Linguistics Discussion 2013 and Beyond discussion

This thread is for the exploration and discussion of the connection between Music and Language.


Suggested reading include:
Music, Language, and the Brain

Music, the Brain and Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination

This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession

I have to say...with out reading any of these suggestions...that I know...firsthand...that language and music are related....being a singer, and knowing multiple languages....:)

Catherine wrote: "I have to say...with out reading any of these suggestions...that I know...firsthand...that language and music are related....being a singer, and knowing multiple languages....:)"

Yeah, it's interesting. It seems that people with a musical background are more likely to excel in foreign language classes, and more likely to speak that foreign language with a minimal accent.

In Dr. Patel's book listed above, they performed brain scans on people playing an instrument and speaking a foreign language, and the amount of neural overlap they found was astonishing. It's as though playing in an orchestra is the neurological equivalent of talking to someone in a non-native language.

That's interesting. I know there's a correlation between music and math, but not music and language. My daughter, who played piano since three and has moved to viola and guitar, was considered linguistically talented by her French and Chinese teacher. Funny, but her former Chinese teacher is also a piano teacher.

All translators know that every language has a particular "musicality".

David wrote: "All translators know that every language has a particular "musicality"."

Don't I know it with the Asian languages.

Aloha wrote: "David wrote: "All translators know that every language has a particular "musicality"."

Don't I know it with the Asian languages."

Yeah, I would guess a musical background particularly helps in learning those tonal languages like Cantonese and Mandarin. I'll have to check and see if there has been any specific studies done regarding that.

"Ain't nobody got time for that!"

yeah....music is definitely linked to language(as well as math)....music is a language in and of itself....no transaltion needed....just feel the rhythm "speaking" to you

well...I learnt French first....Italian came relatively easy after that..but then a lot of classical/opera is in Italian...so even with out French... I think it would have come easily. I really want to learn Hindi and perhaps Japanese and Cantonese or Mandarin

This makes me think of singers who sing in other languages, but don't actually know them. I wonder if gaining experience singing in another language helps once you actually try and learn to speak the language.

I feel like I've met people whose English language skills seem to have come from listening to a lot of English language music.