Isolation by Language and Distance in Belgium

Abstract

SummaryThe isonymy structure of trilingual Belgium was studied using the surname distributions for 1,118,004 private telephone users. The users were distributed in 77 Flemish, 76 French, and 3 German speaking towns, selected on a geographic basis to form an approximately regular grid over Belgium. Lasker's distance was found to be considerably higher between languages than within languages. For the whole of Belgium, irrespective of language, it was highly correlated with linear geographic distance, with r = 0.721± 0.014, which is the highest correlation observed in European countries to date. Within Belgium and within languages, the correlation was highest among the Flemish (r = 0.878 ± 0.007), and lowest among the French (r = 0.631± 0.020). Isolation by distance in Belgium is the highest we have found in Europe, and as high as in Switzerland where the different languages are separated by geographical barriers. This is not the case in Belgium, so that the considerable isolating power of languages emerges clearly from the present analysis. From the comparison of Lasker's distance between (9.48) and within (8.16) languages, and from its regression over geographic distance (b = 0.01206), it was possible to establish a quantitative relationship between the isolating power of languages and that of geographic distance as (9.48-8.16)/0.01206 = 109 kilometres. This transformation of language distance into an equivalent geographic distance, given here for Belgium, can be applied to any similar geo-linguistic situation.

High Y-chromosomal diversity and low relatedness between paternal lineages on a communal scale in the Western European Low Countries during the surname establishment

“…Therefore, Y-chromosomal markers will have enough discrimination power to perform huge DNA surveys on a communal scale, to predict surnames and to include in-depth family searching in forensic casework (Kayser and Ballantyne, 2014). Secondly, the results of our communal survey also confirm the relevance of diachronic analysis within a community or region based on the surname distribution data for historical demographic research (Barrai et al, 2004;Schürer, 2004;Redmonds et al, 2011;Boattini and Pettener, 2013), as a surname might represent one specific Y-chromosomal variation and therefore one specific biological identity in the community. Finally, the study is interesting for each genetic genealogist who is focusing on biological relatedness between their paternal lineage with other families without a known CGA or a similar surname (King and Jobling, 2009a;Scully et al, 2013).…”

“…This is mainly because of the time-consuming sampling criteria (Larmuseau et al, 2013b). An optimal Western European region to study the value of this approach on a community level is Flanders (Belgium) owing to its central location, its lack of noteworthy cultural and geographical isolates in the 'open' geography, and the decades-long tradition of performing archaeology, historical population registration and surname studies on a communal and regional scale (Cloet and Vandenbroeke, 1989;Debrabandere, 2003;Barrai et al, 2004). Moreover, the Y-chromosomal diversity at a high phylogenetic resolution is already well known on a regional scale in Flanders which revealed a well-studied historical genetic pattern (Larmuseau et al, 2012a(Larmuseau et al, , 2014b.…”

Surname study of suicide in Austria: Differences in regional suicide rates correspond to the genetic structure of the population

“…Surnamebased evidence on the genetic structure of the population, similar to the one concerning Austria [29], has been reported for several other nations, including Argentina, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the USA and Venezuela [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]. This opens ample opportunity for replication and further surname studies of suicide.…”

The Geography as a Regulator of Genetic Flow and Genetic Structure in Andorra

“…It has been reported that in Switzerland the mountains act as barriers to separate the different language groups (Rodriguez-Larralde et al, 1998). Nevertheless, in Belgium, in spite of the inexistence of geographic barriers, the isolation between the population of the same country is due to languages, emphasizing the importance of languages as genetic filters (Barrai et al, 2004). In Andor Olivenza (Spanish city that used to be part of Portugal) migration from Portugal has also been found (Román-Busto & Fuster, 2015).…”