BookNobuo Masataka, editor.
Summary: This book summarizes the latest research on the origins of language, with a focus on the process of evolution and differentiation of language. It provides an update on the earlier successful book, "The Origins of Language" edited by Nobuo Masataka and published in 2008, with new content on emerging topics. Drawing on the empirical evidence in each respective chapter, the editor presents a coherent account of how language evolved, how music differentiated from language, and how humans finally became neurodivergent as a species. Chapters on nonhuman primate communication reveal that the evolution of language required the neural rewiring of circuits that controlled vocalization. Language contributed not only to the differentiation of our conceptual ability but also to the differentiation of psychic functions of concepts, emotion, and behavior. It is noteworthy that a rudimentary form of syntax (regularity of call sequences) has emerged in nonhuman primates. The following chapters explain how music differentiated from language, whereas the pre-linguistic system, or the "prosodic protolanguage," in nonhuman primates provided a precursor for both language and music. Readers will gain a new understanding of music as a rudimentary form of language that has been discarded in the course of evolution and its role in restoring the primordial synthesis in the human psyche. The discussion leads to an inspiring insight into autism and neurodiversity in humans. This thought-provoking and carefully presented book will appeal to a wide range of readers in linguistics, psychology, phonology, biology, anthropology and music. -- Provided by publisher.
Contents:
Empirical evidence for the claim that the vocal theory of language origins and the gestural theory of language origins are not incompatible with one anoter / Nobuo Masataka
Primate vocal anatomy and physiology : similarities and differences between humans and nonhuman primates / Takeshi Nishimura
Integrations of multiple abilities underlying the vocal evolutions in primates / Hiroki Koda
Conversation among primate species / Loïc Pougnault, Florence Levréro, Alban Lemasson
Language evolution from a perspective of Broca's area / Masumi Wakita
Social scaffolding of vocal and language development / Hirokazu Doi
Emergence of the distinction between "verbal" and "musical" in early childhood development / Aleksey Nikolsky
"Talking Jew's harp" and its relation to vowel harmony as a paradigm of formative influence of music on language / Aleksey Nikolsky
Were musicians as well as artists in the Ice Age caves likely with autism spectrum disorder? A neurodiversity hypothesis / Nobua Masataka.