LINGUISTIquips

A new study suggests that the human race nearly went extinct some 70,000 years ago. Interestingly (or perhaps as we should expect), this theory is supported by linguistic typology.

The study says:

The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought [...] [It is]estimated that the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.

The reason that this is so interesting is that “mitochondrial DNA of the Khoi and San people in South Africa, who appear to have diverged from other people between 90,000 and 150,000 years ago.”

Yes, that’s right. The Khoi people, who speak languages like !Xüu in the Khoi-San family.

A look into a recent typology book shows four distinct groups in Africa: Khoi-San, Niger-Kordofanian, Afro-Asiatic, and Nilo-Saharan. Four groups may not seem like a lot for a continent, but considering the land space, one would actually expect more. If we are to believe Greenberg’s hypothesis, all the native languages from the Canadian border to the southernmost tip of South America are in a single “Amerind” family!

Certainly, 70,000 years places the “drought” a bit before linguists believe language to exist. However, with such an interesting correlation, it does make one wonder…