14 DAY TRIAL // The common conception says language is just another cultural trait, like clothing, hair due, music preference or religious beliefs.
It was thought that a baby learns the languages he hears in the early years. But a new research points that genes could be in fact involved in learning tonal languages like Chinese.
The team made by Dan Dediu and Robert Ladd from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, discovered a genetic difference between people speaking tonal languages, like Chinese and most languages in Black Africa, and those who speak non-tonal languages like Indo-Europeans (English included).
"Our work raises the possibility of taking a new look at the relation between genes and language," said Ladd.
In tonal languages, slight changes in pitch can radically change the meaning of a word. For example, just a subtle tone shift makes the difference between "man" and "horse". In non-tonal languages, tone does not make the difference between words, having just the role of expressing emotion, sarcasm or pointing a question.
The researchers analyzed published data on 49 various populations worldwide, focusing on the geographic distribution of two genes involved in brain development: ASPM and Microcephalin. The gene types were compared to 26 distinct linguistic traits.
Even if there was no general link between genes and linguistic traits, a strong negative correlation appeared between speakers of non-tonal languages and recently evolved types of ASPM and Microcephalin.
People with the older type of these genes were more likely to have as mother tongue tonal languages, even when geography and history factors had been taken into consideration. But the cause of this link is not known yet.
"We've just demonstrated some very unlikely correlations that suggest there might be such a link." said Ladd.
"The work is highly significant if confirmed. It is, to my knowledge, the first attempt to relate linguistic features, traditionally considered to be purely cultural, with a possible genetic contribution." said Bruce Lahn, a geneticist from the University of Chicago who first described ASPM and Microcephalin, on which this study is based.
The researchers hope that future investigation will explain the way ASPM and Microcephalin affect the brains and the preferences of entire populations for a certain language type.