Congruence of genetic and linguistic evolution in China
中国人遗传进化和语言进化的一致性
Joanna L. Mountain; William S-Y. Wang 王士元; L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza; Du Ruofu 杜若甫; Yuan Yida 袁义达

Abstract 摘要
We have studied the pattern of similarities among Chinese dialects, analysing lexical and phonological information using two different tree methods (average linkage and neighbor-joining). Agreement between the two methods was better when lexical, or lexical plus phonological data were used. This implies that lexical changes occur at a more regular rate than phonological changes. The pattern of linguistic similarity was compared with the genetic one, as exemplified by the study of surnames in a recent monograph (Du et al. in press). Surname distances are highly correlated with genetic distances, and, like them, reflect migrational history. We found a statistically signifi-cant correlation between linguistic distance and surname distance. Both languages and surnames are less correlated with geography or with history, namely chronological information of the major episodes of conquest and settlement in China during the last 3000 years. The observed congruence of genetic and linguistic evolution is a con-sequence of the similarity of their mechanisms of transmission. Under certain conditions languages are transmitted vertically (from parents to children), as are genes or surnames. Other mechanisms (horizontal or oblique) may also be involved in the case of languages and, to a lesser ex-tent, of surnames; these mechanisms would tend to obscure the correlation.

我们采用两种不同的树状聚类方法（平均连接法和相邻连接法），通过分析词汇好和音韵的数据，对中国不同方言区的相似性图型进行研究，用词汇数据或用词汇加音韵的复合数据，两种方法得出的结果相当的一致，研究说明词汇演变比音韵演变更有规律。本文还对语言相似性图型与遗传相似性图型进行了比较，正如最新一期单行本上刊登的姓氏研究一文一样杜若甫等，正在排印中１）。姓氏距离与遗传距离具有很高的相关，像遗传学的研究一样，姓氏的研究反映了人群迁移的历史。本文发现了语言距离与姓氏距离在统计学上具有显著的相关，但语言、姓氏与地理或历史（即在３０００年中，中国历史上几次大的外族入侵和移民）之间都是低相关。上述遗传进化与语言进化一致性是遗传传递方或和语言传递方式相似的结果，在某些条件下，语言传递方式同基因或姓氏一样，是垂直传的（双亲传给子女），语言的传递还包括另外不同的方式（平行传递和倾斜传递），姓氏的传递也有这类方式，但程度要小，这类传递方式可能会模糊这种相关性。

<< Back 返回

Readers 读者