We can’t assume that human migration affects language and genes the same way.

[…] By conducting a large-scale analysis on global genetic and linguistic data, the researchers found that languages sometimes behave in ways very unlike genetics. For instance, isolated languages have more, not less, diversity, and languages don’t retain the echo of a migration out of Africa—unlike our genomes.

To conduct the analysis, the researchers focused on “phonemes,” which are the smallest linguistic units of sound that can distinguish meaning. For instance, English uses “p” and “b” to distinguish between the words “pat” and “bat,” which means “p” and “b” act as phonemes. Other languages may not use these particular sounds to distinguish words—or they may make finer distinctions, basing meaning differences on subtle changes like whether or not a puff of air follows the “p.”

Every language has a certain number of phonemes, and these phoneme inventories differ in size from language to language. The researchers compared information on global phoneme inventories with data on global genetics and geographic location in order to isolate how phonemic and genetic units track each other. More.

See: Ars Technica

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