tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post4561476793592403512..comments2024-03-27T23:28:20.274-04:00Comments on Face to Face: Ancient hybridization in Africa between archaic and modern humansagnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-63708121373947766632014-08-18T09:20:01.310-04:002014-08-18T09:20:01.310-04:00Race = SpeciesRace = SpeciesAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-61800098318384236562013-03-20T16:17:27.020-04:002013-03-20T16:17:27.020-04:00Heh, it is one of the most bizarre distinctions be...Heh, it is one of the most bizarre distinctions between them and everyone else, including all other H-G's. Small stature, epicanthic fold, yellowy skin -- not so weird. Having proportionally more junk in the trunk than two black girls put together -- that's weird.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-13829036768703594842013-03-20T15:09:44.190-04:002013-03-20T15:09:44.190-04:00steatopygia. i knew u'd bring that up....steatopygia. i knew u'd bring that up....Razib Khanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09555115542918519593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-23935990384070169632013-03-19T16:40:36.598-04:002013-03-19T16:40:36.598-04:00I wasn't thinking so much of a direct genetic ...I wasn't thinking so much of a direct genetic import to a group that had previously lacked them, or been incapable of them. More like genes related to vocal physiology that made it easier to keep them among the ancient African groups, and less so among others. I recall something like that for genes related to pitch perception in East Asians who speak tone languages.<br /><br />Or maybe all sapiens groups were capable of clicks, but they caught on primarily after the various non-African groups left Africa. (Ritual use in Damil doesn't show that clicks used to be part of ancient languages of the Australians.) If the African H-G's communicated with the mystery archaics, maybe clicks were easier for the archaics to perceive and produce.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-11699286850167592562013-03-19T13:54:06.883-04:002013-03-19T13:54:06.883-04:00Clicks are a tricky topic in linguistics - their r...Clicks are a tricky topic in linguistics - their rarity and exoticism leads to many wild speculations about their origin. However, we do know that they accompanied humans after their exit from Africa. The aboriginal ritual language Damil, spoken by the Lardil people , has clicks. Moreover, words from click languages have been adopted quite liberally by humans who are at a significant genetic distance from the San. The Bantu, who originate in West Africa and migrated South, incorporated click sounds into their language, the most famous example being Zulu. There are click loanwords found in Languages as far North as Kenya and the Sudan. This suggests that they are fully incorporable into human phonology, and thus, their most likely explanation is that they are a fully human development - not the result of a strictly genetic import which affected some human populations, but not others. Their rarity outside of Africa is attributable to the simple fact that feature structures of languages deteriorate and simplify as people have more contact with one another (and become complex again when they become isolated), and the phonological codification of clicks is quite complex. Think of Indo-European ... older versions of the language are much more morphologically rich, since an ingroup of pastoralists will have a lot to do with one another, an not as much with the outside world. Then, go from Sanskrit to Hindi, simpler, more chopped up, less morphologically rich ... spoken by a vast agrarian civilization. And then compare that to the phonological, grammatical, an morphological simplicity of a language like Chinese ... Even simpler. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com