{"id":11504,"date":"2018-03-04T19:19:04","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T19:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=11504"},"modified":"2018-03-04T19:19:04","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T19:19:04","slug":"how-people-talk-now-holds-clues-about-human-migration-centuries-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-people-talk-now-holds-clues-about-human-migration-centuries-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"How people talk now holds clues about human migration centuries ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicole Creanza<\/a>, Vanderbilt University<\/a><\/em> and Andr\u00e9 Ch\u00e9 Sherriah<\/a>, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Often, you can tell where someone grew up by the way they speak.<\/p>\n

For example, if someone in the United States doesn\u2019t pronounce the final \u201cr\u201d at the end of \u201ccar,\u201d you might think they are from the Boston area, based on sometimes exaggerated stereotypes about American accents and dialects, such as \u201cPahk the cahr in Hahvahd Yahd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Linguists go deeper than the stereotypes, though. They\u2019ve used large-scale surveys<\/a> to map out many features of dialects<\/a>. The more you know about how a person pronounces certain words, the more likely you\u2019ll be able to pinpoint where they are from. For instance, linguists know that dropping the \u201cr\u201d sounds at the end of words is actually common in many English dialects; they can map in space and time how r-dropping is widespread in the London area and has become increasingly common in England over the years. <\/p>\n

In a recent study<\/a>, we applied this concept to a different question: the formation of Creole languages. As a linguist<\/a> and a biologist who studies cultural evolution<\/a>, we wanted to see how much information we could glean from a snapshot of how a language exists at one moment in time. Working with linguist Hubert Devonish<\/a> and psychologist Ewart Thomas<\/a>, could we figure out the language \u201cingredients\u201d that went into a Creole language, and where these \u201cingredients\u201d originally came from?<\/p>\n

Mixing languages to make a Creole<\/h2>\n

When a Creole language forms<\/a>, it\u2019s generally because two or more populations come together<\/a> without a common language to speak. Across history, this was often in the context of colonialism, indentured servitude and slavery. For example, in the U.S., Louisiana Creole<\/a> was formed by speakers of French and several African languages in the French slave colony of Louisiana. As people mix<\/a>, a new language forms, and often the origins of individual words can be traced back to one of the source languages.<\/p>\n

Our idea was that, if specific dialects were common among the migrants, the way they pronounce words might influence the pronunciations in the new Creole language. In other words, if English-derived words in a Creole exhibit r-dropping, we might hypothesize that the English speakers present when the Creole formed also dropped their r\u2019s.<\/p>\n