Migration of languages

A recent article1 describes the methodology and data that show the serial founder effect – decreasing diversity from the point of origin – in languages. Over 500 global languages were studied by the author and it points to the origin of languages in Africa. This is further confirmation that both the hardware and the software of humans originated in a singular continent – if not in a singular place. This is important as it confirms that language/culture (software) developed in tandem with the physique (hardware) of humans.  As the human stood up and walked across the savannah, her brain was already in full force – devising languages of communication, replete in abstract thought. This was the only step-function change observed by humanity in the last 50,000 years. It came quickly and early and ever since humans have been deploying most of their endowed brain power to showcasing incremental and irrelevant differences in appearances and pretending that incremental advancements in thought and application are somehow important.

The first language and the abstract constructs that effected it are so magnificent, they make everything else pale in comparison like stars around a supernova. The fact that 500 similar languages exist today – minor variations to the original construct, similar to the color of the skin and eyes of diverse populations that spread across the globe to mine it clean and choke it dry – show that humans have been resourceful but that is far inferior to the beginning. The promise relayed to an external observer of earth by an organism exhibiting abstract thoughts 50000 years ago, would have been momentous. But since then, it has been a boring movie with predictable endings.

The slope of the trend in human psyche is undeniably flat, at best.

1. Phonemic Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from Africa Quentin D. Atkinson, Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand.