Lecture | Language & the Human Past Lecture Series
A ‘pygmy‘ language - myth or reality?
- Christa Kilian-Hatz
- Date
- Friday 22 April 2022
- Time
- Series
- Language and the human past
- Location
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 120
Abstract
The approximately 20 pygmy forager populations of the African rainforest appear to be closely related to one another in terms of molecular genetics. The genetic data qualify them as one of the earliest autochthonous African populations. It is therefore assumed that they once spoke a uniform indigenous "pygmy" language. But due to prehistoric migrations and contact with foreign immigrant populations, today's pygmy populations speak different languages from even two unrelated African language phyla.Could newly discovered common vocabulary of 5 unrelated pygmy languages be the first trace of such a common 'pygmy' proto-language?