Mother Tongue Actually Comes From Prehistoric Fathers: Study
Monday, 12 September 2011, 21:56 IST
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LONDON: Language change among our prehistoric ancestors came about via the arrival of immigrant men - rather than women - into new settlements, according to a new research . The claim is made by two University of Cambridge academics, Peter Forster and Colin Renfrew, in a report published in Science journal. They studied the instances of genetic markers (the male Y chromosome and female mtDNA) from several thousand individuals in communities around the world that seem to show the emergence globally of sex-specific transmission of language, a university release said. From Scandinavian Vikings who ferried kidnapped British women to Iceland - to African, Indian and Polynesian tribes, a pattern has emerged which appears to show that the arrival of men to particular geographic locations - through either agricultural dispersal or arrival of military forces - can have a significant impact on what language is spoken there. Renfrew said: "During colonization episodes men generally outnumber women in the pioneering groups and take wives from the local community . When the parents have different linguistic backgrounds , it may often be the language of the father which is dominant in the family."
Source: PTI
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