Healthy babies can learn any language, but new research suggests that genes might play a part in learning tonal languages like Chinese.

Dan Dediu and Robert Ladd from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland found a genetic difference between people who speak tonal languages – such as Chinese and most languages of sub-Saharan Africa – and those who speak non-tonal languages like English…

The language each person speaks has traditionally been considered an entirely cultural trait, determined no more by genes than religious beliefs or musical preferences. As evidence, scientists point to the fact that regardless of ancestry, any normal baby learns the languages it hears during its early years…

In tonal languages, subtle changes in pitch can radically alter the meaning of a word. So a non-native Chinese speaker enquiring after the health of someone’s mother might easily enquire about the wellbeing of their horse instead.

In non-tonal languages this is not the case, although tone is still used to express emotion, convey sarcasm or indicate a question…

The authors found that there is generally no link between genes and linguistic features, but a strong negative correlation emerged between speakers of tonal languages and recently evolved forms of ASPM and Microcephalin. That is, people with the older forms of these genes were more likely to speak tonal languages, even when biases for geography and history were removed…

Ladd believes that discovering a causal link between population genetics and language structure would be big news, but says he and Dediu haven’t found that link yet. “We’ve just demonstrated some very unlikely correlations that suggest there might be such a link.” …

Source: Cosmos Magazine
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1349