Phonemic diversity supports a serial founder effect model of language expansion from Africa.

Atkinson, Quentin

dc.contributor.author	Atkinson, Quentin	en
dc.coverage.spatial	United States	en
dc.date.accessioned	2012-01-23T02:00:12Z	en
dc.date.issued	2011-04-15	en
dc.identifier.citation	Science 332(6027):346-349 15 Apr 2011	en
dc.identifier.issn	0036-8075	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/2292/10651	en
dc.description.abstract	Human genetic and phenotypic diversity declines with distance from Africa, as predicted by a serial founder effect in which successive population bottlenecks during range expansion progressively reduce diversity, underpinning support for an African origin of modern humans. Recent work suggests that a similar founder effect may operate on human culture and language. Here I show that the number of phonemes used in a global sample of 504 languages is also clinal and fits a serial founder-effect model of expansion from an inferred origin in Africa. This result, which is not explained by more recent demographic history, local language diversity, or statistical non-independence within language families, points to parallel mechanisms shaping genetic and linguistic diversity and supports an African origin of modern human languages.	en
dc.language	eng	en
dc.publisher	American Association for the Advancement of Science	en
dc.relation.ispartofseries	Science	en
dc.rights	Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. Previously published items are made available in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Details obtained from http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/0036-8075/	en
dc.rights.uri	https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm	en
dc.subject	Africa	en
dc.subject	Cultural Evolution	en
dc.subject	Founder Effect	en
dc.subject	Geography	en
dc.subject	Humans	en
dc.subject	Language	en
dc.subject	Models, Theoretical	en
dc.subject	Phonetics	en
dc.subject	Population Density	en
dc.title	Phonemic diversity supports a serial founder effect model of language expansion from Africa.	en
dc.type	Journal Article	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.1126/science.1199295	en
pubs.issue	6027	en
pubs.begin-page	346	en
pubs.volume	332	en
dc.rights.holder	Copyright: American Association for the Advancement of Science	en
dc.identifier.pmid	21493858	en
pubs.end-page	349	en
dc.rights.accessrights	http://purl.org/eprint/accessRights/RestrictedAccess	en
pubs.subtype	Article	en
pubs.elements-id	209340	en
pubs.org-id	Science	en
pubs.org-id	Psychology	en
dc.identifier.eissn	1095-9203	en
dc.identifier.pii	332/6027/346	en
pubs.record-created-at-source-date	2012-01-24	en
pubs.dimensions-id	21493858	en