Bernard Chasan wrote:

>This is an important point.  This discussion reminds me of the discussion
>in physics concerning a Theory of Everything.  Such a theory does not
>yet exist in physics, and not everybody agrees that its achievement is a
>sensible goal.  Music has many meanings and many possible origins.  It is
>possible to speculate (nothing more) that music has its roots in speech,
>and hence in language, but as it evolved it did not keep the grammar.
>Our brains presumably did not evolve to make music, tell stories, paint
>paintings, or do mathematics, but these things get done, fulfilling some
>deep human need.

Music predates language, this much is definitively provable.  One might
speculate instead that language has its roots in music - since many of the
mechanisms used to parse sound so that it may be understood as language are
in common with those used to parse music.

Stirling Newberry
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