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[Paper presented at the Language and Genes: an interdisciplinary

conference, University of California, Santa Barbara, Sept 8-10, 2006]

Languages and Genes in Collaboration: some Practical Matters

Lyle Campbell

University of Utah(lyle.campbell@linguistics.utah.edu)

1. Introduction. This paper examines aspects of how linguistics and human geneticscan collaborate in investigating human prehistory, addressing questions put to conferenceparticipants. In addressing these questions, I emphasize linguist matters that need morecareful attention for linguistic-genetic correlations to have value. Significant contributionsfrom linguistic-genetic collaboration are possible, and I consider ways to make humangenetic-linguistic collaborations more productive. At the same time, it is important tocaution against several misconceptions frequently encountered in work which correlateslanguages and genes.1

2. Does a common linguistic ancestry mean a common biological ancestry? Thefrequent assumption of a direct association between language and genes (assumption ofparallel descent, following, for example, Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1988) weakens much work inthis area (see Comrie 2006:4), though recent works also show attention to this problem (cf.A. McMahon 2004, R. McMahon 2004; see below). The frequent expectation is that if two(or more) languages are phylogenetically related, then genes of the populations speakingthese languages will likely be similar, and that such human genetic-linguistic links willcontribute to understanding the prehistory of these populations. Work on phylogeneticlinguistic-human genetic comparisons, however, needs to take seriously into account (1) thatwhile a person has only one set of genes (for life), a person can be multilingual, representingmultiple languages; (2) that individuals (and communities) can abandon one language and

adopt another, but people do not abandon their genes nor adopt new ones language shift(language replacement) is a common fact of linguistic life; there is no deterministicconnection between languages and gene pools. Languages become extinct in populationswhich survive genetically (language replacement and extinction are frequent). (See R.McMahon 2004 for discussion of various ways in which a mismatch between the linguisticand human genetic history can come about.) We cannot assume, a priori, that linguistichistory and human biological history will correlate (Blount 1990:15; Boas 1911:6-10, Moore1994, Spuhler 1979).

What about known language families where speakers of different languages exhibitrelatively little human genetic homogeneity? In Uralic, for example, one of the best studiedlanguage families, there is considerable human genetic difference across populations

speaking different languages of the family (Nettle and Harriss 2003:335-7). For example,the Finnish gene pool is composed of c.75% Western elements and c.25% Eastern, theopposite of their eastern Uralic linguistic relatives (including both mtDNA and Y-chromosome evidence) (Nevanlinna 1984, Savontaus and Lahermo 1999; see Zerjal et al.2001; cf. Bandelt et al. 2002:100-01).Many similar human genetic-linguistic mismatchescan be cited (Babalini et al. 2005, Garca-Ortiz et al. 2006, Malhi et al. 2002, 2003,Merriweather et al. 2000, Moore 1994, Nettle and Harriss 2003, Nasidze et al. 2003,

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Pakendorf et al. 2003, Rosser et al. 2000, Sims-Williams 1998, Smith et al. 2000, Szathmary1994, etc.)2, and the methodological problems that characterize studies correlating languageand genes need to become better understood (see Bateman et al. 1990a, 1990b, 1990c,Bandelt et al. 2002, Hurles 2002, R. McMahon 2004, Moore 1994). As these citations alsoshow, the assumption of congruence between languages and genes is not universal and there

is a growing recognition that the assumptions should not be made, though many still make it.All of the following situations are attested (no here means little or no):(1) no linguistic admixture no genetic admixture(2) no linguistic admixture genetic admixture(3) linguistic admixture no genetic admixture(4) linguistic admixture genetic admixture

Where much work in language-gene correlation has tended to privilege (1) (though see, forexample, Chikhi 2002, aimed at dealing with genetic admixture), linguists expect (1) least,with (4) perhaps the most common. Clearly this is an empirical matter in need ofinvestigation, but it will not do to expect a priori, as is often the case, parallelism betweenhuman genetic and linguistic phylogenetic classifications. Recognizing that language shifts

happen and that genes flow into populations speaking different languages, we must ask,where does that leave those with interests in correlation of human genetics and linguistics?Russell Gray (personal communication) asks whether linguists can tell how commonlanguage shift is and under what conditions it occurs, and where we should expectcongruence or incongruence between genes and language. The answer is that language shiftis very common (Thomason and Kaufman 1988), witness the hundreds of extinct languagesknown to human history. Language replacement happens in situations of language contactfor a variety of social, political, and economic reasons (Campbell 2003b, Moore 1994);extremely few languages involve no influence from other languages, usually accompanied bygene flow across language boundaries. Instances such as Trejaut et als (2005) where thelinguistic and human genetic history (in this case, for the Formosan origin of Austronesian)

appear to match are very rare.However, lack of significant correlation does not defeat the enterprise. We should notdismiss cases of mismatches in the linguistic and human genetic history (done often enough),for these may be the most interesting for helping us to gain a fuller picture of the past and tocomprehend the full dynamics of processes affecting human populations. Here is wherecollaboration from both linguists and human genetics can pay off, since both havesophisticated methods for dealing with both vertical relationships (inheritance) andhorizontal ones (borrowing, gene flow). From the linguistic side, our many sources ofinformation provide valuable historical information regardless of whether there iscongruence with the human genetic cladistic picture. Knowing that speakers of Proto-Indo-European had horses, cows, wagons, tribal kings, and so on (from the vocabularyreconstructed by the comparative method) is invaluable historical information regardless ofwhether we know their precise genetic history or who their present-day lineal descendantsare. It would be foolish to ignore such information when trying to come to grips with a fullerpicture of prehistory. The point of research in prehistory is to take as much evidence from asmany lines as possible to try to understand the past. More important than expectingcongruences is to collaborate to understand the processes what bring about the more commonmismatches.

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How successful can we be when we look at the cultures, languages, and humanpopulations that we know about today and attempt to project back in time to the humangroups that each line of evidence (language, genes, material culture) may have beenassociated with in the past? We cannot always know, and for that reason, it is important thatthe lines of evidence be investigated independently and then collaborations be undertaken to

understand how the mismatches came about. Instances of congruence are rare (Moore 1994).2.1. What of linguistic areas, language contact, and language shift? Thesecommonplace linguistic phenomena involve situations where a direct correlation betweenlinguistic and human genetic history is not to be expected where there are horizontal(diffusion, borrowing) rather than vertical (phylogenetic) relationships among languages,i.e. cases of language relationships spread over different human populations. Linguisticareas, where structural traits of language diffuse across language boundaries, are not unusual;better known ones include: Amazonia, Balkans, Baltic, Ethiopian highlands, Mesoamerica,the Northwest Coast (of North America), and South Asia (Indian subcontinent) exhibitinghorizontal rather than vertical developments in languages, presumably accompanied also byhorizontal gene flow. To mention just one example, the Northwest Coast linguistic area

(Campbell 1997:332-4), also a culture area, is notorious for intermarriage, slaving, linguisticand cultural diffusion, and multilingualism. Figures from 1845 show slaves to have been 6%of the population of the Northwest Coast region, 10% of the lower Fraser region (Amoss1993:10-11). With numerous refugees from other villages and frequent intermarriage(polygyny was common), there was significant gene flow across linguistic boundaries insuch situations, one should not expect developments in human genetics and languages tocorrelate directly.

These situations drive home the point that parallelism between linguistic and humangenetic transmission should not be expected a priori. They also brings up a frequent

problem: misunderstanding of the nature of language change and the role ofinheritance vs. borrowing. Essentially all linguists accept that languages can be classified

phylogenetically, represented cladistically in genealogical trees. Unfortunately, some havemisunderstood this to mean that historical linguists see this (homology) as the only possiblehistorical relationship among languages. However, not all historical associations amonglanguages are due to inheritance from a common ancestor, i.e. phylogenetic relationship isnot the only thing linguists look for in order to understand the prehistory of languages. Theyalso investigate diffusion across languages boundaries. The investigation of both inheritanceand diffusion play large roles in the treatment of linguistic prehistory, and historicallinguistics has well-known methods for addressing both. Correlations of language and genesshould not lose sight of this.

2.2. What of multilingual societies practicing linguistic exogamy, as in parts of

Amazonia? The linguistic exogamy of the Vaups linguistic area (Colombia-Brazil) is well-known (Aikhenvald 2002, Chernela 2004, Gomez-Imbert 1996, Jackson 1974, 1983,Sorensen 1967), involving some twenty languages, where most people are at least trilingualand some understand up to ten languages. Here clearly the human genetic history ofindividuals and communities does not match closely their linguistic phylogenetic history; thisis not an isolated situation. The Chorote, Chulup, and to a certain extent the Wich in theMisin La Paz region (Argentina) also practice linguistic exogamy.3 Spouses each speakhis/her own language and are addressed in and understand the other spouses language in

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return a spouse does not accommodate by speaking the other spouses language. Speakersand hearers in conversations typically are not speaking the same language. Peoplecommunicate regularly with speakers of different languages, but rarely in the same language,unlike in the Vaups case. A child identifies with one of the languages of the parents andspeaks it exclusively to everyone, both parents, siblings, and other community members,

regardless of the language they speak. Not all children in a family identify with the samelanguage, and criteria for choice have nothing to do with gender, prestige, and the like, onlywith professions of personal taste. (See Grondona and Campbell 2006.) In such situationsthere is no direct correlation between human genetics and language.

The existence of situations of linguistic exogamy drives home the need not to assumeparallel transmission of language and genes. Both population genetics and linguistics havesophisticated methods for dealing with horizontal relationships (diffusion/admixture/geneflow). The two fields may be able to collaborate both in improved methodology and models,as well as in the interpretation of the circumstances in given areas.

3. Are there particular social conditions that constrain language change and

evolution? It is frequently speculated that there is a causal connection between type of

society and core aspects of linguistic structure. An often repeated opinion is that languagebecomes more complex in isolated communities or in small-scale societies where mostinteraction is face to face (Andersen 1988, Hymes 1974, Jakobson 1929[1962]:82, Nettle1999a, Nettle and Romaine 2000, Ross 1996, 1997, Trudgill 1989, 2002). Hymes (1974:50)says, the surface structures of languages spoken in small, cheek-by-jowl communities sooften are markedly complex, and the surface structures of languages spoken over wideranges less so. This view has no merit. Assumed correlations between society type andlanguage structure have mostly proven misleading.

The basic idea is that in such communities, isolated or characterized by face-to-facecommunication where most speakers know each other, people tolerate eccentricities, and socomplexity can grow and unusual linguistic traits can become part of the structure of thelanguage. There are many counterexamples on both sides of the equation: many simple butrelatively isolated small languages. and many large and non-isolated but complex languages.For example, looking at phonological complexity (cf. Trudgill 2002, 2004a, 2004b), we seecounterexamples in numerous relatively small and isolated languages such as Rotokas,Pirah, Hawaiian, South Island Maori, etc. which have extremely limited phonemeinventories. There are numerous large non-isolated languages which are complex or exhibitunusual traits, some demonstrably having become even more complex over time. Forexample, Quechua, spoken by several million speakers, is phonologically very complex(with plain, glottalized, and aspirated stops and affricates at five points of articulation). Zulu,not small (over 6,000,000 speakers) or isolated, with 35 consonants, acquired an elaboratesystem of clicks from contact with Khoisan. (For discussion of other cases, see Campbelland Poser in press.)4

In short, there is no reliable correlations between community size or isolation andlinguistic complexity (or eccentricity). To date, no convincing cases have been presented todemonstrate any causal relationship between language structure and type of society or kindof culture. For attempts to correlate human genetics and linguistics, any presumed socialconditions constraining language change and evolution can safely be abandoned.

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4. What of the initial peopling of the Americas? The classification of AmericanIndian languages has played a misleading role in human genetic research on this topic. AsCampbell (1997:90-106) showed, the linguistic picture is compatible with a wide range ofpossible scenarios for the earliest peopling of the Americas, and the linguistic facts do notrestrict these possibilities significantly. Caution is to be urged against accepting too readily

any claim about early population or migrations based on the classification of AmericanIndian languages. There is great linguistic diversity in the Americas. Most scholars ofAmerican Indian languages believe that there are about 180 different phylogenetic units(language families and isolates) in the Americas which cannot at present be shown to berelated to each other. Many are sympathetic to the possibility that several, perhaps even all,of these may ultimately be phylogenetically related, but believe that if any of these ever wererelated to one another, so much linguistic change has taken place since they diversified thatnot enough evidence is left to demonstrate such connections. This linguistic diversity (withpossible connections that cannot now be demonstrated) means that we are unable on thebasis of linguistic evidence to eliminate any of the various proposals concerning the origin ofhumans in the New World or accounts for the arrival of the first Americans. The linguistic

picture can be made consistent with a number of scenarios for the earliest humans in theAmericas.

The question of the initial peopling of the Americas is often associated withGreenbergs (1987) Amerind hypothesis. Claims of non-linguistic evidence for Greenbergsclassification of the Americas (Greenberg 1987, Greenberg et al. 1986) proved to have no

foundation (Bolnick et al. 2004, Campbell 1997:100-04, Hunley and Long 2005, Salzano etal. 2005).5 Thisbrings up another problem: the predilection for problematic linguisticphylogenetic classifications. Often papers involving human genetics and languageclassifications rely on controversial or erroneous linguistic phylogenetic classifications, e.g.Nostratic, Altaic, and Amerind. As Bolnick et al. (2004) show in a survey of 100papers in genetics in recent years, attempts to test possible correlations between linguistic

phylogenetic classifications and human genetics in the Americas have nearly all takenGreenbergs (1987) discredited classification of American Indian languages as their point ofdeparture, a serious mistake which undermines the entire enterprise. Fortunately, some havestarted to break this trend, still dealing with Greenbergs 1987 classification, but finding itdoes not match the human genetic picture in their studies (Bolnick et al. 2004, Hunley andLong 2005, Salzano et al. 2005).

Greenberg (1987) proposed that all Native American languages, except the Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut language groupings, belong to single macro-family, Amerind.Amerind is rejected by virtually all specialists in Native American languages and historicallinguistics. They maintain, as mentioned, that valid methods do not permit reduction ofNative American languages to fewer than about 180 independent genetic units (language

families and isolates). Amerind has been criticized on various grounds. There areexceedingly many errors in Greenbergs data: the number of erroneous forms probablyexceeds that of the correct forms (Adelaar 1989: 253). Where Greenberg stops afterassembling superficial similarities and declaring them due to common ancestry is whereother linguists begin. Since similarities can be due to chance, borrowing, onomatopoeia,sound symbolism, nursery words [the mama, papa, nana, dada, caca sort], misanalysis, andother things, for a plausible proposal of remote linguistic relationship, one must attempt to

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eliminate all other possible explanations, leaving a shared common ancestry as the mostlikely. Greenberg made no attempt to eliminate these other explanations, and the similaritieshe amassed appear to be due mostly to accident and a combination of these other factors(Ringe 1996:152). In various instances, Greenberg compared arbitrary segments of words,equated words with very different meanings (e.g. excrement/night/grass), misidentified

many languages, failed to analyze the morphology of some words and falsely analyzed thatof others, neglected regular sound correspondences, failed to eliminate loanwords, andmisinterpreted well-established findings. The Amerind etymologies proposed are oftenlimited to a few languages of the many involved in his comparisons. (See Adelaar 1989;Berman 1992; Campbell 1988, 1997; Kimball 1993; McMahon and McMahon 1995; Poser1992; Rankin 1992; Ringe 1992, 1996, etc.). Finnish, Japanese, and other randomly chosenlanguages fit Greenbergs Amerind data as well as or better than any of the American Indianlanguages do; Greenbergs method has proven incapable of distinguishing implausiblerelationships from Amerind generally (Campbell 1988, Campbell 1997).

In short, it is with good reason Amerind has been rejected. Attempts to test for ahuman genetic fit with this rejected classification are just wasted effort, and can provide no

worthwhile results. Human geneticists need to understand this and take it on board.Amerind is not the only disputed linguistic phylogenetic claim that needlesslyoccupies journal space; Altaic, Nostratic, Dene-Caucasian, and others are oftenassumed in human genetic-linguistic correlations (cf. Eshleman et al. 2004, etc.), though thisshould not be the case. Of course not all genetic-linguistic correlations are guilty of relyingon linguistic classifications that are not well founded.

A related problem is: the predilection to rely on non-mainstream scholarsclaims. For example, Ruhlens (1987, 1994a, 1994b) classification of the worlds languagesand his claims about language relationships are relied on in numerous publications involvingattempts at correlating linguistic matters with other sources of information on prehistory (e.g.Poloni et al. 1997; Rubicz et al. 2002, see Manning 2006 for a recent example).6 However,

Ruhlens classification is exceedingly out of line with standard views and is without solidempirical support, linguistically or genetically (R. McMahon 2004). Thus, where Ruhlen(1987) had only 35 genetic units (17 phyla and 18 language isolates) 7, most historicallinguists recognize 250 to 300 independent language lineages (genetic units, i.e., languagefamilies and isolates). The very large groupings listed by Ruhlen are rejected by mostlinguists for sound methodological reasons (see Campbell and Poser in press). Humangeneticists should be very cautious in citing proposed but rejected remote linguisticaffiliations, such as those in Greenberg (1971, 1987, 2000) and Ruhlen (1987, 1994a,1994b).

Curiously, some papers come up with the right answer that there is no meaningfullinguistic-human genetic correlations for some of these proposed but disputed linguisticmacro-families but for the wrong reasons (for example Hunley and Long 2005, Rubicz etal. 2002). That is, they assume hypotheses of remote linguistic affiliation proposed by

Greenberg, Ruhlen, and a few others (Amerind, Dene-Caucasian, Eurasiatic, Indo-Pacific,Nostratic, etc.), rejected by most historical linguists, and their results show that theseclassifications fail to match the human genetic picture. For linguists it is no surprise that thecorrelation of something linguistic that does not exist with genetic material should produceno meaningful correlations. This, drives home the point that there has been too strong a

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tendency to rely on unsubstantiated claims of linguistic kinship in work on human genetic-linguistic correlations.

How might the unsuspecting geneticist proceed? By collaborating withknowledgeable linguists, or by testing all the better known linguistic classifications, not justa disputed linguistic classification that might appeal for whatever non-linguistic reason.

5. How can research in this area be carried forward by the application of newmethods or by the combination of methods from different disciplines? More to the point,are new methods possible? Yes, but are the new linguistic approaches that have beenproposed worthwhile? The methods for establishing relationships among languages are wellknown and effective; nonetheless, some linguists, dissatisfied with what they perceive to belimitations of traditional methods, have proposed new approaches; none of these hasachieved success (for details see Campbell 2003a, 2003b, Campbell and Poser in press). Imention some problems with the more influential of these.

5.1.Nichols approach. Johanna Nichols (1992, 1997a, 1997b, ) aims at developingtechniques for reaching beyond the comparative method, which she assumes becomesineffective after 8,000 years (Nichols 1997a:363). She uses non-genetic structural

comparison to show that structural affinities between large language areas can be mapped ...to give us an unimpeded, if rather spare and abstract, view of language origins and ancientlinguistic prehistory (Nichols 1996:267). She tries to find ties among language populationsand to gauge the relative age of linguistic traits in large-scale geographical areas; she tries toinfer the source and direction of spread of these structural features, and to infer howlanguages came to have their geographical distributions.

For Nichols, the geographical spread of features involves accretionzones andspreadzones (cf. Nichols 1992:231, 1997a:369-70). An accretion zone (residual zone) is an areawhere genetic and structural diversity of languages are high and increase over time throughimmigration, e.g. Caucasus, the Himalayas, the Ethiopian highlands, California, the PacificNorthwest, Amazonia, northern Australia, New Guinea. (Nichols 1997a:369.) A spread zone

is an area of low density where a single language or family occupies a large range, wherediversity does not to build up with immigration but is reduced by language shift andlanguage spreading, e.g. the grasslands of central Eurasia, central and southern Australia,northern Africa, the Great Basin (Nichols 1997a:369).

This distinction between spread zones and accretion zones is misapplied in someof her cases, damaging her overall conclusions. Nichols treats Mesoamerica as a spreadzone, but by her own criteria (Nichols 1992:16-7) it is an accretion (residual) zone, with (1)Lots of linguistic diversity, not the low genetic diversity characteristic of her spread zones.(2) Lots of structural diversity, as opposed to low structural diversity for spread zones. (3)The language families are not shallow in time depth. (4) In opposition to the criterion ofrapid spread wiping out existing families, Mesoamerican families rarely wiped out or tookover anybody elses territory or language. (5) There was no clear lingua franca. (For detailsof other mis-analyzed zones in Nichols work, see Campbell and Poser in press.) SinceNichols (1992) deals with only five spread zones (and five residual zones); with even one offive mis-assigned (20%), all the counts involving these zones are seriously skewed.

Other problems include the languages which define her zones. For example, inNichols Mesoamerica, of ten languages included (Nichols 1992, nine in Nichols 1995:342),two (Chichimec, Miskito) are outside Mesoamerica both geographically and linguistically.

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Given this combination of non-Mesoamerican languages (20%) with true Mesoamericanlanguages, all of Nichols calculations (of spread, stability, the character and distribution oflinguistic traits) are skewed and called into question.

Nichols (1992:291) has only four spread zones: Ancient Near East, Europe, CentralAustralia, and Interior North America (Mesoamerica, a mis-assigned accretion zone, is

eliminated). These zones are so different from one another that they do not permitgeneralization; some do not fit Nichols criteria well. There are so few spread zones, andthose identified as such have such disparate characters, there appears to be no sound basis forgeneralizing (see Campbell and Poser in press).

Another key element in Nichols approach is typological traits said to be relativelystable both genetically and areally. She deals with about a dozen assumed stable features,e.g. head/dependent marking, typological alignment (nominative-accusative, ergative,active), morphological complexity, verb position in clauses, inclusive/exclusive,alienable/inalienable, noun classes, numeral classifiers, number neutralization, non-finiteverbs, and voice. However, there is nothing particularly stable about some of these (seeCampbell and Poser in press for details). For example, Nichols (2003:304) finds the inclusive

vs. exclusive first person pronoun opposition to be genetically the most stable of all thefeatures tested. In fact, it is not very stable at all, nor is there any particular reason why itshould be. There are a number of cases where dialects of the same language differ in thatsome have the contrast and others lack it, where the change is attested as recent. Theinclusive/exclusive contrast is typically rather superficial and not deeply integrated in thefabric of the grammar, meaning there is nothing inherent in it which leads to nor would resultin long-term stability. As Jacobsen (1980:204) points out:

This category [first person inclusive/exclusive pronominal contrasts] is probably onethat diffuses fairly readily, as it is purely semantic and not bound to the syntacticstructure of a language .... It is sometimes found to be typical of a whole language

family, but may also turn up in isolated members of a family, as, for example, inChoctaw alone in the Muskogean family ... in Yuki alone in the Yukian family ... inShuswap alone in the Salish family ... or in Kwakiutl but not Nootka in the Wakashanfamily.

If the general issue of stability is called into question, then Nichols conclusionsbased on spread and clustering of these traits and the inferences she attempts to draw forreally remote prehistory are brought into question as well.

In particular, the notions of spread zones and accretion/residual zones are not wellfounded.

5.2.Punctuated Equilibrium. Dixon (1997:2) also asks about languagedevelopments beyond the reach of the comparative method. Dixon favors the view thatextensive diffusion and language contact can make phylogenetic classification difficult(Dixon 2002). However, his correlation of states of equilibrium with extensive contact-induced diffusion and punctuation events with diversification into language families islinguistically unrealistic. he characterizes his approach as follows:

The hypothesis put forward here to describe and explain the development of language

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during the 100,000 or more years since its first emergence is that there have beenlong periods of equilibrium during which a number of languages have coexisted ina more or less harmonious way within a given region without any major changestaking place. From time to time the state of equilibrium is punctuated by somecataclysmic event; this will engender sweeping changes in the linguistic situation and

may trigger a multiple split and expansion (which would be appropriately modelledby a family tree diagram). The punctuation may be due to some natural event(floods, drought, volcanic eruption), or to the emergence of an aggressive political orreligious group, or to some striking technical innovation, or simply to entry into newand pristine territory. After the events which caused the punctuation have run theircourse, a new state of equilibrium will come into being. (Dixon 1997:67; see alsoDixon 2002:32-5.)

The notion of punctuated equilibrium is challenged in biology. There is nothingspecial about punctuated equilibrium; evolution continues even without punctuated eventsdisrupting equilibrium (Dennett 1995). Language change and differentiation into language

families also continue in periods of equilibrium (in the absence of disruptive events) (Dixon1997:69-70). The problems with the concept in biology also hold for languages changes ofboth sorts, divergence and borrowing, take place both in equilibrium and in punctuation.Problems for Dixons model include instances of equilibrium with diversification,equilibrium without diffusion, diffusion in punctuation, and the difficulty of distinguishingequilibrium from punctuation (see Campbell and Poser in press). The correlation envisaged,which equates equilibrium with convergence, and punctuation with divergence, is notsupported both kinds of change take place in both kinds of situations. (See Campbell2003b, Crowley 1999, Watkins 2001.)

5.3. Ecological risk. Nettle adopts the ecological risk hypothesis, an economictheory concerned with the formation and maintenance of social networks to providehousehold social insurance against normal risks of agriculture (Nettle 1996:413). Thegreater the provisioning problem, the wider the social network necessary (Nettle 1996:414).Nettle adds a linguistic component: it is the larger networks of generalized exchange whichultimately give rise to different ethnolinguistic groups (1996:413); ethnolinguistic groupsare thus best characterized as informal networks of intensive generalized exchange, whichfunction through reciprocity and reciprocal roles (Nettle 1996:412); the ecological riskhypothesis thus predicts that the size of ethnolinguistic groups should increase in proportionto the amount of ecological risk that they face (Nettle 1996:414). Nettle attempted to testthis notion based on data from West Africa.

The economic determinism which correlates size of language with extent ofeconomic risk is too single-minded. Social linkages often follow linguistic lines, but notalways; people organize themselves in ethnic, economic, and other alliances. Alliances mayaid against economic risk, but alliances lying within single languages are not the onlyrelevant ones. Alliances often are forged also across language boundaries. Linguistichomogeneity is not necessary for economic cohesion and exchange. These economic endscan be served through multilingualism, lingua francas, trading pidgin], etc. Indeed, WestAfrican society is characterized by a high degree of multilingualism (Nettle 1996:408).

Cross-linguistic alliances of various sorts can serve economic risk reduction.

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Problems for this approach include the following. The presence of large and small languagesin the same area: in circumstances of economic risk, small languages should not survive; allthe languages of a region should be roughly equally large to address the risk. Difficultiesfrom non-ecological influences on language distribution: the approach fails to take intoaccount the impact of important political units. There are numerous other counterexamples:

the spread of Nahuatl with the Aztec empire, Quechua with the Inca empire, Latin byRomans, and the spread of Arabic, Chinese, Turkish, and so many others. Clearly, factorsother than ecology can figure in the spread and distribution of languages. Nettles approachlacks diachronic perspective (McConvell 2001). His view relies on a simple correlationbetween the distributions of languages as they are today and ecological factors of theirregions. It needs to take temporal considerations into account. For example, the emphasison horizontal exchange between households to explain the spread of languages such asHausa (Nettle 1999:74-6) neglects the influence in the past of Hausa emirates, taxation andtribute, and associated power and prestige as factors in the spread of Hausa. A fullerdiachronic perspective is needed. There is much more to ecological risk-reduction than merelinguistic cohesion, and much more to language distribution and spread than ecology. (See

Campbell and Poser in press.)5.4.The farming/language dispersal model. A major alleged motive for variousproposed linguistic expansions is agriculture (Renfrew 1987, 1994, 1997, 2000, 2002) andBellwood (1991, 1994, 2000, 2001, 2002) farming dispersals, generally through theexpansion of populations of farmers by a process of colonization or demic diffusion, areresponsible for the distribution and areal extent of many of the worlds language families(Renfrew 1996:70).

There are various difficulties with this approach. Agriculture does not alwaysmotivate language expansions, as predicted by the model. Rather, agriculture can provide afolk with the stability just to stay put, in relative self-sufficiency, so that they do not need toexpand. There are numerous cases of agricultural language families that have not spreadsignificantly (e.g. Papuan language families, Mixe-Zoquean) and of non-agricultural oneswhich have spread (e.g. Pama-Nyungan and Athabaskan). The model has difficultyexplaining the co-existence of small languages and big languages in the same territory. (Themodel predicts that small languages should be swallowed up and eliminated by theexpanding larger agricultural languages.) There are problems of interpretation. For example,the Indo-Europeanization of Europe and northern India took several millennia, with variousmovements and expansions; Indo-Europeanists insist on a number of independentmovements over scores of centuries to account for the distribution of Indo-Europeanlanguages. This telescoping of events into a single spread with a single cause seemsunrealistic. Agriculture is but one factor which can contribute to language spread anddiversification. (See Campbell 2003b.)

5.5. Misunderstanding existing methods. The call for new methods or models (cf.for example, Chappell 2001:354, Dixon 1997:28, 2002:31, etc.) is associated with amisunderstanding on the part of some scholars of the existing methods. Some scholars of latehave taken a skeptical view of the validity of family tree diagrams (and the comparativemethod) (Aikhenvald and Dixon 2001:6, Dahl 2001:1456-7, Dixon 2002:22, 31). It isimportant to clarify this.

Mainstream historical linguists realize that it is not possible adequately to understanddiffusion fully without knowing the genetic affiliation of the languages involved and vice

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versa, not possible to account fully for what is inherited without proper attention to what isdiffused: both the comparative method and areal linguistics are historical disciplines twinfaces of diachronic linguistics (Hamp 1977:27).

The goal of the historical linguist is to answer the question, what happened?, whetherit be due to inheritance, diffusion, or a combination of both. Indeed, in attempting to answer

this question, both the inherited and the diffused are necessary at the same time. Matters ofburden of proof requires this. To test any hypothesis of genetic inheritance, it is necessary todemonstrate that it fits the facts better than alternative possible explanations, borrowingbeing principal among possible alternatives (though accident, universals, and others mustalso be considered). Similarly, for any hypothesis of borrowing, it is necessary todemonstrate that other possible explanations do not provide a better answer, and thepossibility of inheritance from a common ancestor is crucial among those that must beeliminated for the hypothesis of diffusion to stand. Many of the errors and excesses seentoday in both proposals of distant genetic relationships and in proposals that championdiffusion stem from not considering other possible explanations sufficiently before reachingconclusions in particular cases.

Inheritance and diffusion have always been of crucial importance and historicallinguistics has appropriate methods to address them. Moreover, the comparative method isnot at odds with borrowing (though it treats only inheritance, genealogical relationshipsdirectly); it is a major tool in detecting borrowing and thus of understanding what is inheritedand what is diffused. Hbschmann (1875) demonstrated this when he proved that Armenianwas a separate branch of Indo-European, and not a dialect of Iranian as previously thought(Watkins 2001:59). Armenian exhibits extensive influence from Iranian, but the comparativemethod revealed this as diffusion and not inheritance. That inheritance and diffusion can betackled with the comparative method has been shown time and again (Bowern and Koch2004:1-2, Watkins 2001, Ross 1988, 1998, etc.).

A misunderstanding is the belief that historical linguists held the family tree diagramto be the whole story (cf. Aikhenvald and Dixon 2001:6-7). This is wrong; historicallinguists have always also taken borrowing and diffusion into account, and have methods fordealing with them. As Sebeok (1950:101) made clear, if some scholars limit their vision toonly that which is inherited, too bad for them, but this is not an accurate characterization ofwhat historical linguists do generally nor of the history of the field, as the Armenian case andother examples show.

So what about cases where it is difficult or even impossible to determine whethershared traits are due to inheritance, diffusion, independent parallel development, or accident?This difficulty is often mentioned by those who wish to place the comparative method in badlight (cf. Aikhenvald and Dixon 2001:1, Aikhenvald 2001:190-1, LaPolla 2001, Chappell2001:335, 353-4, Dahl 2001:1456). All retrospective sciences must face the same problem:we do our best with the evidence available; sometimes it does not allow definitive answers.However, in linguistics fortunately our methods have proven successful so often ofdistinguishing inheritance from borrowing, we do not abandon them just because in somespecific instance the evidence is insufficient, just as we do not conclude that an automobilecan never take us anywhere just because the gasoline ran out once.

In short, linguists have a battery of techniques in addition to the comparative method(see Campbell 2004:62-84, 211-24, 330-43).

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This discussion clarifies Comries (2006:5) statement: although the family treemodel forms the basis for much of comparative-historical linguistics, it necessarily involvesa simplification of the actual historical facts. Historical linguists would say it is not asimplification; rather, the comparative method addresses directly only inherited material,while other methods and techniques (for borrowing, wave theory, language contact, areal

linguistics) help to complete the picture the comparative method alone was never thoughtto be provide the whole picture. It barely needs to be pointed out that both populationgenetics, as well as linguistics, has solid methods of dealing with non-cladistic stuff.Contributions from linguistic and human genetic collaboration can well be expected in theseareas not handled with phylogenetic tree models.

Another problem with respect to methods is the frequent uncritical acceptance ofunreliable new linguistic approaches. Many non-linguists have been misled by the workof Dixon, Nichols, and others, but as the discussion above shows, caution is needed here.Another problem is the fondness for glottochronology, a not-so-new method generallydiscredited in linguistics. The critiques of glottochronology (lexicostatistics) are compelling(see Campbell 2004:200-10) and need not be rehearsed here; instead, let me mention the

more practical reasons for why we are unable to see into the distant past based on suchtreatments of lexical evidence.By glottochronology, after about 14,000 years, nearly all of a languages basic

vocabulary will be replaced, so in related languages which split up before 15,000 years ago,we will not find recognizable cognates.8 Though glottochronology is rejected, this reflectsthe reality that over time vocabulary is replaced, and we cannot expect cognate vocabulary tosurvive in modern languages for tens of thousands of years, retained in recognizable form,given the amount of normal lexical replacement and phonological change that take place infar shorter lengths of time (Hock 1993:218, Trask 1996:392).

The ancestor of English and Hindi did not begin to diversify into separate languagesuntil some 5,000 or 6,000 years ago, but they share only some five clear cognates on theSwadesh 100-word list (Campbell and Poser in press). If the impact on the vocabulary ofclearly related languages is so great after only a few millennia, surely there is no hope forcomparisons at very remote time levels. In short, too much loss and garbling has taken placefrom very remote times (say beyond 15,000 years) for anything to survive or be recognizabletoday in related languages that diversified so long ago.

There are recent quantification-oriented approaches which are more sophisticatedthan glottochronology, some of which attempt to capitalize on methodological insights fromgenetics (Gray and Atkinson 2003, Atkinson et al. 2005), and it will pay to explore themfurther, though linguists in general doubt the ability to date based on lexical evidence alone the replacement of the lexicon, however, is not necessarily cladistic, since a languagecommunity can borrow words from nearly anywhere, in any order, in addition to generatinglexical replacement by internal means (Moore 1994:928) To the extent that otherapproaches rely on structural traits without formal expression (phonological substance, asDunn et al. 2005 do), they are subject to the problems of other approaches that violate therequirement of sound-meaning isomorphism, that meaningful comparisons must involve bothsound and meaning together (Greenberg 1957, 1963, 1987) because structural parallelswithout formal expression (sound) can arise in many ways in addition to just inheritancefrom a common ancestor (Campbell and Poser in press).

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6. Conclusions and directions for the future. While significant contributions fromlinguistic-genetic collaboration are possible, it is important to call for caution concerningseveral misconceptions frequently encountered in correlations of languages and genes. Someof these problems pointed out in this paper are:(1) Predilection for problematic linguistic phylogenetic classifications, unfounded proposals

of remote linguistic kinship, and for non-mainstream scholars claims about languageclassifications.(2) Fondness for glottochronology, generally discredited in linguistics.(3a) Reliance on misleading models of linguistic diversification and spread.(3b) Misunderstanding of the nature in linguistics of inheritance (genetic) and borrowing

(language contact) and how they interact.(4) Uncritical acceptance of unreliable new linguistic approaches.(5) Assumption of indefensible claims about kinds of societies influencing language change.

What is the way forward, then?On the one hand, it lies in avoiding these problems. We should not expect human

genetic-linguistic parallelism, but rather emphasize realistic approaches that deal seriously

with horizontal relationships (diffusion/admixture/gene flow) in addition to cladistic ones.We should void the proposed linguistic phylogenetic hypotheses that are mostly rejected. Itis a waste of time to attempt to find human genetic correlations with linguistic entities thatare probably not real; it is also unproductive to attempt to challenge linguistic classificationsbased on human genetic evidence. If the genes do not match in these cases, it is probablybecause the linguistic classifications are not real entities, but even when valid linguisticphylogenetic groupings do not match the human genetic picture, the reason may be that thelanguages and the genes did not have parallel (vertical) histories, but involve horizontal(diffusion/gene flow) differences. A finding of a human genetic non-congruence withlanguage is irrelevant for language classification. One of the soundest principles of languageclassification is that only linguistic evidence counts (Greenberg 1957, 1963), since as Boasdemonstrated in the beginning of American anthropology, shared cultural traits, mythology,folklore, technologies, and human biological traits can be and often are independent of oneanother or are diffused and must be eliminated from arguments for linguistic kinship(Campbell and Poser in press).

Correlations between linguistics and human genetics typically assume an identifiablecorrelation between language and genes through time. But, to what extent do groups withshared genes and a common language tend to coincide? To what extent do the correlations,when the exist, tend to last? A group can shift (replace) its language more rapidly than it canchange its genes. This means that a lack of correlation between language and humangenetics should not be surprising perhaps significant correlations, particularly betweenlanguage and genes are more surprising.

So, on the other hand, the way forward involves accepting that lack of significantcorrelation is not so much a problem, but an opportunity for geneticists and linguists tocollaborate both in benefiting from each others methods and in coming to a fullerunderstanding of the dynamics of human populations and the transmission of language. Inparticular, jointly addressing non-cladistic processes (diffusion, admixture, gene flow), westand to make progress in grasping the prehistory of various human groups more fully.

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1 I would like to thank Russell Gray, Victor Golla, and Dennis ORouke for helpful feedback on an earlierversion of this paper.

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2Moreover, sometimes there is a mismatch between MtDNA and Y-chromosome patterns, each suggesting a

different linguistic correlation for the population (see, for example, Nasidze et al. 2004, Nasidze and Stoneking2006, Wood et al. 2005).

3

Chulup (Nivacl), Chorote, and Wich are Matacoan languages whose difference from one another is like thatof English from German.

4Trudgill (2002, 2004a, 2004b) has elaborated his earlier views, though most commentators find no support forTrudgills claims, rather they find numerous problems and counterexamples. (Hajek 2004, Bakker 2004, Kabak2004, Pericliev 2004, Rice 2004).

5 Torres et al. 2006 would appear to confirm that the genetic marker of their study (haplogroup C) does not fallsquarely into any single one of Greenbergs large South American linguistic groupings, but, nevertheless seemcritical because there is no apparent correlation between Campbells [1997] linguistic classification and thepopulation distribution of the revertant C lineages (p.64). That is, they seem to expect a priori a direct humangenetic-linguistic association; however, their three languages (Guahibo [Guajiboan], Sliva [Slivan], andPiacopo [Arawakan]), though members of different language families, are spoken in adjacent regions, and it

should be no surprise that genes could flow across adjaacent populations though speakers of not demonstrablyrelated to one another phylogenetically.

6 Curiously, some papers come up with the right answer that there is no meaningful linguistic-human geneticcorrelations for some of these proposed but disputed linguistic macro-families but for the wrong reasons (forexample Hunley and Long 2005, Rubicz et al. 2002). That is, they assume the hypotheses of remote linguisticaffiliation such as those of Greenberg and Ruhlen (though rejected by most historical linguists), but show theirfailure to match the human genetic picture. Of course for linguists who reject these hypotheses, it is no surprise

that the correlation of something linguistic that does not exist with genetic material should produce nomeaningful correlations.

7 In later work Ruhlen (Ruhlen 1994a, 1994b) reduces the number to only 12 phyla, and in fact he believesultimately there was only one, in his Proto-World hypothesis.

8 Nichols (1998:128) points out that, according to the method, after 6,000 years of separation, two languagesare expected to exhibit only 7% shared cognates; and 7% represents the lowest number of resemblant items thatcan safely be considered distinct from chance.