More Rule than Exception: Parallel Evidence of Ancient Migrations in Grammars and Genomes of Finno-Ugric Speakers

• Main Authors: Patrícia Santos, Gloria Gonzàlez-Fortes, Emiliano Trucchi, Andrea Ceolin, Guido Cordoni, Cristina Guardiano, Giuseppe Longobardi, Guido Barbujani
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-12-01
• Series: Genes
• Subjects: genomes; syntax; genetic and linguistic distances; human migrations; phylogenies
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/11/12/1491

To reconstruct aspects of human demographic history, linguistics and genetics complement each other, reciprocally suggesting testable hypotheses on population relationships and interactions. Relying on a linguistic comparative method based on syntactic data, here we focus on the non-straightforward relation of genes and languages among Finno-Ugric (FU) speakers, in comparison to their Indo-European (IE) and Altaic (AL) neighbors. Syntactic analysis, in agreement with the indications of more traditional linguistic levels, supports at least three distinct clusters, corresponding to these three Eurasian families; yet, the outliers of the FU group show linguistic convergence with their geographical neighbors. By analyzing genome-wide data in both ancient and contemporary populations, we uncovered remarkably matching patterns, with north-western FU speakers linguistically and genetically closer in parallel degrees to their IE-speaking neighbors, and eastern FU speakers to AL speakers. Therefore, our analysis indicates that plausible cross-family linguistic interference effects were accompanied, and possibly caused, by recognizable demographic processes. In particular, based on the comparison of modern and ancient genomes, our study identified the Pontic-Caspian steppes as the possible origin of the demographic processes that led to the expansion of FU languages into Europe.