Page "Somali people" Paragraph 1

According to mtDNA studies by Holden ( 2005 ) and Richards et al.

( 2006 ), a significant proportion of the maternal lineages of Somalis consists of the M1 haplogroup, which is common among Ethiopians and North Africans, particularly Egyptians and Algerians.

M1 is believed to have originated in Asia, where its parent M clade represents the majority of mtDNA lineages ( particularly in India ).

This haplogroup is also thought to possibly correlate with the Afro-Asiatic language family: