
Bringing together linguistic and genetic evidence to test the Bantu expansion
- Author
- Cesare de Filippo, Koen Bostoen (UGent) , Marc Stoneking and Brigitte Pakendorf
- Organization
- Project
- KONGOKING (Political centralization, economic integration and language evolution in Central Africa: An interdisciplinary approach to the early history of the Kongo kingdom.)
- Abstract
- The expansion of Bantu languages represents one of the most momentous events in the history of Africa. While it is well accepted that Bantu languages spread from their homeland (Cameroon/Nigeria) ~5,000 years ago (ya), there is no consensus about the timing and geographic routes underlying this expansion. Two main models of Bantu expansion have been suggested: The “early-split” model claims that the most recent ancestor of Eastern languages expanded north of the rain forest towards the Great Lakes region ~4,000 ya, while the “late-split” model proposes that Eastern languages diversified from Western languages south of the rain forest ~2,000 ya. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the language dispersal was coupled with the movement of people, raising the question of language shift versus demic diffusion. We use a novel approach taking into account both the spatial and temporal predictions of the two models and formally test these predictions with linguistic and genetic data. Our results show evidence for a demic diffusion in the genetic data, which is confirmed by the correlations between genetic and linguistic distances. While there is little support for the early-split model, the late-split model shows a relatively good fit to the data. Our analyses demonstrate that subsequent contact among languages/populations strongly affected the signal of the initial migration via isolation by distance.
- Keywords
- LANGUAGES, Y-CHROMOSOME, HISTORY, MTDNA, POPULATIONS, AFRICA, Bantu, lexical data, autosome, Y chromosome, mtDNA, ANGOLA, human migration
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Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-3104755
- Chicago
- de Filippo, Cesare, Koen Bostoen, Marc Stoneking, and Brigitte Pakendorf. 2012. “Bringing Together Linguistic and Genetic Evidence to Test the Bantu Expansion.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B-biological Sciences 279 (1741): 3256–3263.
- APA
- de Filippo, C., Bostoen, K., Stoneking, M., & Pakendorf, B. (2012). Bringing together linguistic and genetic evidence to test the Bantu expansion. PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, 279(1741), 3256–3263.
- Vancouver
- 1.de Filippo C, Bostoen K, Stoneking M, Pakendorf B. Bringing together linguistic and genetic evidence to test the Bantu expansion. PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES. 2012;279(1741):3256–63.
- MLA
- de Filippo, Cesare, Koen Bostoen, Marc Stoneking, et al. “Bringing Together Linguistic and Genetic Evidence to Test the Bantu Expansion.” PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES 279.1741 (2012): 3256–3263. Print.
@article{3104755, abstract = {The expansion of Bantu languages represents one of the most momentous events in the history of Africa. While it is well accepted that Bantu languages spread from their homeland (Cameroon/Nigeria) {\texttildelow}5,000 years ago (ya), there is no consensus about the timing and geographic routes underlying this expansion. Two main models of Bantu expansion have been suggested: The {\textquotedblleft}early-split{\textquotedblright} model claims that the most recent ancestor of Eastern languages expanded north of the rain forest towards the Great Lakes region {\texttildelow}4,000 ya, while the {\textquotedblleft}late-split{\textquotedblright} model proposes that Eastern languages diversified from Western languages south of the rain forest {\texttildelow}2,000 ya. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the language dispersal was coupled with the movement of people, raising the question of language shift versus demic diffusion. We use a novel approach taking into account both the spatial and temporal predictions of the two models and formally test these predictions with linguistic and genetic data. Our results show evidence for a demic diffusion in the genetic data, which is confirmed by the correlations between genetic and linguistic distances. While there is little support for the early-split model, the late-split model shows a relatively good fit to the data. Our analyses demonstrate that subsequent contact among languages/populations strongly affected the signal of the initial migration via isolation by distance.}, author = {de Filippo, Cesare and Bostoen, Koen and Stoneking, Marc and Pakendorf, Brigitte}, issn = {0962-8452}, journal = {PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES}, language = {eng}, number = {1741}, pages = {3256--3263}, title = {Bringing together linguistic and genetic evidence to test the Bantu expansion}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.0318}, volume = {279}, year = {2012}, }
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