Language Restoration: Ancestral DNA Testing and Links to Language Legacy
Ancestral DNA testing has sparked international fascination. People are enthralled by DNA testing’s scientific contribution in defining their lineage narrative. Family stories of movement and historical records can be fortified by this biological analysis. But for the African American community, ancestral DNA testing has an even greater responsibility; it combats the historic erasure of African American lineage by indicating explicit genetic links to African shores. Ancestral DNA results do not provide a narrative that is as comprehensive as Alex Haley’s legendary novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, based on the author’s traced lineage back to the African continent. Yet, genetic testing can be a very crucial starting point to restoring a coherent ancestral identity.
In The Atlantic article “How African Americans Use DNA Testing to Connect with Their Past,” staff writer Ed Yong has an engaging exchange with Alondra Nelson, the dean of social science at Columbia University. One of Nelson’s chief interests is examining the ways in which DNA shapes individuals and communities. Yong notes that in Nelson’s recent book The Social Life of DNA, she argues that “DNA is more than a molecule that defines our identity; it also takes a social life beyond its influence within individual bodies.” [1] Furthermore, Nelson goes on to recount specific instances in which she has seen African Americans use DNA test results to facilitate generational healing and form connections, stating, “We talk about the history of slavery in this country and it feels so abstract. But genetic ancestry testing can make it very personal...Many of the folks I talked to tell very moving stories about new relationships they began in their communities with their genetic test results.” [2] For example, soon after Nelson discovered her mitochondrial DNA (which is propagated maternally) could be traced back to the Bamileke people of Cameroon, Nelson’s mother was more than thrilled. Nelson’s mother then developed a close relationship with a Cameroonian woman, who ultimately became like family.
It is clear that genetic testing is capable of generating strong communal foundations. All of this is well and good, and is extremely significant in its own right. But what if we were to use this communal basis for the revival and maintenance of language legacies? Those are the ultimate objectives of language restoration. I believe that prominent ancestry DNA service providers should consider integrating language-learning into their platforms or at least pointing to qualified language education. This way, not only will people have the opportunity to learn the language(s) of their roots, but language communities will be fortified, protecting an international language diversity that is currently endangered. Without any direct intervention efforts, linguists predict that 50-90% of the world’s estimated 7,000 languages will go extinct this century. Furthermore, in his “Digital Language Death” study in 2013, mathematical linguist Andràs Kornai asserts that 95% of all languages have no digital vitality, meaning they lack sufficient digital support and/or digital use. [3] The growth in language communities, especially if new members come from spheres of relative societal access, can then incentivize the much-needed development of digital language tools for endangered and digitally disadvantaged languages across the world.
For the African American community specifically, learning our ancestral languages will strengthen our diasporic link to the African continent, provide new ways to foster cultural exchange, and encourage the creation of resources for vulnerable African languages. As author Luis Morais observes in “Why I believe Almost All African Languages are Endangered”:
“In order to create local knowledge for these future ‘digital & online’ generations, we first must allow regional language speakers to use their languages whenever and wherever they want. This is hardly possible in Africa today simply because the basic tools such as local keyboards and local digital language features are hard to find if not inexistent.” [4]
Since African Americans will most likely rely on digital spaces and tools to pursue our ancestral language learning, we can serve as allies to language communities in pursuing digital resources as we seek to become part of them. Part of the reason why I described language restoration as a framework last is because I acknowledge that this proposal is more experimental in scope and perhaps more costly in effective implementation than the other language 4R components. However, I definitively assert that like the others, language restoration has the potential to usher in a new manifestation of continuity in African American language discourses. Within language restoration, genetic links become language links, language links generate dialogue, and dialogue nourishes language life in trans-Atlantic community, digital spaces, and beyond.
[1] Yong, Ed. “How African Americans Use DNA Testing to Connect With Their Past.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 27 June 2017, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/how-african-americans-use-dna-testing-to-connect-with-their-past/531834/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Kornai, András. “Digital Language Death.” PLoS ONE, vol. 8, no. 10, 2013, e77056.
[4] Morais, L. “Why I believe Almost All African Languages are Endangered.” com. July 1, 2016.
