Thursday, February 7, 2008

Music and Language

Here's something I never thought about until reading the preface to Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks this morning. Did language or music develop first or did they develop simultaneously? Both are hardwired into our brains. There are several contrasting views about how and when each developed. Of course, most scientists are looking at the question from an evolutionary point of view. As amoebas slowly turned into humans, did they acquire language or music first? I am thinking about it from a creationist point of view. When God created humans, did he give them language immediately? What about music? Did they figure that out on their own, or was it demonstrated for them? I tend to think that language and music probably developed simultaneously. Or, perhaps music came slightly after language. Anyway, it's interesting to ponder.

2 comments:

Lynn Leaming said...

Doing a search it looks like instruments are first mentioned in Genesis 4, which is much sooner than I would have guessed. While Zephaniah 3;17 says that God sings over us, I have never thought that it was His initial way of communicating with Adam and Eve. Like you said, interesting to ponder.

Anonymous said...

If music depended on me to exist, we'd still be waiting. I've never had on original tune in my head! I'm envious of musicians who can come up with so many different melodies and rhythms.