More rule than exception: Parallel evidence of ancient migrations in grammars and genomes of Finno-Ugric speakers

Abstract

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 exclusively based on syntactic data, here we focus on the complex relation of genes and languages among Finno-Ugric (FU) speakers, in comparison to their Indo-European (IE) and Altaic (AL) neighbors. Syntactic analysis supports 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 study indicates plausible secondary convergence in the syntax of languages of different families, providing evidence that such interference effects were accompanied, and possibly caused, by recognizable processes at the population level. In particular, based on the comparison of modern and ancient genomes, our analysis identified the Pontic-Caspian steppes as the possible origin of the demographic processes that led to the expansion of the FU into Europe.

Luigi Luca Cavalli Sforza and the history of human languages: A linguist’s point of view

“…Through syntactic distances, it was also shown that even when the effect of geographical dispersal of a linguistic family leads to higher demographic than linguistic variability of its populations, a congruence effect arises: the relative degree of genetic deviation of each daughter population from the common ancestors anyway parallels the lesser one attested by the evolution of their respective languages; such is the case of Finno-Ugric, for example [40]. The question of extending similar analyses to continents other than Europe is now being actively pursued.…”