Genetics and Language
The modern-day North Caucasians (the Chechens, the Ingush, the Batsbi, and the people of Dagestan) have direct linguistic links to the Fertile Crescent.
| “ | Linguistically, most languages in the region and in the Fertile Crescent itself are relatively recent arrivals. Now, however, linguist Johanna Nichols of the University of California, Berkeley, has used language to connect modern people of the Caucasus region to the ancient farmers of the Fertile Crescent. She analyzed the Nakh–Dagestanian linguistic family, which today includes Chechen, Ingush, and Batsbi on the Nakh side; and some 24 languages on the Dagestani side ... Thus location, time, and vocabulary all suggest that the farmers of the region were proto-Nakh–Dagestanians. "The Nakh–Dagestanian languages are the closest thing we have to a direct continuation of the cultural and linguistic community that gave rise to Western civilization," Nichols says. | ” |
The Ingush have the highest (89%) frequency of J2 gene and the Chechens have 57% respectively. J2 is closely associated with the Fertile Crescent.
Read more about this topic: Fertile Crescent
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)