People who are part of the south-eastern Bantu (SEB) language speaking groups are too different to be treated as a single genetic unit, a new study by rsearchers from Wits University shows.
Study challenges the assumption that all South African Bantu speakers are a single genetic entity news-medical.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from news-medical.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Almost 80% of South Africans speak one of the SEB family languages as their first language. Their origins can be traced to farmers of West-Central Africa whose descendants over the past two millennia spread south of the equator and finally into Southern Africa.
Since then, varying degrees of sedentism [the practice of living in one place for a long time], population movements and interaction with Khoe and San communities, as well as people speaking other SEB languages, ultimately generated what are today distinct Southern African languages such as isiZulu, isiXhosa and Sesotho.
Despite these linguistic differences, these groups are treated mostly as a single group in genetic studies.
languagehat com : South-Eastern-Bantu Languages and Genetics languagehat.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from languagehat.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
2021-04 - How the language you speak aligns to your genetic origins and may impact research on your health wits.ac.za - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wits.ac.za Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.