title: Phonemic diversity supports a serial founder effect model of language expansion from Africa.
abstract: Human genetic and phenotypic diversity declines with distance from Africa, as predicted by a serial founder effect in which successive population bottlenecks during range expansion progressively reduce diversity, underpinning support for an African origin of modern humans. Recent work suggests that a similar founder effect may operate on human culture and language. Here I show that the number of phonemes used in a global sample of 504 languages is also clinal and fits a serial founder-effect model of expansion from an inferred origin in Africa. This result, which is not explained by more recent demographic history, local language diversity, or statistical non-independence within language families, points to parallel mechanisms shaping genetic and linguistic diversity and supports an African origin of modern human languages.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand. q.atkinson@auckland.ac.nz
authors.forename: Quentin D
authors.initials: QD
authors.lastname: Atkinson
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa; D003468:Cultural Evolution; D018703:Founder Effect; D005843:Geography; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010700:Phonetics; D011156:Population Density