The social lives of isolates (and small language families): the case of the Northwest Amazon

The Americas are home to patches of extraordinary linguistic (genealogical) diversity. These high-diversity areas are particularly unexpected given the recent population of the Americas. In this paper, we zoom in on one such area, the Northwest Amazon, and address the question of how the diversity i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Interface focus 2023-02, Vol.13 (1), p.20220054
Main Authors: Van Gijn, Rik, Norder, Sietze, Arias, Leonardo, Emlen, Nicholas Q, Azevedo, Matheus C B C, Caine, Allison, Dunn, Saskia, Howard, Austin, Julmi, Nora, Krasnoukhova, Olga, Stoneking, Mark, Wiegertjes, Jurriaan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arts & humanities
Arts & sciences humaines
Biochemistry
Bioengineering
Biological anthropology
Biomaterials
Biomedical Engineering
Biophysics
Biotechnology
Diversity maintenance
Humanities and Social Sciences
Language isolate
language isolates
Languages & linguistics
Langues & linguistique
Linguistics
Northwest Amazon
Population genetics
Social Anthropology and ethnology
social history
Social life
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Summary:The Americas are home to patches of extraordinary linguistic (genealogical) diversity. These high-diversity areas are particularly unexpected given the recent population of the Americas. In this paper, we zoom in on one such area, the Northwest Amazon, and address the question of how the diversity in this area has persisted to the present. We contrast two hypotheses that claim opposite mechanisms for the maintenance of diversity: the isolation hypothesis suggests that isolation facilitates the preservation of diversity, while the integration hypothesis proposes that conscious identity preservation in combination with contact drives diversity maintenance. We test predictions for both hypotheses across four disciplines: biogeography, cultural anthropology, population genetics and linguistics. Our results show signs of both isolation and integration, but they mainly suggest considerable diversity in how groups of speakers have interacted with their surroundings.
ISSN:2042-8898
2042-8901
2042-8901
DOI:10.1098/rsfs.2022.0054