Commonalities between vowel systems and musical scales from an evolutionary perspective

Gertraud FENK-OCZLON, University of Klagenfurt, Austria

Parallels between language and music are considered as a useful basis for examining possible evolutionary pathways of these achievements. In this paper we present commonalities in the sound systems of language and music and some cognitive and evolutionary explanations emphasizing the key role of vowels in the language-music relationship.

Authors looking for parallels in the sound inventories of language and music [1, 2] often compared the whole phonemic inventory to musical pitches per octave and found that the number of phonemes across languages varies to a much greater extent (“from 11 in Polynesian to 141 in the languages of the Bushmen” [1] ) than the number of pitches per octave (“typically between 5 and 7” [2] ). We choose a different approach in the search for analogies in the sound systems [3]: Since vowels play a decisive role in generating the sound or sonority of syllables and show all the core components of music (timbre, intrinsic pitch, intensity, duration) we compared the inventories of vowel systems and musical scales across cultures. Striking coincidences showed in the following cornerstones: a maximum of roughly 12 elements, a minimum of 2-3 elements, and a frequency peak in 5 elements, i.e. in 5-vowel-systems and pentatonic scales. Further correspondences were found between vowel pitch and musical pitch in nonsense syllables of Alpine yodellers as well as in other Austrian traditional songs containing only several sections of nonsense syllables.

In [4] we speculated whether cultures with a higher number of vowels also tend to use a higher number of pitches in melody. First evidence for such an assumption was gained from data of Australian Aboriginal languages and music.

The present study examines this hypothesis in more detail, using Nettl’s [5] descriptions of indigenous Amerindian music and linguistic descriptions of the respective languages. The results: Languages with up to 4 vowels (e.g. Navaho, Cheyenne) tend to have tritonic or tetratonic scales, languages with 5 vowels (e.g. Creek, Yuchi) pentatonic scales, and languages with more than 5 vowels (e.g. Hopi) hexatonic or heptatonic scales.

These correspondences are discussed from an evolutionary perspective on music either as   “protolanguage” or on both language and music as descendents of “half-musical” utterances [6], and with respect to experimental studies [7, 8] showing strong processing interactions between vowels and melody.

Reference

1. Besson, M. & Schön, D. (2001). Comparison between language and music. In I. Peretz & R. J. Zatorre (eds.), The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1-15

2. Patel, A.D. (2008). Music, language, and the brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press

3. Fenk-Oczlon, G. & Fenk, A. (2009-2010). Some parallels between language and music from a cognitive and evolutionary perspective. Musicae Scientiae, special issue, 201-226

4. Fenk-Oczlon, G. & Fenk, A. (2009). Musical pitch in nonsense syllables: Correlations with the vowel system and evolutionary perspectives.  In J. Louhivou et al. (eds.), Proceedings of 7^th Triennial Conference of the Europaean Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music, 110-113

5. Nettl, B. (1956). Music in Primitive Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press

6. Jespersen, O. (1894). Progress in Language. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co

7. Kolinsky, R. Lidji, P., Peretz I., Besson, M., Morais, J. (2009). Processing interactions between phonology and melody: Vowels sing but consonants speak. Cognition 112, 1-20

8. Lidji, P., Jolicoeur, P., Kolinsky, R., Moreau, P., Conolly, J., Peretz, I. (2010). Early integration of vowel and pitch processing: A mismatch negativity study. Clinical Neurophysiology 121, 533-541