Re: Singing as prerequisite (or aid) to language.
- From: Anthony Campbell <ac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 13:30:52 -0400 (EDT)
On 2005-06-13, Anthony Cerrato <tcerrato@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> A few weeks ago I saw a David Attenborough documentary (not
> sure now if it was PBS, Discovery, or Nat. Geographic
> channels) on song in certain animals, namely baboons, and I
> think [?]woodpeckers, whales, and sumptin' else [I came in
> towards the end so I missed a lot.] Attenborough stated that
> he thought the development/practice of songs may well have
> been an early precursor to development of language in homo
> sap., maybe going back as far as 50-70 kyrs in proto-humans.
> It seemed a very pleasing hypothesis to me, but I wonder if
> anyone knows how much credibility is given to this idea by
> the other experts in the field, and if there is any real
> reasonable scientific evidence for it
> Any info or opinions? ...tonyC
>
>
Dunbar also looks at the development of speech from a different, and
less conventional, direction. He regards speech in humans as having
arisen to take the place of grooming in other primates, and thinks that
in its earliest form it may have consisted of singing ("chorusing") and
laughter rather than the communication of information, which came later.
He constructs a rather elaborate argument to relate brain size to the
amount of time that a group of hominids would have to spend on grooming
in order to maintain social stability. The maximum amount of time
(allowing for finding food) that monkeys and apes devote to grooming is
20 per cent of total daylight time. Once our ancestors found that,
because of group size, they needed to exceed this limit, a vocal element
would have been introduced. Grooming plus "chorusing" would take them to
the equivalent of 30 per cent of their time, and beyond this point they
required speech.
Anthony
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