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[H.M. Hubey]

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Near Eastern languages came from Africa 10,000 years ago
             Investigator: Ene Metspalu

             Tuesday May 28th, 2002

             by Laura Spinney

             Analysis of thousands of mitochondrial DNA
             samples has led Estonian archeogeneticists to
             the origins of Arabic. Ene Metspalu of the
             Department of Evolutionary Biology at Tartu
             University and the Estonian Biocentre in
             Tartu, claims to have evidence that the
             Arab-Berber languages of the Near and
             Middle East came out of East Africa around
             10,000 years ago. She has found evidence for
             what may have been the last sizeable
             migration out of Africa before the slave trade.

             Genetic markers transmitted through either the maternal or
paternal line have been
             used to trace the great human migrations since Homo sapiens
emerged in Africa. But
             attempts to trace the evolution of languages have met with
less success, partly
             because of the impact on languages of untraceable political
and economic upheavals.

             Metspalu and colleagues analyzed inherited variations in a
huge number of samples -
             almost 3000 - of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) taken from
natives of the Near East,
             Middle East and Central Asia, as well as North and East
Africa.

             mtDNA is inherited through the maternal line, and by
comparing their data with
             existing data on European, Indian, Siberian and other
Central Asian populations, the
             researchers were able to create a comprehensive
phylogenetic map of maternal
             lineages diverging from Africa and spreading towards Europe
and Asia.

             Working in collaboration with language specialists, they
found that this movement
             10,000 years ago, which was probably centred on Ethiopia,
could well have been
             responsible for seeding the Afro-Asiatic language from
which all modern Arab-Berber
             languages are descended.

             "This language was spoken in Africa 10,000 or 12,000 years
ago," Metspalu told
             BioMedNet News. "We think it was around that time that
carriers brought these
             Afro-Asiatic languages to the Near East." The language, or
its derivatives, later
             spread much further afield.

             What could have triggered the movement she can only
speculate. One possibility is
             that increasing desertification was causing famine in
Africa and driving hunters
             further afield in search of animals.

             Interestingly, the lineages they traced through this
10,000-year-old migration didn't
             seem to get much further north than modern-day Syria or
east of modern-day Iraq.
             There is no evidence of the lineages in the mtDNA of people
from Turkey or Iran,
             says Metspalu.

             "We can't understand why this boundary [to the Arab-Berber
speaking world] is so
             sharp," she said. "They came out of Africa, and when they
reached Turkey they just
             stopped." She believes some kind of physical boundary, now
vanished, must have
             impeded them.

             The same genetic detective work has confirmed archeological
evidence that the
             biggest movement out of Africa occurred around 50,000 years
ago - which is when
             Africans first settled in other continents - and that it
originated in a small East
             African population.

--
M. Hubey

hubeyh at mail.montclair.edu
/\/\/\/\//\/\/\/\/\/\/http://www.csam.montclair.edu/~hubey



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