ELL: contribition of molecular biological to the preservation of linguistic and cultural diversity

[Mitsuru Sakitani]

Dear colleagues of the 'endangered-languages-list',

Molecular biology, in particular phylogenetic analysis of human and viral
DNA, offer us a quite reliable tool to elucidate exact status of
anthropological diversity, which is in principle one of the major factors of
the linguistic and cultural diversity in an area.

1. For example, the phylogenetic analysis of human T-cell leukemia virus
type 1 (HTLV-I) has revealed that there is still observed the co-existence
of different indigenous Japanese peoples in the Japanese archipelago.
Molecular biologists including us postulate that these indigenous Japanese
peoples are divided into at least three groups even within the three major
islands of Japan (Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu) and that the indigenous
Japanese peoples would be the majority group in the genetic pool of Japan.
In addition, morphological anthropologists have suggested that another
foreign people (supposed to be Korean) migrated into a central area (Kinki)
and established the sovereignty of Japan in antiquity.
Although this foreign people seems to be a relatively minority group in
number, they have been a politically dominant group in Japan.

2. Genetic analysis of HTLV-I also supports the possibility that Ainu people
be genetically a descendant of the Proto-Japanese people that is also the
ancestor of Ryukyuan and Japanese peoples.
Thus the hypothesis of the Caucasoid origination of Ainu people is clearly
denied by these modern scientific data of DNA analysis.
Ainu people is genetically Japanese, thus Mongoloid. Ryukyuan is also
Japanese.

3. Quite surprisingly, the phylogenetic analysis of HTLV-I also suggests
that there are a number of peoples genetically affiliated with these
Ainu-Ryukyuan-Japanese peoples in the world: Quechua in South America,
Turkmen in Central Asia, etc.
These data would demand us to further examine the evaluation of similarity
or distance between the Ainu-Ryukyuan Japanese language-culture and those of
Quechua, Turkic and other genetically affiliated peoples.

Conventional (obsolete) methods of anthropology or linguistics have failed
to detect these three findings.
Molecular biology has thus brought a substantial paradigm shift into the
clarification of a basis of linguistic and cultural diversity.
Therefore we recommend linguists and relevant researchers to collaborate
with molecular biologists including us for the preservation of linguistic
and cultural diversity.

Dr. Mitsuru Sakitani (M.D., Dr. of Medical Science) <sacmit at ivy.or.jp>
Director of the Institute for Cross-Cultural Communication <iccc at ivy.or.jp>

P.S.
For detailed discussion on the anthropological and linguistic diversity in
Japan, see my article "Anthropological diversity in the Japanese archipelago
and its implication for linguistic diversity," Vox Propria 2 (1999): 1-80.
The electronic edition of Vox Propria (ISSN: 1344-2074) is available.
Please contact us via e-mail <iccc at ivy.or.jp>, then you will soon receive
the 848 kb PDF file (VP02ICCC.pdf) via internet or by other means.



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