Max Planck Research Group on Comparative Population Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Eur J Hum Genet. 2013 Apr;21(4):430-6. doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2012.192. Epub 2012 Aug 29.
Some Bantu languages spoken in southwestern Zambia and neighboring regions of Botswana, Namibia, and Angola are characterized by the presence of click consonants, whereas their closest linguistic relatives lack such clicks. As clicks are a typical feature not of the Bantu language family, but of Khoisan languages, it is highly probable that the Bantu languages in question borrowed the clicks from Khoisan languages. In this paper, we combine complete mitochondrial genome sequences from a representative sample of populations from the Western Province of Zambia speaking Bantu languages with and without clicks, with fine-scaled analyses of Y-chromosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms and short tandem repeats to investigate the prehistoric contact that led to this borrowing of click consonants. Our results reveal complex population-specific histories, with female-biased admixture from Khoisan-speaking groups associated with the incorporation of click sounds in one Bantu-speaking population, while concomitant levels of potential Khoisan admixture did not result in sound change in another. Furthermore, the lack of sequence sharing between the Bantu-speaking groups from southwestern Zambia investigated here and extant Khoisan populations provides an indication that there must have been genetic substructure in the Khoisan-speaking indigenous groups of southern Africa that did not survive until the present or has been substantially reduced.
在赞比亚西南部和博茨瓦纳、纳米比亚和安哥拉的邻近地区使用的一些班图语的特点是存在喀哒声辅音,而它们最接近的语言亲属则没有这种喀哒声。由于喀哒声不是班图语系的典型特征,而是科伊桑语系的特征,因此很有可能这些班图语是从科伊桑语系借用的喀哒声。在本文中,我们结合了来自赞比亚西部说班图语的人群的具有和不具有喀哒声的代表样本的完整线粒体基因组序列,以及对 Y 染色体单核苷酸多态性和短串联重复的精细分析,以调查导致这种喀哒声借用的史前接触。我们的研究结果揭示了复杂的特定于人群的历史,女性从说科伊桑语的群体中混合,与在一个班图语群体中加入喀哒声有关,而在另一个群体中,同时存在潜在的科伊桑混合,并没有导致声音的变化。此外,这里研究的来自赞比亚西南部的班图语群体与现存的科伊桑群体之间缺乏序列共享,这表明在南非的科伊桑语原住民群体中一定存在遗传亚结构,这种亚结构没有持续到现在,或者已经大大减少。