Classic linguistic theory ascribes language change and diversity to population migrations, conquests, and geographic isolation, with the assumption that human populations have equivalent language processing abilities. We hypothesize that spectral and temporal characteristics make some consonant manners vulnerable to differences in temporal precision associated with specific population allele frequencies. To test this hypothesis, we modeled association between RU1-1 alleles of DCDC2 and manner of articulation in 51 populations spanning five continents, and adjusting for geographic proximity, genetic and linguistic relatedness. RU1-1 alleles, acting through increased expression of DCDC2, appear to increase auditory processing precision that enhances stop-consonant discrimination, favoring retention in some populations and loss by others. These findings enhance classical linguistic theories by adding a genetic dimension, which until recently, has not been considered to be a significant catalyst for language change.

Data associated with DCDC2 READ1 regulatory element: how temporal processing differences may shape language. Tang et al. RSPB

Descriptions: the derived dataset and associated analyses reported in the article. Please see the article and the SI for details of the datasets and the results of the analyses. Included: the linguistic and genetic datasets, an R script that uses the datasets to conduct the analyses and the generated output files. To run the analyses, please use the .rmd (RMarkdown) file.