CCMB study throws light on use of language by ancient East Indian tribal population

The study, published in an international journal, Heliyon, by Cell Press, led by Dr Kumarasamy Thangaraj at CSIR-Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), and Dr Niraj Rai at DST-Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleosciences, Lucknow said that this was the first high-throughput genetic study on the East Indian tribal populations.

Hyderabad: A collaborative linguistic and genetic study, by a group of researchers that also involved geneticists from Hyderabad, has shed new light on understanding the use of language by the ancient East Indian tribal populations of Odisha, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand.

The study, published in an international journal, Heliyon, by Cell Press, led by Dr Kumarasamy Thangaraj at CSIR-Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), and Dr Niraj Rai at DST-Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleosciences, Lucknow said that this was the first high-throughput genetic study on the East Indian tribal populations.

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About 5 percent Indians speak Austroasiatic languages, (languages of South East Asia, South Asia and East Asia) largely by the ancient tribal populations of Odisha, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand. Overall, the Austroasiatic speakers have retained their languages firmly for the last 4000 years, researcher said.

However, recently some of these populations have started adopting Indo-European languages.

The researchers studied four major tribal populations (Bathudi, Bhumij, Ho and Mahali) from Odisha. They examined the genetic affinities of these populations and a few Indo-European speakers from nearby areas. Their findings suggest that the two groups do not mix genetically, the press release said.

The researchers suggest that the linguistic mixing between the Austroasiatic and IndoEuropean speakers happened likely due to industrialization (movement of Indo-European speakers may be from neighboring states) and modernization (cultural exchange, may be due to marriage/ trade/ education) that brought them into close cultural contact with the Austroasiatic speakers, and some of them have adapted Indo-European as a primary language.

The study did not find any Indo-European speaking population who have adopted Austroasiatic language.

“Using genetic and linguistic data, for the first time, we established that the language of Austroasiatic speaking tribal groups are altered by the recent demographic changes. These linguistic shift largely have sociocultural effects and presents a threat to the Austroasiatic languages, if this trend continues given a small number of people speak these languages”, said Dr. Thangaraj.

However, the risk is still rather small. “Our study strongly suggests that most ancient tribal groups of Eastern India still maintain their cultural heritage very firmly despite the high level of industrialization and demographic changes” told Dr. Rai.

“This study is crucial and also an important add-on to the existing genetic database of Austroasiatic speakers. Considering the fact that India is one of the most diverse assemblage of people in the world, this research work is significant in demonstrating the origin of Austroasiatic speakers and demographic changes happened in deep past and those ongoing. explained Dr. Vinay Kumar Nandicoori, Director, CCMB.

The other institutes and agencies involved in this study are Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, Shreyanshi Health Care Private Limited, Raipur, Chattisgarh and Panjab University, Chandigarh.