Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Aboriginal Australian genomes reveal Indian ancestry (2013)

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 231 posts

Re: Aboriginal Australian genomes reveal Indian ancestry (2013)

#21

Post by WalterBright »

pigscantfly wrote: post #18
ace2358 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially only 4,000 years ago. I’m under the impression that the culture is much much older than that. Why would it change so quickly? Especially for a people’s that are quite traditional. At least as I understand it. I also understand that the native languages are mostly spoken and not written, are these Indian languages written?

Linguistic displacement can occur without genetic displacement. This has happened many times in history -- usually when a society's elite are displaced by a linguistically distinct foreign elite and their language is gradually adopted down the ranks of society as people seek advancement. Many branches of Proto-Indo-European (eg. Anatolian) are thought to have spread in this manner ie. with elite but not whole-populat…

That happened in England after the Battle of Hastings. Upper crust English is still dominated by french words.

Re: Aboriginal Australian genomes reveal Indian ancestry (2013)

#22

Post by verytrivial »

ace2358 wrote: post #7
stolen_biscuit wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 80% of Australian languages are from Indian-derived language families and developed from around the time of the Dingo introduction (only 4000 years ago) Source? Australia has been continuously populated by Aboriginal people for 60,000+ years, with over 260 languages I find that claim incredibly hard to believe.

Especially only 4,000 years ago. I’m under the impression that the culture is much much older than that. Why would it change so quickly? Especially for a people’s that are quite traditional. At least as I understand it. I also understand that the native languages are mostly spoken and not written, are these Indian languages written?

There is compelling but rare evidence of habitation back as far at 60,000 years. But there is zero reason to assume the continent was sealed to migration at any point. In fact it was disconnected and reconnected by land bridges more than once over that period. Culture is a process not an artifact. Regarding the speed of change, tally the vocab contribution of Norman French, Anglo Saxon, Roman and Brittonic languages to modern English -- the 'place' has almost forgotten the contributions made beyond about 1,600 years ago even if there are living residents that are genetically linked to inhabitants from thousands of years before.

Re: Aboriginal Australian genomes reveal Indian ancestry (2013)

#23

Post by bawolff »

stolen_biscuit wrote: post #5
runsWphotons wrote: post #2

Looks like this is quite old...they will probably find even more introgression. Something like 80% of Australian languages are from Indian-derived language families and developed from around the time of the Dingo introduction (only 4000 years ago), so there basically had to be a substantial amount of gene flow as well. Only a minority of the aboriginal languages come from an earlier substrate. It would be surprising…

> 80% of Australian languages are from Indian-derived language families and developed from around the time of the Dingo introduction (only 4000 years ago) Source? Australia has been continuously populated by Aboriginal people for 60,000+ years, with over 260 languages I find that claim incredibly hard to believe.

I have no idea if its true or not, but it doesn't sound totally impossible. Look at how the language make up has changed over the last 300 years in north america.

Re: Aboriginal Australian genomes reveal Indian ancestry (2013)

#24

Post by undersuit »

runsWphotons wrote: post #2

Looks like this is quite old...they will probably find even more introgression. Something like 80% of Australian languages are from Indian-derived language families and developed from around the time of the Dingo introduction (only 4000 years ago), so there basically had to be a substantial amount of gene flow as well. Only a minority of the aboriginal languages come from an earlier substrate. It would be surprising…

80% of Australian languages are classified as Pama–Nyungan languages. Are you saying they are based off of an Indo-European language?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pama%E2%80%93Nyungan_languages

Re: Aboriginal Australian genomes reveal Indian ancestry (2013)

#26

Post by rohan_ »

undersuit wrote: post #24
runsWphotons wrote: post #2

Looks like this is quite old...they will probably find even more introgression. Something like 80% of Australian languages are from Indian-derived language families and developed from around the time of the Dingo introduction (only 4000 years ago), so there basically had to be a substantial amount of gene flow as well. Only a minority of the aboriginal languages come from an earlier substrate. It would be surprising…

80% of Australian languages are classified as Pama–Nyungan languages. Are you saying they are based off of an Indo-European language? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pama%E2%80%93Nyungan_languages

dravidian languages are not indo-european

Re: Aboriginal Australian genomes reveal Indian ancestry (2013)

#27

Post by actionfromafar »

undersuit wrote: post #24
runsWphotons wrote: post #2

Looks like this is quite old...they will probably find even more introgression. Something like 80% of Australian languages are from Indian-derived language families and developed from around the time of the Dingo introduction (only 4000 years ago), so there basically had to be a substantial amount of gene flow as well. Only a minority of the aboriginal languages come from an earlier substrate. It would be surprising…

80% of Australian languages are classified as Pama–Nyungan languages. Are you saying they are based off of an Indo-European language? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pama%E2%80%93Nyungan_languages

Dravidian is not indo-european AFAIK.

Re: Aboriginal Australian genomes reveal Indian ancestry (2013)

#28

Post by jjtheblunt »

WalterBright wrote: post #21
pigscantfly wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linguistic displacement can occur without genetic displacement. This has happened many times in history -- usually when a society's elite are displaced by a linguistically distinct foreign elite and their language is gradually adopted down the ranks of society as people seek advancement. Many branches of Proto-Indo-European (eg. Anatolian) are thought to have spread in this manner ie. with elite but not whole-populat…

That happened in England after the Battle of Hastings. Upper crust English is still dominated by french words.

My Germanic Linguistics grad school prof told us once, to your point, if you count etymologies of words in spoken English and in the English dictionary, you'd get roughly the following: spoken English uses roughly 80% Germanic vocabulary, but the English dictionary is roughly 80% Latin and Greek words (anglicized).

Re: Aboriginal Australian genomes reveal Indian ancestry (2013)

#29

Post by undersuit »

actionfromafar wrote: post #27
undersuit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80% of Australian languages are classified as Pama–Nyungan languages. Are you saying they are based off of an Indo-European language? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pama%E2%80%93Nyungan_languages

Dravidian is not indo-european AFAIK.

But no one said Dravidian. Thank you for clearing that up.

Same question: Are you saying they are based off of a Dravidian language?

Re: Aboriginal Australian genomes reveal Indian ancestry (2013)

#30

Post by viewtransform »

More than a decade ago I submitted my DNA to the National Genographic Project [1] which was an attempt to trace ancient human migration using Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA from a sampling of people around the world.

My paternal Y-chromosome line showed an ancient mutation (>50K year ago) carried by humans who had likely spread through a coastal migration from Africa around coasts of the Arabian Sea down to South India and eventually thousands of years later to Australia. My ancestors are from the west coast of India. About 5% of Indians carry this mutation (shared with indigenous australians) according to the data that was available at that time.

As we gather more data our understanding of human migration inevitably clashes with identity politics/nationalism and previous simplistic pre-scientific classifications based on skin color and facial features: Aryan invasion, Dravidian etc. Human migration appears to be much richer. There have been many migrations of humans groups both in and out of the Indian subcontinent going on for more than 50K years.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genographic_Project

Post reply on HN