Forty-First Edition - Differences and similarities between the tree of life and the tree of languages

Phylogeny(or phylogenesis) is the origin and evolution of a set of organisms, usually of a species. A major task of phylogenists is to determine the ancestor-descendant relationships among known species (both living and extinct). A phylogenetic tree (or tree of life), traces the evolutionary interrelationships among various species or other entities that are believed to have descended from a common ancestor.

Philology is the study of ancient texts and languages. Historical linguistics (or comparative linguistics) is the branch of philology that studies languages and their interrelationships. A philological tree (or tree of languages) traces the evolutionary interrelationships among languages believed to have originated from a common ancestor.

This newsletter explores the differences and similarities between the tree of life and the tree of language.

They are similar in that a mutation or change in one individual can spread through the entire population and eventually replace the ancestral type. The following image, a replica of a diagram published in the November 2003 edition of Nature magazine illustrates the similarities that exist between the reconstruction of the evolutionary history of life and languages.

The chart on the left is based on the notion that every living creature has parents, and each of the parents has parents, and so on. Therefore, if we go back far enough, we will find that their phylogenetic tree includes three domains: Eukarya (animals, plants, fungi), Bacteria and Archaea (living organisms living in extreme environment). All these different cell types are rooted at a hypothetical Cenacestor (the most recent common ancestor), but it is not certain how the Cenancestor branched into these different domains. One theory is that the Bacteria and the Archaea branched off the Cenancestor first, and then the Eukarya branched off from the Bacteria, but it is also possible that the Eukarya derived some characteristics from the Bacteria through a horizontal transfer of genes (indicated by the red arrow).

The chart on the right is rooted at the Proto-Indo-European languages group. The “cenancestor” of this group is believed to have been the Proto-Indo-European tongue. This group includes English, French and German. English is a Proto-Indo-European-Germanic language, therefore the core vocabulary of English descended from German, but there has been extensive borrowing of words from French (as indicated by the red arrow). This example also shows how word classes serve different functions; i.e., the words descended from German refer to animals, while the words borrowed from French refer to their flesh. It also demonstrates how words might be expected to change over time.

There are also significant differences between the tree of life and the tree of languages. Genetic change can spread only from parent to child, so the rate of the mutation or change process is much slower and can take many generations. Genes can remain unchanged for millions and even billions of years. Languages, on the other hand, change more rapidly. Changes can spread among unrelated individuals at a much faster pace. Let’s take a look at a few historical examples that illustrate the differences in genetic and linguistic changes:

Hungary

The Hungarian language is geographically associated with many Proto-Indo-European language branches, but it belongs to the Fino-Ugric branch of the Ural-Altaic language tree.

The territory that we now know today as Hungary belonged to the Romans from 15 BC to circa 378 CE, but they it was invaded by Attila the Hun. The European Huns dominated this territory until 427 CE. The Romans were able to reclaim it and retained it briefly, until 445 CE, when they lost it again to the Huns. Then, in 460 CE, the Ostrogoths came and conquered, but their domination was short- lived. From 488-558 CE the territory became tribal. The surviving Huns, who had settled nearby, gave their name to the region that became Hungary. In 558 CE, the Avars came from the Steppes and conquered Hungary, remaining in power until 803 CE (although there was a break in their rule in the 7th century - from 625 to 660 CE, when the local Slavs dominated). Toward the end of the 9th century, the Magyars, a nomadic tribe also from the Steppes, descended on Hungary and conquered it, establishing a Magyar monarchy in the Kingdom of Hungary. 

The Magyars imposed their own language on the Romance-speaking population. This was a significant linguistic change, because the Hungarian language is not related to any of the Indo-European languages. It belongs to the Ural-Altaic language tree, that includes the Uralic languages, such as Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian, and the Altaic languages, such as Turkish, Mongolian, Kazakh, Uzbek, Tatar, Manchu, plus perhaps Korean and Japanese. Genetically, the Magyar influence was not very significant. The Magyar conquerors amounted to a small percentage of the population (only thirty percent) and their influence was further diluted by interaction with neighboring countries. Today, only ten percent of the genes in Hungary can be traced to their Uralic conquerors.

British Isles

The British Isles have undergone dramatic linguistic changes throughout their history, and in a relative short time. The native population spoke pre-Indo-European languages unknown to us today. Circa 1500 BC the Celts, who originated Southwestern Germany, spread throughout France, to the North of Spain and the British Isles. Celtic invasions also reached Northern Italy, Bohemia, Hungary, Illyria (a region of the western Balkan Peninsula) and Asia Minor (Anatolia). Eventually the Celts were absorbed by the Romans and the barbarians, and only Brittany and the West of the British Isles remained Celtic.

At the time of the Roman conquest, most of the population of the British Isles spoke Celtic languages, but the Romans imposed their own language, Latin. This was replaced by Anglo-Saxon (Old English) in approximately 450 CE, when the  Germanic peoples migrated to England. Old English was used for a period of about 700 years, until after the Norman invasion in 1066. Old English was not a static language. After the Battle of Hastings (1066), the Normans introduced many French words into the language, which also assimilated aspects of the pre-Celtic and Celtic languages and Scandinavian languages brought to from the Vikings(Danes, or Norsemen) in the late 9th century.

Old English evolved into Modern English approximately at the time of William Shakespeare, around the 17th Century, but some scholars go further and divide Modern English into early modern English and late modern English, using the 1800's as the line of demarcation between the two. This corresponds to the British conquest of a large portion of the world, when English was significantly influenced by native languages.
 

Turkey

The replacement of Greek with Turkish was particularly significant. Byzantium was the original name of modern Istanbul. The name is a Latinization of the original Greek name Byzantion (Βυζάντιον). The city was originally settled by Greeks from Megara (an ancient city in Attica, Greece).

In the 11th century, the Turks began attacking the Byzantine Empire, centered around Constantinople (Byzantium became Constinople - after Constantine the Great, in 330 BC) and they finally conquered it in 453. Although the genetic impact of this Turkish invasion was modest, the linguistic impact was very significant, because the Greek and Turkish languages belong to entirely different family groups: Greek belongs to the Hellenic branch of the Proto-Indo-European language tree, and Turkish belongs to the Altaic family tree which, as stated above, includes Turkish, Mongolian, Kazakh, Uzbek, Tatar, Manchu, and other Asian languages, including perhaps Korean and Japanese).

There are many more examples of linguistic replacement and genetic change. (If you are interested in this topic, I recommend Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza’s book “Genes, Peoples, and Languages) What is remarkable is that, with all the changes that have taken place, it is still possible to reconstruct trees for the two evolutionary tracks.


References:

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibit/introphylo.html
Nature magazine, Vol. 426, 27 November 2003 – www.nature.com/nature
http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/b/bi/biology.html
Genes, Peoples and Languages by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
Classification – The Three Domain System
http://guava.physics.uiuc.edu/~nigel/courses/498BIO/498BIOonline-essays/hw2/files/HW2-Kanchanawarin.pdf http://www.cat.cc.md.us/courses/bio141/lecguide/unit1/3domain/3domain.html
http://home.wanadoo.nl/arjenbolhuis/language-family-trees/
http://www.kessler-web.co.uk/History/KingListsEurope/EasternHungary.htm
http://www.ibiblio.org/gaelic/celts.html
http://www.armenianhighlands.com