1. The Languages of Our Ancestors
This article was originally published on the Acclaro blog.
Category: Culture.
This blog is taken from a presentation given by Dr. Spencer Wells at a conference
in San Francisco, CA in April, 2010. A previous version of this presentation was also
recorded by TED in 2007.
Ever wonder where you come from? Not where your grandfather or even your great,
great, great, great grandmother came from, but where your ancestors from ten
thousand years ago came from. Ever wonder when and how those ancestors migrated
and how the languages they spoke evolved and in turn, influenced other languages?
What about our diversity and conversely, what about our similarities?
It's all being determined, one DNA swab at a time. The Genographic Project of the
National Geographic Society has taken up the task of the human journey; and so far
has hundreds of thousands of DNA samples from around the world to conduct the
research.
It all began with Dr. Spencer Wells, a genius rock star geneticist, who starred in the
2002 PBS documentary The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey. After completing his
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2. globetrotting journey for the documentary, The National Geographic Society asked
Wells what he wanted to do next. Well, he wanted more DNA — tens of thousands of
swabs so he could learn how we as a species populated the world.
In 2005 they began The Genographic Project and Wells received the über cool title of
Explorer-in-Residence. The project's goal is to get large numbers of DNA samples from
two groups of peoples:
1. Indigenous and traditional groups who have very little interaction with other
races (i.e. the Toubou of northern Chad)
2. The general public
The project uses this genetic information to learn about the last 10,000 years. The
importance of learning about our recent past (vs. when homo sapiens first evolved
between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago) is that this is a period of great transition
and migration resulting in intermarriage, lifestyle change (from nomadic to agricultural
to urban) and language loss.
We're in the midst of a "cultural mass extinction,” according to Wells. At the end of
this century, 90% of the world's languages will be gone. We currently lose a
language every two weeks. So we'd better learn sooner rather than later about our
origins, along with our differences and similarities.
This is truly Science Project 2.0 — interactive and collaborative. National Geographic
thought only several thousand people would buy the $99.95 DNA swab kits. Everyone
was surprised by the interest and willingness to submit their DNA to the anonymous
database. To date, over 350,000 kits have been sold and people have submitted DNA
from over 130 countries. In addition, geneticists have taken over 54,000 samples of
DNA from indigenous groups.
Profits made from the kit helps fund the project itself as well as the Legacy Fund,
which works to raise awareness of indigenous and traditional communities around the
world, with projects such as the revitalization of languages, archiving traditional music
and preservation of oral histories.
Is the genetic crowdsourcing data useful to linguists and language enthusiasts? Yes,
according to Wells, who says that with this large amount of data, you can find
answers. The Hungarian language, unrelated to any language near its borders, has
been a linguistic mystery, but now Wells and team have an idea of how the language
came to Eastern Europe.
With genetic information, they found that 2-3% of all Hungarians are actually of Asian
ancestry (much to the shock of the Hungarians). Wells traced a migration of eastern
Siberians (who are linguistically related to Hungarian) to modern day Hungary. A
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3. similar migration and subsequent linguistic evolution can be seen in certain African
languages. Now, if he can only figure out the origins of Basque...
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