Global musical diversity is largely independent of linguistic and genetic histories

Passmore, Sam; Wood, Anna; Barbieri, Chiara; Shilton, Dor; Daikoku, Hideo; Atkinson, Quentin D.; Savage, Patrick E.

doi:10.31234/osf.io/pty34

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 71 publications

(119 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The influence of autocorrelation due to historical relationships is somewhat mitigated by using a stratified sample (the SCCS), originally designed to avoid this problem [ 24 ]. More importantly, recent work suggests musical styles are weakly correlated with genetic, linguistic and spatial relationships [ 44 ]. We therefore have good reasons to consider GJB data as suitable for this kind of study, notwithstanding the inherent tradeoffs one must take into account between sample size and quality.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Group singing is globally dominant and associated with social context

Shilton,

Passmore,

Savage

2023

R. Soc. open sci.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Music is an interactive technology associated with religious and communal activities and was suggested to have evolved as a participatory activity supporting social bonding. In post-industrial societies, however, music's communal role was eclipsed by its relatively passive consumption by audiences disconnected from performers. It was suggested that as societies became larger and more differentiated, music became less participatory and more focused on solo singing. Here, we consider the prevalence of group singing and its relationship to social organization through the analysis of two global song corpora: 5776 coded audio recordings from 1024 societies, and 4709 coded ethnographic texts from 60 societies. In both corpora, we find that group singing is more common than solo singing, and that it is more likely in some social contexts (e.g. religious rituals, dance) than in others (e.g. healing, infant care). In contrast, relationships between group singing and social structure (community size or social differentiation) were not consistent within or between corpora. While we cannot exclude the possibility of sampling bias leading to systematic under-sampling of solo singing, our results from two large global corpora of different data types provide support for the interactive nature of music and its complex relationship with sociality.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Group singing is globally dominant and associated with social context

Shilton,

Passmore,

Savage

2023

R. Soc. open sci.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Another study in Corsica had high density linguistic data for the island, but their genetic data was limited to several blood type alleles, so it was difficult to draw conclusions about gene-language covariation on the island (Calafell et al, 1996). These sorts of studies have become more practical as researchers have assembled datasets that digitize cultural information and linguistic relationships on a global scale (Kirby et al, 2016;Passmore et al, 2023). The limits of previous studies were due, in part, to the limited availability of quantitative data describing cultural variation and the low spatial resolution of available genetic data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fine‐scale cultural variation reinforces genetic structure in England

Pichkar

Creanza

2023

American Journal of Biological Anthropology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objectives: Genes and languages both contain signatures of human evolution, population movement, and demographic history. Cultural traits like language are transmitted by interactions between people, and these traits influence how people interact. In particular, if groups of people differentiate each other based on some qualities of their cultures, and if these qualities are passed to the next generation, then this differentiation can result in barriers to gene flow. Previous work finds such barriers to gene flow between groups that speak different languages, and we explore this phenomenon further: can more subtle cultural differences also produce genetic structure in a population? We focus on whether subtle, dialect-level linguistic differences in England have influenced genetic population structure, likely by affecting mating preferences. Materials and Methods:We analyze spatially dense linguistic and genetic data-both of which independently contain spatially structured variation in England-to examine whether the cultural differences represented by variation in English phonology colocalize with higher genetic rates of change.Results: We find that genetic variation and dialect markers have similar spatial distributions on a country-wide scale, and that throughout England, linguistic boundaries colocalize with the boundaries of genetic clusters found using fineSTRUCTURE.Discussion: This gene-language covariation, in the absence of geographic barriers that could coordinate cultural and genetic differentiation, suggests that similar social forces influenced both dialect boundaries and the genetic population structure of England.

show abstract

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report

Ozaki,

Tierney,

Pfordresher

et al. 2024

Sci. Adv.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Both music and language are found in all known human societies, yet no studies have compared similarities and differences between song, speech, and instrumental music on a global scale. In this Registered Report, we analyzed two global datasets: (i) 300 annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of traditional songs, recited lyrics, conversational speech, and instrumental melodies from our 75 coauthors speaking 55 languages; and (ii) 418 previously published adult-directed song and speech recordings from 209 individuals speaking 16 languages. Of our six preregistered predictions, five were strongly supported: Relative to speech, songs use (i) higher pitch, (ii) slower temporal rate, and (iii) more stable pitches, while both songs and speech used similar (iv) pitch interval size and (v) timbral brightness. Exploratory analyses suggest that features vary along a “musi-linguistic” continuum when including instrumental melodies and recited lyrics. Our study provides strong empirical evidence of cross-cultural regularities in music and speech.

show abstract

Global musical diversity is largely independent of linguistic and genetic histories

Cited by 3 publications

References 71 publications

Group singing is globally dominant and associated with social context

Group singing is globally dominant and associated with social context

Fine‐scale cultural variation reinforces genetic structure in England

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About