human Language, Study Says

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Africa the Birthplace of Human Language, Study Says
By Dan McLerran   Thu, Apr 14, 2011



Human language originated in Africa, according to a newly completed University of Auckland study. The study results parallel and complement recent genetic and phenotype studies that support an African origin for Homo sapiens, or modern humans, strengthening the notion that the development of language was a key innovation that enabled modern humans to spread across the globe. 

The study, conducted by Quentin Atkinson of the University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, involved a complex analysis of phonemes in a sample of 504 languages worldwide. A Phoneme is a distinct unit of sound that, in combination with other phonemes, creates differentiation in words. Atkinson found that language dialects that contain the most phonemes are spoken in sub-Saharan Africa and those with the fewest phonemes are spoken in South America and the tropical islands of the Pacific. The pattern supports what is called a "serial-founder" effect, which means that as human populations increased their distance or range from an origination point, population "bottlenecks" occurred as a result of geographic barriers/isolation and other factors and effectively reduced diversity (whether it is genetic diversity, as documented in recent genetic studies, or phoneme diversity, as in this study).  "A founder effect has already been used to explain patterns of variation in other cultural replicators, including human material culture and birdsong," reports Atkinson. "This raises the possibility that the serial founder-effect model used to trace our genetic origins to a recent expansion from Africa could also be applied to global phonemic diversity to investigate the origin and expansion of modern human languages." (1)  Atkinson further maintains that the decline in phoneme diversity with range from an inferred origination point cannot be explained by demographic shifts or other factors.

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 The continent of Africa from space. NASA satellite image. Areas left and south of the yellow line encompass the likely area of language origin, according to study results. Public Domain.

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The migration or spreading of Homo sapiens across the globe from an original point (L1). Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

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Map showing early migrations of modern humans (Homo sapiens).  (1)=Homo sapiens (2)=Neanderthals (3)=Early hominids. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

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Combined with recent genetic, phenotypic and archaeological research and discoveries related to the origin of Homo sapiens and population migration, the study results add an additional supporting element to the "out of Africa" model for human migration and origins. Concludes Atkinson, "An origin of modern languages predating the African exodus 50,000 to 70,000 years ago puts complex language of symbolic culture in Africa 80,000 to 160,000 years ago. Truly modern language, akin to languages spoken today, may thus have been the key cultural innovation that allowed the emergence of these and other hallmarks of behavioral modernity and ultimately led to our colonization of the globe."(2)

 

(1) "Phonemic Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from Africa," Science, April 15, 2011, Vol. 332, p. 346.

(2) "Phonemic Diversity Supports a Serial founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from Africa," Science, April 15, 2011, Vol. 332, p. 348.

 

This article was written with information from Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at www.sciencemag.com. 

http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/april-2011/article/africa-the-birthplace-of-human-language-study-says