Definition
Musical protolanguage refers to a hypothetical intermediary stage in the evolution of language, intervening between a non-linguistic stage and the possession of true language. Musical protolanguage at that stage consisted of non-referential song and served as the common ancestor of both language and music.
Introduction
Theories of language evolution often invoke a hypothetical protolanguage stage, a stage that serves as a precursor and as a scaffold for the evolution of modern language. The idea of such an intervening stage, and the notion that this protolanguage was akin to song and is the common ancestor of both music and language, can be traced back to Darwin. In The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (Darwin, 1875), Darwin considers the evolution of language and claims that “[…] primeval man, or rather some early progenitor of man, probably first used his voice in producing true...
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Shintel, H. (2019). Musical Protolanguage. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2856-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2856-1
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