Kinship structures create persistent channels for language transmission

Guillot, Elsa G.; Lansing, J. Stephen; Abundo, Cheryl; Jacobs, Guy S.; Guillot, Elsa; Thurner, Stefan; Downey, Sean S.; Chew, Lock Yue; Bhattacharya, Tanmoy; Chung, Ning Ning; Sudoyo, Herawati; Cox, Murray P.

Abstract

© 2017, National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Languages are transmitted through channels created by kinship systems. Given sufficient time, these kinship channels can change the genetic and linguistic structure of populations. In traditional societies of eastern Indonesia, finely resolved cophylogenies of languages and genes reveal persistent movements between stable speech communities facilitated by kinship rules. When multiple languages are present in a region and postmarital residence rules encourage sustained directional movement between speech communities, then languages should be channeled along uniparental lines. We find strong evidence for this pattern in 982 individuals from 25 villages on two adjacent islands, where different kinship rules have been followed. Core groups of close relatives have stayed together for generations, while remaining in contact with, and marrying into, surrounding groups. Over time, these kinship systems shaped their gene and language phylogenies: Consistently following a postmarital residence rule turned social communities into speech communities.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 13, 2017
• Publication Date: Dec 5, 2017
• Deposit Date: Feb 28, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 28, 2018
• Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
• Print ISSN: 0027-8424
• Electronic ISSN: 1091-6490
• Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 114
• Issue: 49
• Pages: 12910-12915
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1706416114
• Keywords: language, kinship, coevolution, cultural evolution, population, genetics
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/902495
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1706416114
• Contract Date: Feb 28, 2018