About 5% of Indians speak Austroasiatic languages, largely by the ancient tribal populations of Odisha, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand. Overall, the Austroasiatic speakers have retained their languages firmly for the last 4000 years. However, recently some of these populations have started adopting Indo-European languages. A recent study led by Dr Kumarasamy Thangaraj at CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CSIR-CCMB), Hyderabad, and Dr Niraj Rai at DST-Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleosciences, Lucknow, shed light on understanding these changes in the ancient tribes of East India. The findings are published in an international journal, Heliyon, by Cell Press.

This is the first high-throughput genetic study on the East Indian tribal populations. The researchers studied four major tribal populations (Bathudi, Bhumij, Ho and Mahali) from Odisha. They examined the genetic affinities of these populations and a few Indo-European speakers from nearby areas. Their findings suggest that the two groups do not mix genetically.

The researchers suggest that the linguistic mixing between the Austroasiatic and Indo-European speakers happened likely due to industrialisation (movement of Indo-European speakers may be from neighbouring states) and modernisation (cultural exchange, may be due to marriage/trade/education) that brought them into close cultural contact with the Austroasiatic speakers, and some of them have adapted Indo-European as a primary language. The study did not find any Indo-European-speaking population who have adopted the Austroasiatic language.

“Using genetic and linguistic data, for the first time, we established that the language of Austroasiatic-speaking tribal groups is altered by the recent demographic changes. These linguistic shifts largely have sociocultural effects and threaten the Austroasiatic languages, if this trend continues given a small number of people speak these languages”, said Dr Thangaraj.

However, the risk is still rather small. “Our study strongly suggests that most ancient tribal groups of Eastern India still maintain their cultural heritage very firmly despite the high level of industrialisation and demographic changes” told Dr Rai.

“This study is crucial and also an important add-on to the existing genetic database of Austroasiatic speakers. Considering the fact that India is one of the most diverse assemblages of people in the world, this research work is significant in demonstrating the origin of Austroasiatic speakers and demographic changes that happened in the deep past and those ongoing, explained Dr Vinay Kumar Nandicoori, Director, CCMB.

The other institutes and agencies involved in this study are Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, Shreyanshi Health Care Private Limited, Raipur, Chattisgarh and Panjab University, Chandigarh.