Ethnolinguistic Affiliation Research Articles

Impact of patrilocality on contrasting patterns of paternal and maternal heritage in Central-West Africa

Despite their ancient past and high diversity, African populations are the least represented in human population genetic studies. In this study, uniparental markers (mtDNA and Y chromosome) were used to investigate the impact of sociocultural factors on the genetic diversity and inter-ethnolinguistic gene flow in the three major Nigerian groups: Hausa (n = 89), Yoruba (n = 135) and Igbo (n = 134). The results show a distinct history from the maternal and paternal perspectives. The three Nigerian groups present a similar substrate for mtDNA, but not for the Y chromosome. The two Niger–Congo groups, Yoruba and Igbo, are paternally genetically correlated with populations from the same ethnolinguistic affiliation. Meanwhile, the Hausa is paternally closer to other Afro-Asiatic populations and presented a high diversity of lineages from across Africa. When expanding the analyses to other African populations, it is observed that language did not act as a major barrier to female-mediated gene flow and that the differentiation of paternal lineages is better correlated with linguistic than geographic distances. The results obtained demonstrate the impact of patrilocality, a common and well-established practice in populations from Central-West Africa, in the preservation of the patrilineage gene pool and in the affirmation of identity between groups.

Kinship, heritage, and ethnic choice: ethnolinguistic registration across four generations in contemporary Finland

Abstract We studied how individuals’ ethnolinguistic affiliation relates to the ethnolinguistic structure of kinship in contemporary Finland, a society in which Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking ethnolinguistic groups have coexisted for centuries and mixed marital unions are common. Using multigenerational data from the population register, we determined how the ethnolinguistic registration of children born in 1990–2015 relates to three generations of ancestors. We created a family tree that links children to their parents, four grandparents and eight great grandparents. Our intention was to both map the ethnolinguistic background of young people and predict a child’s affiliation based on their ancestry. The data revealed that ethnolinguistic affiliation is a more fluid and complex feature than expected when assessed only through child and parental characteristics. We found substantial diversity in ethnolinguistic background within the Swedish-speaking minority group, while most individuals in the Finnish-speaking majority group had a uniform background. We identified three types of bias in the ethnolinguistic affiliation of mixed-origin children: a matrilineal bias, a kinship majority bias and a Swedish ethnic minority bias. The analyses advanced our understanding of how the size of minority groups can shrink even when most couples in mixed unions favour minority group affiliation for their children.

First Partner Choice in a Native Minority: The Role of Own and Parental Ethnolinguistic Affiliation

Despite increasing diversity within many societies, ethnically endogamous unions remain common. In contexts where one ethnic minority has lived alongside the majority for centuries, understanding who partners with whom is central to understanding how ethnic boundaries are maintained or dissolved. This study examines the role of own and parental ethnolinguistic affiliation for the first partner choice in Finland. We provide a unique test of the relevance of ethnic endogamy across two generations, in a context where both groups are native, but one (Finnish speakers) overwhelmingly outnumbers the other (Swedish speakers). Using register data on the total population, we examine how a person’s ethnolinguistic affiliation and background affect the choice of the first cohabiting partner in terms of the partner’s ethnolinguistic affiliation and background. We apply discrete-time competing risk models for men and women born 1970–1983. Results indicate that Swedish-registered individuals with two Swedish-registered parents are, by far, the most likely to partner with another Swedish-registered person with endogamous background. Partnering with a Swedish-registered person with exogamous background is most likely among individuals who themselves come from mixed unions. Patterns are remarkably consistent across gender, and adjustments for education and residential area only marginally alter the results.

Oral microbiome homogeneity across diverse human groups from southern Africa: first results from southwestern Angola and Zimbabwe

BackgroundWhile the human oral microbiome is known to play an important role in systemic health, its average composition and diversity patterns are still poorly understood. To gain better insights into the general composition of the microbiome on a global scale, the characterization of microbiomes from a broad range of populations, including non-industrialized societies, is needed. Here, we used the portion of non-human reads obtained through an expanded exome capture sequencing approach to characterize the saliva microbiomes of 52 individuals from eight ethnolinguistically diverse southern African populations from Angola (Kuvale, Kwepe, Himba, Tjimba, Kwisi, Twa, !Xun) and Zimbabwe (Tshwa), including foragers, food-producers, and peripatetic groups (low-status communities who provide services to their dominant neighbors).ResultsOur results indicate that neither host genetics nor livelihood seem to influence the oral microbiome profile, with Neisseria, Streptococcus, Prevotella, Rothia, and Porphyromonas being the five most frequent genera in southern African groups, in line with what has been shown for other human populations. However, we found that some Tshwa and Twa individuals display an enrichment of pathogenic genera from the Enterobacteriaceae family (i.e. Enterobacter, Citrobacter, Salmonella) of the Proteobacteria phylum, probably reflecting deficient sanitation and poor health conditions associated with social marginalization.ConclusionsTaken together, our results suggest that socio-economic status, rather than ethnolinguistic affiliation or subsistence mode, is a key factor in shaping the salivary microbial profiles of human populations in southern Africa.

To the problem of linguistic affiliation of the bearers of multirolled ceramic culture

At this stage of archaeological and anthropological research, a consensus of opinions has developed regarding the course of the historical process in the Black Sea steppes in the Bronze Age. Thanks to this, it has become possible not only to determine the origin and genetic relationships of individual archaeological cultures, but also to resolve the problem of the ethnolinguistic affiliation of the bearers of these cultures. The purpose of the research is a comprehensive analysis of the available data of linguistics, glottochronology, mythology, archeology, anthropology and paleogenetics in order to formulate a hypothesis of linguistic attribution of the culture of multi-rolled ceramics. After determining the linguistic affiliation of the carriers of the culture of multi-rolled ceramics, a private task was to trace the historical fate of the identified dialects until the release of their carriers to modern habitats. The main method chosen was a retrospective deepening from the culture of multi-rolled ceramics to its origins and alleged ancestors. From the point of view of archeology and anthropology, the ancestors of the carriers of the culture of multi-rolled ceramics turn out to be the ZhivatilovoVolchanskaya filiation of the Trypillian culture. Together with the inhabitants of Mikhailovka II, they have a genetic connection with the urban-Kasperovkaya group of the Trypillian culture. Since the Yamniks of Mikhailovka II are more or less reliably attributed as Satem Indo-Iranians, we have come the key conclusion, defining the own place of the carriers of the culture of multi-rolled ceramics in the system of areal-dialect divergence of the Indo-European language family, that they themselves and their Zhivtilovo-Volchan ancestors spoke archaic the Kafir dialects, characterized by the absence of palatalization of the phonetic series

The Emergence of an “Intersecting Circle” in Kachru’s Three Concentric Circles of World Englishes: A Case of Ethno-linguistic Neutrality in Central Nigeria

There is evidence that contemporary Nigeria is drifting towards a society of monolingual English users a component of which could be defined as lacking in ethno-linguistic identity. This trend is found among a generation of young Nigerian urban dwellers (between the age bracket of (12 and 25) who can neither communicate in their parents’ native language(s) nor indeed in any other Nigerian indigenous language; their only medium of communication is English. Although based on their childhood exposure to the English language and their relative competence in it, English can be described as their ‘‘mother tongue’’ but the fact that they are not native speakers given the socio-geographical circumstances of their birth excludes them from Kachru’s (1988) Inner Circle classification of native speakers. Consequently, these Nigerians are left without a clearly defined ethno-linguistic affiliation. This paper interrogates this emerging sociolinguistic phenomenon in especially Central Nigeria, with the aim of stimulating scholarly consciousness on the ethno-linguistic identity of this category of Nigerians, and its implications for English usage among them. The submission of the paper is that another circle, “the intersecting circle”, be created for them since they bestride both the inner circle in having English as their “mother tongue” and yet they are not native speakers of the language

Birth order and alcohol-related mortality by ethnic origin and national context: Within-family comparisons for Finland and Sweden

BackgroundPrevious studies have found that birth order is an important predictor of later life health, including hospitalisation for alcohol use. We examine the relationship between birth order and alcohol-related mortality in two national contexts, within native families who differ on ethnic origin. MethodsWe study the association between birth order and alcohol-related mortality after age 17, using Finnish register data for cohorts born 1953−1999 and Swedish register data for cohorts born 1940−1999. We apply Cox proportional hazard models and use sibling fixed effects that eliminate confounding by factors shared by siblings. We separate full-sibling groups by ethnic origin, which for Finland means mother’s and father’s Finnish or Swedish ethnolinguistic affiliation. For Sweden, we distinguish native-born according to whether one or both parents were born in Sweden or Finland. ResultsWe find a positive correlation between birth order and alcohol-related mortality, but only for ethnic Finns in Finland and primarily men. Within these sibling groups, second-borns have an alcohol-related mortality risk that is 9% higher than that of first-borns, third-borns 19 % higher, fourth-borns 22 % higher, and fifth- or higher-borns 47 % higher. No such birth order associations can be found for any of the other ethnic groups analysed in Finland or Sweden. ConclusionsOur findings suggest that cultural-related behaviours typical for ethnic groups, and the national context in which they are studied, are relevant for whether any association between birth order and alcohol-related mortality can be observed. Differences in the social interplay within the family may be an important factor.

Life Expectancy of the Ethnically Mixed: Register-Based Evidence from Native Finns.

As the ethnic composition around the world is becoming more diverse, the need to produce vital statistics for ethnically mixed populations is continuously increasing. Our aim is to provide the first life expectancy estimates for individuals with uniform Finnish, uniform Swedish, and mixed Finnish-Swedish backgrounds, based on individuals in the native population of Finland who can be linked to both their parents. Life expectancy at birth in the period 2005–2015 was calculated from population and mortality numbers at the one-year level based on each person’s sex, year of birth, and the unique ethnolinguistic affiliation of the index person and each parent. Swedish-registered individuals with Swedish-registered parents had the longest life expectancy at birth, or 85.68 years (95% CI: 85.60–85.77) for females and 81.36 for males (95% CI: 81.30–81.42), as compared to 84.76 years (95% CI: 84.72–84.79) and 78.89 years (95% CI: 78.86–78.92) for Finnish-registered females and males with Finnish-registered parents. Persons with mixed backgrounds were found in between those with uniform Finnish and uniform Swedish backgrounds. An individual’s own ethnolinguistic affiliation is nevertheless more important for longevity than parental affiliation. Similar register-based analyses for other countries with mixed populations would be useful.

Alcohol-related mortality by ethnic origin of natives: a prospective cohort study based on multigenerational population register data from Finland and Sweden

ObjectivesThe aim was to assess alcohol-related mortality of persons with mixed and uniform ethnic origins in two national contexts.SettingData were from the multigenerational population registers of the total population of...

Lexique partagé en français et en francoprovençal des Pouilles dans la perspective du plurilinguisme

The purpose of this article is to present the results of our research into the lexicon shared between the Francoprovencal of Puglia and French, two languages belonging to the Gallo-Roman domain. The two varieties of Francoprovencal spoken in the small villages of Faeto and Celle di San Vito, located in the Monti Dauni area of the province of Foggia, are poorly endowed, with an oral tradition and endangered. Despite this, recent sociolinguistic surveys note that this language represents a communication code with a considerable linguistic vitality, determined by the extremely positive attitude of the inhabitants towards it. In addition, Faetani and Cellesi, recognizing their ethnolinguistic affiliation with French, show also a positive attitude towards the French language, which has many similarities with their local language. Hence our idea that French might represent a further incentive for Faetani and Cellesi to preserve their language, as well as its usefulness in understanding the official language of France and of other languages, in order to enjoy the benefits of plurilingualism. From this perspective, we will present a corpus of about 250 similar words in Francoprovencal and in French, organized according to the practice of intercomprehension. We find it relevant to make learners work on extracts of texts containing the sort of proposed lexicon. The learner will rely on the similarities, possibly on the lexical identities, which, by referring to the context, will allow him/her easy access to meaning.

Genetic Consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Americas

According to historical records of transatlantic slavery, traders forcibly deported an estimated 12.5 million people from ports along the Atlantic coastline of Africa between the 16th and 19th centuries, with global impacts reaching to the present day, more than a century and a half after slavery’s abolition. Such records have fueled a broad understanding of the forced migration from Africa to the Americas yet remain underexplored in concert with genetic data. Here, we analyzed genotype array data from 50,281 research participants, which—combined with historical shipping documents—illustrate that the current genetic landscape of the Americas is largely concordant with expectations derived from documentation of slave voyages. For instance, genetic connections between people in slave trading regions of Africa and disembarkation regions of the Americas generally mirror the proportion of individuals forcibly moved between those regions. While some discordances can be explained by additional records of deportations within the Americas, other discordances yield insights into variable survival rates and timing of arrival of enslaved people from specific regions of Africa. Furthermore, the greater contribution of African women to the gene pool compared to African men varies across the Americas, consistent with literature documenting regional differences in slavery practices. This investigation of the transatlantic slave trade, which is broad in scope in terms of both datasets and analyses, establishes genetic links between individuals in the Americas and populations across Atlantic Africa, yielding a more comprehensive understanding of the African roots of peoples of the Americas.

Ethno-Lingual Distribution of Anthroponyms in the Name System of Multinational Region

The purpose of the study is to examine the ethnolinguistic distribution of anthroponymic models in the multinational Republic of Bashkortostan. The authors consider the linguistic features of proper names taking into account the system capabilities of the analysed languages in the areas of language and cultural interaction. Six thousand anthroponymic units of living names of four nationalities of the region under study (Russians, Bashkirs, Germans and Latvians) were analysed. Ethno-linguistic affiliation in the anthroponymic formula of each nationality is revealed through a comprehensive analysis of proper names. Ethnically marked proper names within the framework of the corresponding system of a given language are characterised by increased distinctive ability in various communicative situations. Results show that there is no robust and direct connection between the ethnic characteristics of the first name and the nominator’s ethnic identity. With that, the name as an information source in the study of human identity allows the researchers to draw certain conclusions, as the name is the result of the choice made to reach a certain goal. It enables the actual means used to be correlated with a variety of other possible means, which makes it possible to compare socially important knowledge, shared by everyone, with individual aspects of the general. The results of this research can be useful in the practice of naming children born in exogamous marriages as well as in describing the onomastic situation in countries with a large influx of migrants.

Social and environmental factors in the diversity of tomato landraces from the South-Central region of Mexico

ABSTRACT: In the present study, we investigated the influence of social and environmental factors in the genetic diversity of tomato landraces in the South-Central region of Mexico. A total of 30 tomato landraces, collected in 18 villages with different ethnolinguistic affiliations, were analyzed. We reported that the genetic diversity of tomato landraces is associated with the ethnolinguistic group, weather, and soil-type present in the region studied. Our results showed that there are morphological differences between landraces grown by different ethnolinguistic groups; however, there was also evidence of morphological similarities between landraces from groups with different ethnolinguistic affiliations. Finally, different selection criteria, mainly fruit color, size and shape, plays an important role in the phenotypic divergence among landraces grown in different traditional farming systems.

Ethno-Linguistic Affiliation and Income Poverty in Native Households with Children: Finland 1987\u20132011

The child poverty rate has increased noticeably in Finland since the mid-1990s, and there are numerous studies in this area. However, little is known about child poverty in the two native and equal population groups, Finnish speakers and Swedish speakers. Using detailed register-based data that cover the period 1987–2011, we analyze how child poverty depends on parental ethno-linguistic affiliation, and whether there is variation in income poverty across these households over time. The poverty measure is relative and based on equalized taxable household income of households with children. Odds of poverty are estimated with logistic regression models using generalized estimating equations to account for repeated observations at the household level. The analyses are restricted to areas with both Swedish- and Finnish-speaking settlement. Single-parent and two-parent households are analyzed separately. Poverty rates increased in all major types of households during the study period, but variation by ethno-linguistic affiliation was fairly modest. Swedish-speaking single-parent and two-parent households experienced a smaller increase in the poverty rate than Finnish-speaking ones, while patterns observed for exogamous households were less clear. The contribution of control variables on the ethno-linguistic poverty differences was modest. Considering that the ethno-linguistic groups studied are indigenous and equal, the small differences in poverty rates between Finnish speakers and Swedish speakers are evidence of a democratic and well-functioning welfare state, although the increasing overall poverty rates over time require future scrutiny by both policy makers and researchers.

TYPOLOGY OF THE DYSGRAPHIA ERRORS OF BILINGUAL PUPILS (ROMA AND TURKISH ETHNICITY) OF PRIMARY SCHOOL AGE

This article addresses the problems of integrating bilingual pupils (of Roma and Turkish origin) in primary school from a logopedic perspective. The main aim of the research is to compare qualitative and quantitative parameters of dysgraphia disorders and specify their types in bilingual and monolingual pupils (Bulgarians) of primary school age. The methods include exploring: basic graphic habits, phonematic perception, writing in different language situations, and identification and typology of specific dysgraphia errors according to certain criteria. The analysis indicates a similar negative trend among achievements of bilingual pupils, both Roma and Turks, whereas the monolingual learners, Bulgarians, prove to be most efficient in performing linguistic tasks. To a great extent, the results are predetermined by both the learners’ ethnolinguistic affiliation and the type of settlement in which they reside. At the same time, language interference has a negative impact on bilingual pupils’ attitudes and motivation to participate actively in their education and hence, it becomes a barrier to their socialization.

Muslims in Sri Lankan language politics: A study of Tamil- and English-medium education

Abstract Sri Lanka is a conflict-ridden postcolonial nation-state that was ravaged by a civil war. Largely excluded from mainstream representations of the ethnic conflict, Muslims constitute the country’s second largest minority group. In contrast to Sinhalas and Tamils, they define their ethnic identities on the basis of religion rather than language. In this article, I draw on research at a multilingual government school to explore how Muslim teachers and students made sense of Tamil- and English-medium education in relation to ethnic, religious, and class differences. I investigate how Tamil-medium Muslim teachers responded to critiques of their speech by asserting that their heterogeneous linguistic practices were inextricably connected to their distinct ethno-religious identities. Muslim students’ lack of fit with the ethnolinguistic affiliations presupposed by the school enabled them to embrace English-medium education. However, the English bilingual program complicated Muslims’ narratives of identity by underscoring the relevance of English to class dispositions. I argue that English impacts the fraught relations of Tamil and Sinhala to ethnopolitical identities and mediates everyday social relations.

The Ethnogonic Tales of the Türks

This article is a tour de horizon of the origin myths that were recorded in the Chinese dynastic and other historical works written during the Türk era (552–ca. 744) and in subsequent official histories (e.g., the Zhoushu, Suishu, Beishi, Jiu Tangshu and Xin Tangshu), historical handbooks (the Tongdian) and historical collections (e.g., the Youyang zazu [and the Taiping Guangji] and the recent translations of and scholarship on them). Also included is a discussion of a Uyğur-origin Tibetan ‘report’ on the ‘Northern Peoples’. The article focuses on the Ashina-Türk grouping that became the founding and ruling clan of the Türk Qağanate. The shaping of the Ashina-Türk took place in a range of areas extending from the Chinese border zones of Gansu and Xinjiang to Mongolia and Southern Siberia. The Ashina-Türks appear to have been a ‘composite’ of peoples with a variety of ethno-linguistic affiliations. A lupine ancestor figures in most of the origin accounts.

«Путевые» основы в субстратной топонимии Белозерья: ареальные и этноязыковые связи

The article discusses the stems with the meaning ‘isthmus, portage’, ‘way, road’, regularly repeating in the substrate toponymy of Belozerye and marking the ways for movement. The study seeks to identify the corpus of toponymic stems with the specified semantics; to establish motivation; to interpret their geographical distribution and determine the most probable ethno-linguistic affiliation. The aim of the study is to clarify the ethno-linguistic characteristics of the substrate toponymy of Belozerye. The source of the material is the data from the files of the Toponymic Expedition of the Ural Federal University (Ekaterinburg) and the Catalog of toponyms of the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Petrozavodsk). In the analytical part of the article, the author proposes stratification of the considered toponymic stems in terms of their origin. The author carries out a directed search for parallels – toponyms with the same stem, which is done on the basis of dictionaries of the Veps, Karelian, Finnish, Sami and Mari languages, as well as with the involvement of already published studies on the toponymy of the Russian North and adjacent regions (Republic of Karelia, Finland, Leningrad Region). Using the areal-typological method, the author analyzes the stems of proto-Uralic (* ukti , * taj -), Finnic ( matk , ura ), Western Finnic ( rata , polku ) and Mari ( korno ) origins. Based on the areal relations of the identified geographical names and the spread of the stems in the Finno-Ugric languages (Finnic, Saami, Volga-Finnic), as well as the availability of the appropriate lexemes in the dialects of the Russian language, the author draws some conclusions about the specific features of the substrate toponymy of Belozerye. Several cases of semantic calquing are noted: lake Ukhtomyarskoe and river Matterka ( Ukhtoma ), river Matkinets and river Kornoma ; lake Volotskoye and river Ukhtomka ; as well as cases of ”assemblage” of ”route” toponyms on watersheds and as the names of the neighboring tributaries.

Managing the Past in Urban Portraitures in fin-de-siècle Saxon Transylvania

The article addresses the cultural appropriation of multiethnic provincial urban spaces in Dualist Hungary. Scholarly topographies of towns experienced a boom at the turn of the century and were produced and marketed in the framework of collaborative enterprises, whether in the shape of state-sponsored committees or societies organized on voluntary basis. In Transylvania, the oldest academic institutions dedicated to such work were primarily the so-called Landeskunde (in Hungarian: honismeret) societies. The article explores the ways in which the social background, the target audience, and the material resources of the societies determined the outcome of the urban mapping by focusing on the multiethnic Transylvanian city Hermannstadt (in Romanian: Sibiu, in Hungarian: Nagyszeben). Here ethno-linguistic affiliations created the most fundamental dividing line that cut across the intellectual milieus during the time under scrutiny. The resulting urban mono-cultural topographies were part of shaping national historiographies, which in the Saxon case emphasized the cultural distinctness of the Transylvanian Lutheran Germans, and played down the difference between the towns and countryside.

Boris Zhivkov, Khazaria in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, trans. Daria Manova. (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, 30.) Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015. Pp. xv, 335; 9 maps. $163. ISBN: 978-90-04-29307-6.

Boris Zhivkov, <i>Khazaria in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries</i>, trans. Daria Manova. (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, 30.) Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015. Pp. xv, 335; 9 maps. $163. ISBN: 978-90-04-29307-6.