The Role of Music in The Evolution of Languages

THE ROLE OF MUSIC IN
THE EVOLUTION OF
LANGUAGES
Yana Sanchkivska M3млі 01-21
Music making seems to occur, in some form or another, in all human
societies. Although musical behaviour varies in sophistication, music itself INTERESTING
seems to be universal across all human cultures and plays a key part in rituals
of all varieties, and the origins of these practices seem very ancient. FACTS AND
THEORIES
There’s a theory that music is about more than just entertainment and
emotional stimulus. Some evolutionary biologists are rejecting the view that
music is just a byproduct of our language evolution. Instead it’s thought to be
a critical part of the core functioning of our brains and one that pre-dated our
language ability.
Whilst the archaeological record hasn’t yet produced rock solid evidence of
musical activity that pre-dates language, there’s speculation that our ability to
make music ourselves, such as vocally, probably pre-dates our development
of instruments. The earliest instrument yet discovered is a bone flute that
could be up to 57,000 years old.
Researchers have theorised that the cognitive and social skills that were
developed through voice music and dancing may have led to our development
of language. Music’s role in our evolution was therefore as a foundation to
communication behaviours rather some by-product of it.
HISTORY
According to Darwin, the human musical
faculty 'must be ranked amongst the most
mysterious with which he is endowed'.
Music is a human cultural universal that
serves no obvious adaptive purpose,
making its evolution a puzzle for
evolutionary biologists. Darwin's
hypothesis of similarities between language
and music indicating a shared evolutionary
history.
In particular, the fact that both are human
universals, have phrase structure, and
entail learning and cultural transmission,
suggests that any theory of the evolution of
language will have implications for the
evolution of music, and vice versa.
HISTORY
The argument starts by describing
variable predispositional musical
capabilities and the ontogeny of
prosodic communication in human
infants and young children, presenting
comparative data regarding
communication systems commonly
present in living nonhuman primate
species. Like language, the human
music faculty is based on a suite of
abilities, some of which are shared with
other primates and some of which
appear to be uniquely human.
HISTORY
Each of these subcomponents may have a different
evolutionary history, and should be discussed
separately. After briefly considering possible
functions of human music for language acquisition,
the review ends by discussing the phylogenetic
history of music. It concludes that many strands of
evidence support Darwin's hypothesis of an
intermediate stage of human evolutionary history,
characterized by a communication system that
resembled music more closely than language, but
was identical to neither. This pre-linguistic system,
which could probably referred to as "prosodic
protolanguage", provided a precursor for both
modern language and music.
MUSIC CAN BOOST IQ
Research into child development seems to indicate that musical training
is the only method proven to improve intellectual, linguistic and
emotional capabilities in children. This suggests we should forget
Kumon maths and Baby Einstein and focus instead on developing
music skills before the age of seven. Prior to this age, research suggests
music training has the ability to boost vocabulary and verbal IQ and
gives children a better sense of grammar. People who study music
before the age of seven also retain a lifelong advantage when it comes
to pronunciation. This means that throughout their lives they may be
quicker to learn new languages compared to other people who didn’t
have this musical stimulation at a young age. It’s thought the reason for
this effect is that the neural pathways relating to music and language
may overlap. The reason we know about this overlap is that
advancements in brain imaging technology have recently enabled us to
visualise brain activity and catalysed a whole body of research into
music and cognition.
A piece of research in the late nineties
showed that the brain seemed to display
similar activity when processing linguistic
grammar and the musical structures that are
grammar’s equivalent. But this isn’t the case
when an accomplished jazz musician is
playing an improvisational rift. When their
brains are visualised, the areas linked to
meaning switch off during improvisational
playing. What this implies is that music
seems to be understood by the mind as a
language disconnected from meaning.
Experienced musicians, who are essentially
‘fluent speakers’ in the language of music,
will show activity in the language centre of
the brain during improvisational playing –
though not in the area for meaning.
HEALING POWER OF MUSIC
Therapists working with Musical neuroscience could also
patients suffering language have implications for memory
impairments, such as stroke patients such as those suffering
victims, are hoping that with dementia, who often retain
every word of a song learnt in
music could help with childhood even though other
healing. One therapist memories are lost. Music is being
working at a stroke clinic is used in therapy for dementia
experimenting with patients to improve quality of life.
treatments that aim to get Studies found that when memory
patients were asked to participate in
the parts of the brain that familiar songs, they subsequently
process music to scored more highly in tests of their
compensate for and take cognitive ability and recorded better
over from the damaged life satisfaction. The effect was not
parts of the brain that so great when the subjects merely
listened to the songs compared to
handle language. participating in music making.

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