The Kru languages are spoken by the Kru people from the southeast of Liberia to the west of Ivory Coast .
23-484: According to Güldemann (2018), Kru lacks sufficient lexical resemblances and noun class resemblances to conclude a relationship with Niger-Congo. Glottolog considers Kru an independent language family. The term "Kru" is of unknown origin. According to Westermann (1952) it was used by Europeans to denote a number of tribes speaking related dialects. Marchese (1989) notes the fact that many of these peoples were recruited as "crew" by European seafarers; "the homonymy with crew
46-575: A 38,000-year-old bone fragment from a femur found in 1980 at Vindija Cave in Croatia shows that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens share about 99.5% of their DNA. It is believed that the two species shared a common ancestor about 500,000 years ago. The authors of the Nature article have calculated that the two species diverged about 516,000 years ago, whereas fossil records show a time of about 400,000 years ago. From DNA records, scientists hope to confirm or deny
69-603: A juvenile, and a child aged about seven and a half years old. The bones looked similar facially to those of humans today, but had much larger lower jaws and elongated braincases. They have similar features to a skull dating to 260,000 years ago that was found at the other end of the continent, in Florisbad , South Africa , which has been attributed to Homo sapiens on the basis of the Jebel Irhoud finds. The tools were found alongside gazelle bones and lumps of charcoal, indicating
92-500: A second language, are said to be "dominant in the southwest region where the forest zone reaches the coastal lagoons". The Kru people rely on the forest for farming, supplemented by hunting for their livelihood. The Kru languages include many subgroups such as Kuwaa , Grebo , Bassa, Belle, Belleh, Kwaa and many others. According to Breitbonde, categorization of communities based on cultural distinctiveness, historical or ethnic identity, and socio-political autonomy "may have brought about
115-669: Is 5.0, released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License in 2024. It is part of the Cross-Linguistic Linked Data project hosted by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History . Glottolog is more conservative in its classification than other databases in establishing membership of languages and families given its strict criteria for postulating larger groupings. On
138-423: Is a clear bipartite division between Western and Eastern Kru marked by phonological and lexical distinctions. Some isoglosses between Western Kru and Eastern Kru: Glottolog Glottolog is an open-access online bibliographic database of the world's languages. In addition to listing linguistic materials ( grammars , articles, dictionaries ) describing individual languages, the database also contains
161-708: Is a research institute based in Leipzig , Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network. Well-known scientists currently based at the institute include founding director Svante Pääbo and Johannes Krause (genetics), Christophe Boesch (primatology), Jean-Jacques Hublin ( human evolution ), Richard McElreath ( evolutionary ecology ), and Russell Gray (linguistic and cultural evolution). The institute comprises six departments, several Research Groups, and The Leipzig School of Human Origins. Currently, approximately 375 people are employed at
184-506: Is obvious, and is at least one source of the confusion among Europeans that there was a Kru/crew tribe". Andrew Dalby noted the historical importance of the Kru languages for their position at the crossroads of African-European interaction. He wrote that "Kru and associated languages were among the first to be encountered by European voyagers on what was then known as the Pepper Coast , a centre of
207-917: The Neanderthal genome . Results of the study were published in the May 2010 journal Science detailing an initial draft of the Neanderthal genome based on the analysis of four billion base pairs of Neanderthal DNA. It was thought that a comparison of the Neanderthal genome and human genome would expand our understanding of Neanderthals, as well as the evolution of humans and human brains. The study determined that some mixture of genes occurred between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans and presented evidence that elements of their genome remain in that of non-African modern humans. DNA researcher Svante Pääbo tested more than 70 Neanderthal specimens and found only one that had enough DNA to sample. Preliminary DNA sequencing from
230-481: The World Atlas of Language Structures , a project of the institute's former department of Linguistics, was published. The atlas consists of more than 140 maps, each displaying a particular language feature – for example order of adjective and noun – for between 120 and 1370 languages of the world. In 2008 the atlas was also published online and the underlying database made freely available. They also used to maintain
253-689: The Glottolog/Langdoc project in 2011. The creation of Glottolog was partly motivated by the lack of a comprehensive language bibliography, especially in Ethnologue . Glottolog provides a catalogue of the world's languages and language families and a bibliography on individual languages. It differs from Ethnologue in several respects: Language names used in the bibliographic entries are identified by ISO 639-3 code or Glottolog's own code (Glottocode). External links are provided to ISO, Ethnologue and other online language databases The latest version
SECTION 10
#1732880316388276-729: The Kru language. As noted by Fisiak, there is very little documentation on the Kru and associated languages. Marchese's (1989) classification of Kru languages is as follows. Many of these languages are dialect clusters and are sometimes considered more than a single language. Ethnologue adds Neyo , which may be closest to Dida or Godie. Kru word order is primarily subject-verb-object (SVO), but can also often be subject-object-verb (SOV). Sample basic vocabulary of 12 Kru languages from Marchese (1983): An additional sample basic vocabulary of 21 Kru languages from Marchese (1983): Comparison of numerals in individual languages: Comparison of numerals in Kru languages from Marchese (1983): Parts of
299-492: The burning had happened, and by proxy, the age of the fossil bones, which were found in the same deposit layer. The burnt tools were dated to approximately 315,000 years ago, indicating that the fossils are of about the same age. This conclusion was confirmed by recalculating the age of the Irhoud 3 mandible, which produced an age range compatible with that of the tools, at roughly 280,000 to 350,000 years old. As of 2017, this would make
322-417: The emergence of what we call modern humans today." Early humans may have comprised a large, interbreeding population dispersed across Africa whose spread was facilitated by a wetter climate that created a "green Sahara ", approximately 300,000 to 330,000 years ago. The rise of modern humans may thus have taken place on a continental scale, rather than being confined to a particular corner of Africa. In 2005,
345-414: The head from Marchese (1983): Other body parts from Marchese (1983): Miscellaneous nouns from Marchese (1983): Nature-related words from Marchese (1983): Some basic verbs from Marchese (1983): Other basic verbs from Marchese (1983): According to Marchese Zogbo (2012), Proto-Kru had: Proto-Kru consonants (Marchese Zogbo 2012): Derived consonants: Proto-Kru vowels (Marchese Zogbo 2012): There
368-501: The institute. The former department of Linguistics , which existed from 1998 to 2015, was closed in May 2015, upon the retirement of its director, Bernard Comrie . The former department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology operated from 1998 to 2018 under director Michael Tomasello . In July 2006, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and 454 Life Sciences announced that they would be sequencing
391-421: The large number of distinct Kru dialects; "Although the natives were in many respects similar in type and tribe, every village was an independent state; there was also very little intercommunication". Breitbonde notes the Kru people were categorized based on their cultural distinctiveness, separate historical or ethnic identities, and social and political autonomy. This is the possible reason for so many subgroups of
414-551: The most up-to-date language affiliations based on the work of expert linguists . Glottolog was first developed and maintained at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig , Germany, and between 2015 and 2020 at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena , Germany. Its main curators include Harald Hammarström and Martin Haspelmath . Sebastian Nordhoff and Harald Hammarström established
437-607: The other hand, the database is more permissive in terms of considering unclassified languages as isolates . Edition 4.8 lists 421 spoken language families and isolates as follows: Creoles are classified with the language that supplied their basic lexicon . In addition to the families and isolates listed above, Glottolog uses several non-genealogical families for various languages: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology ( German : Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie , shortened to MPI EVA )
460-402: The presence of fire and probably of cooking in the cave. The gazelle bones showed characteristic signs of butchery and cooking, such as cut marks, notches consistent with marrow extraction, and charring. Some of the tools had been burned due to fires being lit on top of them, presumably after they had been discarded. This enabled the researchers to use thermoluminescence dating to ascertain when
483-842: The production and export of Guinea and melegueta pepper ; a once staple African seaborne trade". The Kru languages are known for some of the most complex tone systems in Africa, rivaled perhaps only by the Omotic languages . Recent documentation has noted "Kru societies can now be found along the coast of Monrovia , Liberia to Bandama River in Côte d'Ivoire ". "Villages maintain their ties based on presumed common descent, reinforced by ceremonial exchanges and gifts". The Kru people and their languages, although now many speak English (in Liberia) or French (in Côte d'Ivoire) as
SECTION 20
#1732880316388506-536: The remains the earliest known examples of Homo sapiens . This suggests that, rather than modern humans arising in East Africa approximately 200,000 years ago, it appears that humans may already have been present across the length of Africa 100,000 years earlier. According to Jean-Jacques Hublin, "The idea is that early Homo sapiens dispersed around the continent and elements of human modernity appeared in different places, and so different parts of Africa contributed to
529-553: The theory that there was interbreeding between the species. Dating carried out by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig revealed that the Jebel Irhoud site and its Homo sapiens fossils were far older than first thought. Fresh excavations revealed the remains of at least five people and a number of stone tools. The finds included part of a skull, a jawbone, teeth, and limb bones that had come from three adults,
#387612