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 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.

A global analysis of matches and mismatches between human genetic and linguistic histories

“…They are genetically similar to their Indo-European speaking neighbors ( SI Appendix , Fig. S9 ) but maintain a separate linguistic identity as a member of the Uralic family ( 21 – 23 ). The Hungarian population preserved the language brought by the Magyars, who conquered the Carpathian Basin in the ninth century CE ( 21 – 23 ), while becoming genetically assimilated to their Indo-European–speaking neighbors through time ( SI Appendix , Fig.…”

Neolithic demic diffusion

“…At later times, two major migrations brought in the main genomic components. First, there was the demic diffusion of early Near Eastern farmers at the beginnings of the Neolithic; later, in the Bronze Age, pastoralist Yamnaya people came from the Ukrainian steppes, people whose ancestors were likely affected by a northward Neolithic diffusion from Anatolia or Iran [55]. The effects of Neolithic and Bronze Age migrations appeared in several diachronic studies of European populations [39], and match beautifully with the patterns described by Menozzi et Recent studies showed that demographic growth in what would later become the farming populations started long before the Neolithic, suggesting that farming might have been a consequence of increasing numbers of people to feed, rather than its cause [56].…”

At the boundaries of syntactic prehistory

“…Mongolian and Tungusic populations may have been in contact with each other due to original geographic proximity (in the Lake Baikal area) and to their being part of the Mongol empire [104–106], and both Mongolian and Turkic populations had contacts with non-Balto-Finnic Uralic speakers until recently. If these contacts may explain some genetic and partly phonemic convergence [107], then the question that remains is indeed which deeper source explains the stronger syntactic similarity obtained for Finno-Ugric and Altaic.…”

“…8Also see Ceolin et al [10] for an extended discussion, and Santos et al [107] for correlated syntactic/genetic effects.…”

“…9This contact was demographically so intense that the current genetic composition of Hungarian speakers is largely the same as that of their neighbours, with very limited traces of more Oriental sources [90,107], among others.…”