On Andamanese Languages

(I responded to a Facebook rant—and did far too much Wiki surfing.)

A recent Facebook post I read on Andamanese peoples was a case of fast and loose reading with overbroad extrapolation and interpretation of facts. And it gave the appearance of ethnocentric (read: American Black) racism at the expense of indigenous cultures.

I wanted to tell the author, though I respected his attempt to reconcile the convoluted history of peoples and migrations throughout the eons, stating that Jōmon, and Andamanese peoples were one and the same—both out of Africa based on the outward appearances of skin color and hair—is wrong.

We have no photographic or linguistic record of ancient Jōmon cultures. As my ceramics teacher, Thano Johnson was fond of repeating: pots don't talk. My anthropology teachers McGrath and Dundes, reiterated the phrase. Be careful how you arrive at conclusions.

Granted that Andamanese languages and genes are old, very old. Possibly Proto-Australoid, it doesn't make them African.

A few Andamanese genetic characteristics are present in isolated populations from Asia to Oceania: southern India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and China.

Andaman languages (during the 1900s there were ten-plus mutually unintelligible Andaman languages—meaning they've been around a while—at least 60,000 years) are what is called a "linguistic isolate"—today only 3 languages survive, and they are in decline.

Genetically, "Andaman Islanders have been isolated for a substantial period of time." Andamanese genes have little genetic variation (bottleneck). The Jarawas carry an allele with no affinity to any other population in the world. It means they've been inhabiting the Andaman acrchpelago for a long, long time.

I noted that the subclade of the D haplogroup is not present outside of the Andamans—which supports the extreme insularity of these tribes. They are haploid D group, yes, but not the unique subclass marker. It does not make them Ainu, or vice versa.

(Archaic DNA origins of the Ainu, or Utari of Japan and Russia have not been scientifically identified (but they are thought to be proto-Mongoloid). Their Y-DNA haplogroup D2 is common in Tibet and the Andaman Islands. Mitochondrial DNA haplogroup Y is also found among Nivkhs, Tungusic peoples, Koreans, Mongols (including Kalmyks and Buryats), Chinese, Japanese, Central Asians, South Siberian Turkic peoples (e.g. Tuvans, Todjins, Soyots), Koryaks, Alyutors, Itelmens, Taiwanese aborigines, Filipinos, Indonesians, and Malaysians. )

Take mtDNA: All Andamanese belong to the subgroup M[10] which is also on the Indian subcontinent, it represents 60% of maternal lineages, but also in Africa and other areas west of India. But M2 is unique to the Andamanese. M2 and M4 lineages diverged 60,000-30,000 years ago. They've been an isolate group for so long, they had no immunity against common diseases—like the Amerindians.

In other words, nothing is as simple as it seems—other than these two groups are extremely old. Skimming the surface, with overbroad extrapolation and interpretation of facts serves only to muddy the water. Not shed light.

The oldest Chinese pictographs—the sun, moon, tree, etc., all share parentage with the glyphs and writing of ALL world cultures. Some things are held in common, as a development of mankind. It doesn't mean that they're African—unless you go really far back. Broaden the lens.