Bruce Richman

Abstract

Given that the most basic function in any spoken language must be the ability

of speakers to repeat utterances in the same way, exactly and precisely, and given

that human language probably began with rich, diverse, long sequences from

which meaningful utterances were selected (beginning with impoverished, short

utterances begs the question about what natural selection had to work with—

natural selection selects, but not from nothing!), a basic problem for language

origins is how sequences became fixed for entire communities, so that everyone

could repeat them exactly. Music making, in all human communities, is also based

on the ability to repeat sequences exactly. I suggest that the original process of

fixing sequences into recognizable, repeatable, and significant definite some-

things by entire communities was accomplished by speech and music making in

exactly the same way and by the same means. In other words, in the beginning,

speech and music making were one and the same: they were collective, real-time

repetitions of formulaic sequences.

As long as I have been studying gelada monkey “friendly” sounds (which

has been on and off since 1969), they have struck me as being astound-

ingly like human conversation in their passion and complexity. They

function as a kind of vocal grooming, allowing pairs of geladas to estab-

lish temporary, exclusive social bonds with each other. But that is also

the main function of most of present-day human conversational speech

(see Dunbar 1996). Also, the production units of friendly series

sequences are similar in overall form and vocal detail to human vocal

formulas (Richman 1996). People and gelada monkeys seem to have a

remarkably similar relationship to their vocalizing: they both desperately

need to establish continuing vocal relationships with a variety of con-

specifics, and they both seem to spend huge amounts of emotional and

vocal energy engaging in special kinds of friendly vocalizing to achieve

these ends.

Also, for people and geladas, all their constant friendly vocalizing,

which for both species is rich in vocal pattern variety, succeeds like

social grooming in setting up minute-to-minute relationships despite

(and because) of all the emotional and social conflicts they bring to each

encounter. Extensive friendly vocalizing relaxes and dispels some of the

tensions for participants in these conflict-filled encounters, and allows

both people and geladas to continue the system of exclusive (almost

jealous) relationships so crucial to their societies, despite the normal

background of conflicts engendered by their intense group lives.

In both cases, friendly vocalizing is produced in units averaging a total

length of about nine or ten syllables, produced at a rate of about five

syllables per second, organized by differentiation of strong and weak

17

How Music Fixed “Nonsense” into Significant Formulas:

On Rhythm, Repetition, and Meaning