Efforts are under way to prevent migration from rural areas of Yadgir district, which is facing severe drought, through local employment generation. 
| Photo Credit: File photo

Hindi and Tamil differ in far more than just vocabulary. Languages differ in how they are organised, and these differences are not spread evenly around the world. In some regions, neighbouring languages like Basque and Spanish differ dramatically from one another. In others, they share many of the same features, like Tamil and Kannada.

A new study by researchers from Europe and Japan has found human history itself gives shape to the pattern. After analysing thousands of languages alongside genetic data from populations around the world, the researchers found that places that were relatively isolated for a long time tended to harbour more linguistic features. On the other hand, regions shaped by migration and sustained contact contained languages that were more alike.

“I was struck by the clarity of the signal,” Anna Graff, lead author of the study and a biological anthropologist at the University of Zurich, said. “In studies of human history and diversity, such clear global patterns are often difficult to find.”

A feature checklist

Crucially, the researchers did not count the number of languages in a region. Instead, they measured how different neighbouring languages were from one another. Some languages placed verbs near the beginning of a sentence while others placed them at the end. Some distinguished between a hand and a finger with separate words while others used the same term for both.

A region where languages had more such differences was considered more linguistically diverse than one where languages shared many of the same traits — even if both regions had the same number of languages.

To investigate, the researchers assembled one of the largest datasets of its kind, combining information from more than 4,200 languages with genetic data from over 5,700 individuals representing 650 populations around the world. Then they divided the world into hundreds of roughly 500-km-wide hexagonal cells and calculated two measures for each: diversity of linguistic features found among languages spoken there and the genetic diversity of the local populations.

Thus they found that regions whose populations had been relatively isolated over long periods tended to have more diverse linguistic features.

The effect was modest. Imagine describing each language using a checklist of 333 characteristics. The difference associated with isolation was roughly equivalent to making about 11 items on the checklist vary substantially across the languages spoken in a region.

Yet the pattern proved remarkably persistent, appearing again and again, across statistical tests.

‘Accumulation zones’

The researchers also tested if the pattern could be explained by other obvious factors. Languages spoken close together often influence one another while related languages can resemble one another because they inherited features from a common ancestor. Yet neither explanation fully accounted for the trend.

At first glance, the findings also seem counterintuitive. One might expect places with a long history of migration and population mixing to have more language patterns. But Dr. Graff and her colleagues argued that contact often has the opposite effect. As people move, trade, and interact, languages can borrow words, sounds, and grammatical features from one another, gradually becoming more alike.

Isolation allows languages to evolve independently, increasing the chances that they will grow more different over time.

They described these differences by classifying a place as a “spread zone” and or an “accumulation zone”. Spread zones are repeatedly reshaped by large population movements associated with the spread of farming, state expansion, empire-building, and, more recently, colonialism.

New Guinea, home to more than 800 languages, is a good example of an accumulation zone. The island’s languages are remarkably varied in their linguistic features. According to the authors, its long history of relative isolation allowed these differences to accumulate rather than become smoothed out by repeated migration and contact.

Linguistic fossils

The significance of such regions goes beyond explaining present-day diversity. The authors argued that linguistic hotspots may offer rare glimpses of how human languages became more varied before large migrations and population movements reshaped much of the world.

In that sense, places such as New Guinea may preserve traces of a linguistic world that existed before waves of expansion and migration reduced diversity across regions. That is, having been less affected by forces that make languages more alike, they may preserve ways of organising language that have disappeared elsewhere.

That makes the loss of small languages especially consequential. Languages spoken by small and relatively isolated communities are “important windows into the diversity and breadth of linguistic structures we humans are able to learn, transmit and process,” Dr. Graff said. “At the very least, documenting them is essential if we want to preserve a record of the full range of linguistic variation.”

Signatures on languages

“Patterns in genetic diversity certainly do capture history very well at both broad and fine scales,” Iain Mathieson, professor of genetics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, said. “Very naturally, one would expect those patterns also to correlate with features of linguistic and cultural diversity at least on average, and this interesting study shows exactly that.”

The findings do not imply, however, that genes determine language. The historical movement of people can leave traces in both genetic and linguistic patterns but the two do not always travel together.

The study’s central argument also resonates with observations from the field. Patience Epps, professor of linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin who studies indigenous languages of Amazonia, said the findings align with observations from her own field.

In the Upper Rio Negro region, where Dr. Epps conducts fieldwork, communities often intermarry and maintain extensive contact across language groups. She noted that Amazonia still lacks the detailed genetic datasets required for a systematic test of the study’s conclusions.

The authors also argued that such local processes, repeated across centuries and larger regions, can leave broader signatures on patterns of language diversity around the world.

(Anirban Mukhopadhyay is a geneticist by training and science communicator from New Delhi.)

Published – July 14, 2026 09:15 am IST

With multiple discrepancies emerging as the pre-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) mapping progresses, political groups and activists monitoring the exercise, who have cross-checked the records with Booth Level Officers (BLOs), have estimated that around 12% of Karnataka’s voters could face deletion during the revision process. 

The estimate is based on documents reviewed as well as trends observed in other States where the exercise has been carried out, said members of Jagrutha Karnataka. The average deletion rate nationally has been around 10-12%, with Kerala being a notable exception. 

SIR in Karnataka

The electoral rolls are also set to be frozen shortly. The Election Commission will freeze the E-Roll, the digital version of the official voter list, on June 16. Before the freeze takes effect, all pending applications under Forms 6, 6A, 7 and 8 will be processed. These forms are used for the inclusion of new voters, registration of overseas (NRI) voters, objections to entries in the electoral roll, and correction or updating of voter details, respectively. Once the roll is frozen, it will serve as the base voter database for the next stage of the revision exercise. 

While permanently shifted voter IDs are expected to account for a significant share of the deletions, activists say the exercise has also highlighted difficulties in mapping women voters whose details changed after marriage. The issue is particularly visible among women who moved to or from neighbouring States such as Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, where linking records across locations has proved challenging. 

Concerns were also raised over the category of “logical discrepancies“. Citing the example of West Bengal, where more electors were reportedly deleted under the logical discrepancies category than under the absent, shifted, dead and duplicate/deleted (ASDD) category, the association argued that the category could lead to arbitrary scrutiny. It said there is no clear definition of what constitutes a logical discrepancy, allowing the category to be interpreted broadly and expanded to cover a wide range of cases.  

District-wise electors

Adding further, the association said that in one recent case in Tumakuru district, a BLO has reportedly linked 138 women to their fathers-in-law while completing a large number of mappings within a short period. Similar instances have also been reported in Bengaluru. 

However, a father-in-law is not among the prescribed options for such mapping. The association argued that such cases, along with instances where voters have not submitted documents or where names and spellings vary across records, are likely to attract scrutiny under logical discrepancies during the verification process. 

Within the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), Chief Commissioner and District Election Officer M. Maheshwar Rao recently said that 28% of electors could not be mapped during the exercise. While he clarified that non-mapping does not automatically lead to deletion, he said that such voters would need to furnish documents to establish their identity. 

Members of Jagrutha Karnataka said that the problem extends beyond duplicate entries. Given the scale of migration over the past three decades, they said many people, especially migrant workers from many districts, particularly north Karnataka, either lack the required documents or have different names and spellings across various records, making the mapping exercise more complicated. 

In many cases, BLOs said that when they sought clarification from officials regarding cases where voters were not getting mapped to 2002 rolls or their parents in cases of progeny mapping, they were advised to refer to instructional videos and finish with the exercise. 

Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, V. Anbu Kumar, however, dismissed the concerns, arguing that no such estimate can be made until draft electoral roll is published.  

Published – June 12, 2026 12:48 am IST

Bar headed goose (Anser indicus) in a V formation.
| Photo Credit: K.V.S. Giri

Lille, France:

Eight migrants died early Sunday when their overcrowded vessel capsized while trying to cross the Channel from France to England, French authorities said, less than two weeks after the deadliest such disaster this year.  

The French and British governments have sought for years to stop the flow of migrants, who pay smugglers thousands of euros per head for the passage to England from France aboard small boats. 

A police source told AFP the accident occurred shortly after the boat embarked. 

Regional prefect Jacques Billant is set to hold a news conference at 10:00 am (0800 GMT), his office said. 

Maritime authorities said Saturday that numerous attempts by migrants to make the perilous crossing in small boats have been attempted in recent days, with 200 people rescued in 24 hours over Friday and Saturday alone. 

At least 12 migrants, mostly from Eritrea, died off the northern French coast when their boat carrying dozens of people capsized this month. 

It was the deadliest such disaster this year, and brought to 37 the number of migrant deaths in the Channel, up from 12 in 2023. 

More than 22,000 migrants have arrived in England by crossing the Channel since the beginning of this year, according to British officials. 

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and France’s President Emmanuel Macron pledged this summer to strengthen “cooperation” in handling the surge in undocumented migrant numbers. 

The Channel crossings often prove perilous, and in November 2021, 27 migrants died when their boat capsized in the deadliest single such disaster to date. 

French authorities seek to stop migrants taking to the water but do not intervene once they are afloat except for rescue purposes, citing safety concerns. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The UN’s International Organisation for Migration said the biggest increase in deaths was on the Mediterranean Sea. File
| Photo Credit: AP

A total of 8,565 migrants died on land and sea routes worldwide last year, the U.N. migration agency said March 6, a record high since it began tallying deaths a decade ago.

The International Organisation for Migration said the biggest increase in deaths last year was on the treacherous Mediterranean Sea crossing, to 3,129 from 2,411 in 2022. However, that was well below the record 5,136 deaths recorded in the Mediterranean in 2016 as huge numbers of Syrians, Afghans and others fled conflicts toward Europe.

IOM said the total number of deaths among migrants in 2023 was nearly 20% more than in 2022. It said most of the deaths last year, about 3,700, came from drowning.

The Geneva-based migration agency cautioned that the figures likely underestimate the real toll, and factors such as improved data collection methods play a part in its calculations.

“Every single one of them is a terrible human tragedy that reverberates through families and communities for years to come,” IOM Deputy Director General Ugochi Daniels said in a statement.

Rise in deaths in Asia, Africa

Overall, the biggest jump in deaths in recent years was in Asia, where more than 2,000 migrants died compared to an annual average of under 1,000 since 2014. IOM said 2,138 migrants died in Asia last year, 68 more than in 2022.

The rise in Asia last year was primarily because of increased deaths among Afghans fleeing to places like neighbouring Iran and among Rohingya refugees on maritime routes, IOM spokesperson Jorge Galindo said in an email.

IOM said a record number of deaths also occurred in Africa last year — 1,866 — mostly in the Sahara Desert and along the sea route to the Canary Islands.

The agency cited difficulties in data collection in remote areas, such as in the dangerous “Darien Gap” in Panama, where many migrants pass from South America on their way north.

IOM’s “Missing Migrants” project, which tallies the figures, was set up in 2014 after a surge in deaths in the Mediterranean and an influx of migrants on the Italian island of Lampedusa off Tunisia.