[SunkenCiv]

just an update to a cool topic:

The Singing Neanderthals
by Steven Mithen
reviewed by Brian Lynch

The Singing Neanderthals theorizes, for example, that in the millennia before the emergence of anything like words or grammar, language and music were one and the same, consisting of tonal utterances that allowed the earliest humans to communicate. Even now, Mithen says, we hear echoes of that musical proto-language whenever we follow the universal impulse to speak to infants in a singsong voice. (Versions of this impulse have even been detected in the willingness of Chinese-speaking parents to alter the important tonal qualities that are built in to all Chinese dialects.)

[SunkenCiv]

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The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body by Steven Mithen paperback

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[HiTech RedNeck]

The Singing Neanderthals theorizes, for example, that in the millennia before the emergence of anything like words or grammar, language and music were one and the same

Cue the meow-meow-meow-meow commercial soundtrack here