Linguistic and Genetic Diversity (was: Clicks)

[Alexandre Enkerli]

Adi Hastings wrote:
> I was frankly surprised and alarmed to hear job talks which referred  
> linguistic and genetic phenotypic groupings without distinction.
As Ron put us in the mood to be charitable...
Maybe these references are more like vague analogies than actual 
assumptions about links between the two? Several language scientists 
seem to use similar analogies, looking at linguistic classifications as 
analogous to biological classifications. Some even call language 
families a "genetic model" and mutual intelligibility to delimit 
languages seems quite close a criterion to inter-fecundity in delimiting 
species (among non-biologists).
Daniel Netlle goes even further and links biological and linguistic 
diversities in a more deterministic manner. Didn't get good critiques 
from students on the subject yet but it's interesting to unpack these 
notions. Not that they're completely absurd. In fact, Nettle's model 
problematizes some widely-held (among non-biologists) notions of 
biological diversity and the determinism has more to do with cultural 
ecology than with neo-evolutionism (though the two are clearly linked).

Call me naive but isn't it possible that genetics have become so 
prominent in "popular science" that a folk model of biology serves as 
the basis for some of our basic tropes in para-academic discourse?
More importantly, is there money available for a project to map the 
linguistic genome? ;-)

Alexandre
http://enkerli.wordpress.com/