Talk by Anna Graff and colleagues at EVOLANG XVI
Graff gave a talk "On parallels between distributions of genetic and structural linguistic diversity" on 10 April 2026 at the International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG XVI) in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
We bridge linguistic and population histories to explain global patterns of structural linguistic diversity. Using genetic data from the GeLaTo database and typological data from independent linguistic datasets, two global-scale Bayesian modeling studies reveal how human contact and isolation shape linguistic structures. Genetic admixture, used as a proxy for contact, is associated with structural linguistic convergence, whereas genetic homozygosity, reflecting isolation, correlates with structural linguistic diversification. These effects are consistent across regions but vary across linguistic features, challenging traditional assumptions about which structures are most contact-sensitive. Building on these results, we propose a null model of linguistic diversification grounded in population history, where drift and migration serve as baseline forces just as they do in genetics. Under this framework, correlations between linguistic and genetic diversity emerge naturally from shared evolutionary processes, providing a unified account of how demographic history shapes linguistic diversity across space and time. (Anna Graff, Chiara Barbieri, and Balthasar Bickel)