Relationship Between Altaic Speaking Populations and Their Languages Viewed from Y Chromosomes
Northwestern China, a land full of mystery, is rich in human genetic and linguistic resource. Most of the ethnic groups, inhabiting in this region, belong to Altai language family. Nevertheless, little has been known about the relationship between the gen
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1 Introduction Northwestern China includes the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Ningxia and the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, and Qinghai. The Silk Road, a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass, passes through this region. A number of ethnic groups with different religious faiths, cultures and life customs inhabit in this region, and they have presumably experienced complicated histories: Han, Hui, Dongxiang, Bao’an, Tu, Eastern Yugur (Yugur, Enger), Western Yugur (Yugur, Saragh), Salar, Uygur, Tatar, Kirghiz, Kazakh, Ozbek, Tajik, Xibe, Mongolian, and Amdo Tibetan. From a linguistic point of view, Dongxiang, Bao’an, Tu and Eastern Yugur languages belong to the Mongolic group of the Altaic family, while Western Yugur, Uygur, Tatar, Kirghiz, Kazakh, Ozbek and Salar are part of the Turkic group in the same family; Xibe is classified within the Tungusic Group in the Altaic family (http://www.ethnologue.com/web. asp). However all linguists do not agree with the term “Altaic family”. But as Norman points out, “A few European Turkologists remain skeptical about the Altaic theory, but among Mongolian and Tungusic specialists, the Altaic affinity is routinely accepted (Norman 1988).” It is clear that the term “Altaic family” is conventionally accepted by default because they cannot convince each other. The origin and classification of Altaic have long been controversial. S. Wen (&) MOE Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected] X. Xie The Institute of Genetics, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, People’s Republic of China S. Wen D. Xu Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), CRLAO (CNRS), 63 Rue des Grands Moulins, Paris 75013, France © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 D. Xu and H. Li (eds.), Languages and Genes in Northwestern China and Adjacent Regions, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4169-3_5
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The non–recombining portion of the Y chromosome, like the genetic markers of the mitochondrial genome, is a useful source of genetic data. The Y-linked loci in the NRYs are haploid, paternally inherited and devoid of recombination with the X-chromosome. Because of these particular characteristics, variation results in the accumulation of mutations over generations, which is called the paternal or male lineage. Population geneticists have extensively studied human male lineages to trace migrations and reconstruct human history (Wang and Li 2013; Wen et al. 2016). Furthermore, because it has been shown that the genetic diversity found in the Y-chromosome correlates better with linguistic classification than mitochondrial DNA does (Comas et al. 2008; Jean-Marie et al. 2009; Forster and Renfrew 2011), we have chosen Y-chromosome variation as the genetic marker in this study. To explore the paternal genetic structure of Altaic-speaking populations in Northwestern China and to further investigate the relationship between the
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