Languages and Genes of the Greater Himalayan Region

Since 2001, the Himalayan Languages Project has been collaborating with geneticists and scholars from other disciplines in both East and West on reconstructing Asian population prehistory. The analysis of correlations and discrepancies between the modern distribution of ethnolinguistic communities and molecular polymorphisms found on the DNA of Asian populations continues to reveal forgotten episodes of our past and enhance our understanding of the peopling of the Himalayan region, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. The multidisciplinary collaborative research is buttressed by insights from historical linguistics, archaeology, palaeobotany, palaeoclimatology and anthropology.

Planning

Initially, the aim of the study was to organise three expeditions, to Nepal, Bhutan and northeastern India, to collect blood from the main ethnolinguistic groups of the greater Himalayan region. Unfortunately, bureaucratic restrictions imposed on foreign geneticists prevented the collection of genetic samples in India. Therefore, the project focused the Nepalese and Bhutanese ethnolinguistic groups, described in detail below, and we have had access to Indian and Chinese data from both published sources and from our Indian colleagues and Chinese colleagues respectively.

Results

We have now sampled about 1000 individuals from Nepal and 1000 from Bhutan, representing 35 to 40 different groups identified on the basis of language, geography and caste. Results from studies on other populations have shown that past demographic expansions leave recognisable marks in the patterns of genetic diversity. The mitochondrial data, Y chromosome diversity and autosomal data present different pictures of ethnolinguistic prehistory in the Himalayas and the Indian subcontinent. The overall view is enhanced by input from palaeoclimatology, palaeobotany, palaeontology, archaeology and, of course, historical and comparative linguistics.