Languages and genes don’t always match — part 2

Feb 5, 2011 by

In the previous posting, I noted that the commonly held assumption that if the languages of two groups are related, the peoples must be related as well doesn’t always hold. As you can see from the chart below, the genetic tree...

read more

Translating from Hindi to Urdu

Jan 7, 2011 by

There is an insider joke among my translator-friends: we refer to boring, non-creative and sometimes pointless translation assignments as “translating from Hindi to Urdu”. Of course, the joke is that Hindi and Urdu are...

read more

The goddess of English

Jan 5, 2011 by

While English is not — and most likely will never be — the official language in the United States, it plays that role in many other countries in Africa and Asia, even where it is not the most widely spoken language. One...

read more

Controversies surrounding Bnei Menashe

Jun 9, 2010 by

Bnei Menashe is a group of more than 9,000 people from India’s North-Eastern border states of Manipur and Mizoram. They look the part and speak a Tibeto-Burman language. But, as their name suggests, they claim descent from the...

read more

On the Cochin Jews and Judeo-Malayalam

Jun 8, 2010 by

While there are many interesting Jewish communities around the world, many of whom have been subject of recent genetic studies, I will write today about one group in particular that I have been asked about — the Cochin Jews of...

read more