# What African tribe is the theoretical original "race"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 9, 2004, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-african-tribe-is-the-theoretical-original-race/278936 "2004-12-09T16:17:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2004, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-african-tribe-is-the-theoretical-original-race/278936/21 "2004-12-10T20:19:35Z")
**Colibri** : I just pulled out my copy of Genes, Peoples, and Languages (I always keep that handy), to see what ol’ Luigi has to say about the San. Interestingly, he has, in Figure 12 of that book, the San and Ethiopian lineages on an equal footing based on genetic data. By that I mean, both groups are shown to be equally “underived”. They’re also the least “derived” of any other group, both being only two branching points from the base-- the only groups with that few branching points. That’s pretty surprising… Not sure I’m using the term “derived” correctly, but I think you get what I mean. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2004, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-african-tribe-is-the-theoretical-original-race/278936/22 "2004-12-10T21:58:20Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Absolutely correct. In fact, we did a “what is the oldest language” thread in this forum a few months ago. I’m not sure if you participated in that thread, but you summed things up very well. Yep, and I got flashbacks to it while writing. Wendell Wagner did the heavy lifting in that thread, but I posted some too, and it didn’t seem to have much effect. People don’t understand how a question can be meaningless, so you get the situation where folks go, “Ok, ok, the question makes no sense. But if it did, what would the answer be?” :smack: > [@John Mace](#): > > What some people might be arguing for (and even this is a bit controversial) is that the San, while different form what we called Group A above, are still closer genetically, physically and linguistically to Group A than all of the rest of us are. The idea is that since they didn’t migrate as much, they were under less selective pressure to change than the other groups. But we don’t really know this. It’s pretty much just speculation. The fact that the San appear to have physical characteristics that cut across racial bounderies lends this some credence, but it’s still an argument after the fact. There is no direct evidence that the physical similarities of other races are dervied from the same source. Exactly! > [@Colibri](#): > > There is actually some evidence that click languages may in fact be very old, although it is controversial. > > Not all click languages are found in the same area as the Khoisan. A couple groups in Tanzania, including the Hadza and Sandawe, also speak click languages. But these groups are very different genetically from the Khoisan, implying that they have been separate a very long time. > > If in fact the clicks in both groups are homologous (descended from a single ancestral language) this implies that this ancestral language was spoken a very long time ago. Of course, it’s possible that these click sounds are not descended from the same ancestral language, but are convergent. I understand. There’s major geographical separation, and it’s not clear whether the languages are related or not - perhaps they’re both descendents from some old, Proto-World or at least Proto-Some-Unidentified-But-Large-Phylum that have coincidentally preserved on particular phonological feature. But there’s just not evidence; it’s just as likely, or moreso, that there’s an unknown history of areal contact due to migration, or just independent development of an innovative phonetic feature. The fact that clicks are rare doesn’t mean they can’t develop anew at all. I understand there’s an Australian Aboriginal language used for certain ceremonies that has clicks as well - not likely to be preserved from the same origins. Clicks have a peculiar mythic status among folks who don’t know much linguistics. But they’re not necessarily magical. > [@Colibri](#): > > This makes no suppositions as to how much the Khoisan have changed physically or in other respects over this time, only that this group has been in existence as a separate lineage the longest. All other human populations/lineages are of more recent origin. Well put, but I tried at least to address this idea earlier. The thing is, this makes them most likely far _less_ like other human groups, doesn’t it? If they’ve been in an isolated population for that long, they’re probably much less similar, genetically, to each other racial group than the other racial groups are to one another. All these questions depend on this sorta cultural myth of groups unchanged since the beginning of time, with pure morals and pure languages - in more religious times, they were thought to somehow retain some Edenic innocence that the civilized world had lost. Now it shows up more often in how eager people are to try any bizarre medicinal plant used by indigenous people somewhere, because they’re “more in touch with the earth” or something. It’s part of a larger cultural concept about “primitive” peoples that’s just not relevant to the real world. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-african-tribe-is-the-theoretical-original-race/278936/23 "2004-12-11T00:11:39Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > But there’s just not evidence; it’s just as likely, or moreso, that there’s an unknown history of areal contact due to migration, or just independent development of an innovative phonetic feature. The fact that clicks are rare doesn’t mean they can’t develop anew at all. Agreed. Whether the whole idea holds water would depend not on whether clicks _per se_ are present in the language, but the degree in similarity in the suite of clicks used (presuming a variety are present). Also, if other linguistic elements were shared besides just clicks it would strengthen the hypothesis. If there were a number of independent resemblances it would make it more likely these were due to common descent rather than to convergence. Since I haven’t read the paper itself, I don’t know exactly what kind of linguistic evidence the authors presented. > [@](#): > > Well put, but I tried at least to address this idea earlier. The thing is, this makes them most likely far _less_ like other human groups, doesn’t it? If they’ve been in an isolated population for that long, they’re probably much less similar, genetically, to each other racial group than the other racial groups are to one another. Right. Just because a lineage has been isolated for a long time doesn’t mean it necessarily retains ancestral traits (although it may). To return to the example of the monotremes compared to other mammals, although they retain some very “primitive” (basal) traits, such as egg-laying and some skeletal elements, they are highly “advanced” (derived) in others, such as loss of teeth and other morphological changes. (On the other hand, some Insectivores, a relatively basal group among the placentals, probably physically resemble the common ancestor of the group). Although the Khoisan may be a very ancient lineage, without further information it is impossible to say which of their physical or cultural traits are basal, and resemble the common ancestor of the Khoisan and other human populations, and which are derived, and thus unique to the Khoisan (or convergent to similar traits found in other human populations). ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2004, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-african-tribe-is-the-theoretical-original-race/278936/24 "2004-12-11T00:32:45Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > **Colibri** : I just pulled out my copy of Genes, Peoples, and Languages (I always keep that handy), to see what ol’ Luigi has to say about the San. Interestingly, he has, in Figure 12 of that book, the San and Ethiopian lineages on an equal footing based on genetic data. By that I mean, both groups are shown to be equally “underived”. They’re also the least “derived” of any other group, both being only two branching points from the base-- the only groups with that few branching points. That’s pretty surprising… > > Not sure I’m using the term “derived” correctly, but I think you get what I mean. I confess to not having read that book (though I should), so I am not sure exactly how Cavalli-Sforza uses the terms. I would just make two points. I presume that Cavalli-Sforza is looking mainly at “silent” mutations (whether to genes or to non-coding parts of the genome), that is, ones that do not have a major effect on morphological phenotype. Therefore, although these differences indicate how much time the Khoisan lineage has been separated, they give no information about how they might have changed morphologically during that time. Second, he is probably using derived/underived in the cladistic sense, in that the only changes considered in the analysis are those that are those that are phylogenetically informative. These are those characters that are shared between some groups but not others. Any derived character unique to the Khoisan (or any other group) is not phylogenetically informative about their relationship to other groups, because it presumably arose after their separation from these other groups. Therefore, the Khoisan may in fact have many derived characters, but these are unique to them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-african-tribe-is-the-theoretical-original-race/278936.md?page=1)