![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/speech_bubble_puzzle_pieces.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
PhotoHamster\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
When speakers of different languages<\/a> meet, their words, sounds and even grammatical structures mingle in surprising ways. Ketchup, for example, may be an American staple today, but its name entered English via the Chinese language Hokkien around the end of the 17th century. Or consider the phrase \u201cattorney general\u201d: we place the adjective after the noun because that was standard word order in French when the Normans invaded England in 1066. This kind of exchange, called linguistic \u201cborrowing,\u201d<\/a> is a big part of how languages evolve worldwide.<\/p>\n Because of gaps in the historical record of human encounters, it can be hard to measure exactly how contact between different populations shaped any given language over the years. But a vestige of all those past interactions persists in human DNA<\/a>: whenever a person\u2019s genes indicate their ancestors came from two separate populations, it stands to reason that said ancestors interacted closely enough for their languages to merge, too. So a team of researchers analyzed genetic data from nearly 5,000 individuals living in the last few decades, spanning every inhabited continent, and identified 126 cases where those individuals\u2019 ancestry indicated interbreeding between two distinct populations at some point in the past. Though a person\u2019s genetic heritage doesn\u2019t necessarily reflect the language they speak, the researchers expected to find similarities between the languages spoken by those converging groups.<\/p>\n The team\u2019s results, published on August 29 in Science Advances, supported their hypothesis<\/a>: when populations that speak unrelated languages have children together, their languages become 4 to 9 percent more likely to share linguistic features. The effect, though subtle, \u201cis quite consistent,\u201d says the study\u2019s co-senior author Chiara Barbieri, a geneticist at the University of Cagliari in Italy. \u201cWhen we have this genetic mixing, we have more [linguistic] borrowing overall.\u201d That consistency is remarkable, she says, because human populations\u2014with different cultural histories\u2014come together under so many different circumstances. Some meet peacefully during small-scale migrations; others collide in violent intercontinental conquest. Today\u2019s globalization accelerates cultural blending<\/a> in countless ways.<\/p>\n On supporting science journalism<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing<\/a>. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n To test for similarity between the language pairs they identified through genetic testing, the researchers compared the pairs using two databases that have together tracked more than 600 linguistic features over thousands of languages. They found that, though the sheer amount of borrowing remained stable, the details of such borrowings varied tremendously from case to case. Indeed, those details sometimes contradicted what linguists would predict based on previous research. Prior studies had pointed to a \u201cborrowability hierarchy,\u201d in which some elements of a language are more likely to spread to other languages. \u201cThere are lots of established ideas about what types of linguistic traits get borrowed more than others,\u201d says Simon Greenhill, who studies language evolution at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. \u201cBut these results don\u2019t seem to match that.\u201d<\/p>\n For example, grammar is generally considered difficult to borrow, because adults\u2014the main drivers of linguistic evolution\u2014struggle to learn it when they encounter a novel language. Nevertheless, the new study found unexpectedly high levels of borrowability for certain aspects of grammar, such as past tense (which not all languages have). But the authors noted that speakers may have only been borrowing abstract grammatical categories\u2014the concept of past tense\u2014rather than specific grammatical forms, such as \u201c-ed\u201d at the end of \u201cworked\u201d in English. They could then repurpose some bit of their own language, which may be easier than memorizing exotic grammatical forms.<\/p>\n Other features follow utterly opposite trends, depending on context. Take prosody, which is the rhythm, stress and intonation of a language. Because listeners are especially sensitive to how a person speaks, prosody is a powerful marker of identity and status, making it highly susceptible to social pressure. People living under colonial rule, for example, are likely to adopt the speech patterns of the more prestigious upper class. But the researchers found that, in situations without such stark power imbalances, speakers of both languages often maintain\u2014and even exaggerate\u2014their native prosody to distinguish themselves from neighbors.<\/p>\n More research will be needed to test whether the traditional hierarchy of borrowability still stands. But knowing that genes serve as a reliable proxy for cultural exchange, researchers may be able to probe for new linguistic links where evidence has so far been lacking. \u201cWe can use this kind of idea to reveal connections between languages and cultures that we didn\u2019t know existed,\u201d Greenhill says. Such insights would refine our understanding of the world\u2019s roughly 7,000 tongues, clarifying which parts of a language are homegrown and which are the product of outside influence.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Time to Stand Up for Science<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this article, I\u2019d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.<\/p>\n If you subscribe to Scientific American<\/a>, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.<\/p>\n In return, you get essential news, captivating podcasts<\/a>, brilliant infographics, can’t-miss newsletters<\/a>, must-watch videos, challenging games<\/a>, and the science world’s best writing and reporting. You can even gift someone a subscription<\/a>.<\/p>\n There has never been a more important time for us to stand up and show why science matters. I hope you\u2019ll support us in that mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"September 18, 2025 3 min read Genetics Can Track How Languages Mixed in the Past New research shows…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":237038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[815,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-237037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-genetics","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115226857260934463","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}