Language is typically viewed as fundamental to human intelligence. Music, while recognized as a human universal, is often treated as an ancillary ability – one dependent on or derivative of language. In contrast, we argue that it is more productive from a developmental perspective to describe spoken language as a special type of music. A review of existing studies presents a compelling case that musical hearing and ability is essential to language acquisition. In addition, we challenge the prevailing view that music cognition matures more slowly than language and is more difficult; instead, we argue that music learning matches the speed and effort of language acquisition. We conclude that music merits a central place in our understanding of human development.
Language and music are readily distinguished by adults, but there is growing evidence that infants first experience speech as a special type of music. By listening to the phonemic inventory and prosodic patterns of their caregivers’ speech, infants learn how their native language is composed, later bootstrapping referential meaning onto this musical framework. Our current understanding of infants’ sensitivities to the musical features of speech, the co-development of musical and linguistic abilities, and shared developmental disorders, supports the view that music and language are deeply entangled in the infant brain and modularity emerges over the course of development. This early entanglement of music and language is crucial to the cultural transmission of language and children’s ability to learn any of the world’s tongues.
The human brain continues to mature throughout childhood, making our species particularly susceptible to experience. Given the diversity of music and language around the globe, how these are acquired during childhood is revealing about the feedback loop between our biological predispositions and exposure. Evidence suggests that children begin as generalists and become specialists, with music and language deeply entangled in infancy and modularity emerging over time. In addition, development proceeds along parallel tracks, with comparable cognitive milestones. Although there is a tendency to celebrate our precociousness, it may be that the opposite is true: our unfledged entry into the world affords us the extended time necessary to internalize these products of culture. The present chapter begins by exploring the variety of music and languages around the world. It then tracks developmental milestones from birth throughout childhood, examines linked developmental disorders, and closes with a discussion of open questions and future directions.
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