Songs are slower and higher than speech worldwide
Around the world, people sing in a higher pitch than they speak. The tempo of singing is also slower than that of spoken language in all cultures, as a study published in the journal *Science Advances* shows.
Under the direction of Yuto Ozaki from Keio University (Japan), 75 scholars from around the world have created traditional, sung songs, the recited lyrics of these songs as well as spoken descriptions of the songs and instrumental versions of the melodies. recorded, compiled and analyzed. In addition, there were studies based on other song recordings from different parts of the world and audio recordings of people speaking in 16 languages.
Language and music have become established in all cultures around the world - presumably a very, very long time ago. This has long led researchers to speculate that the two may not have developed independently of each other in terms of evolutionary history and that both "modes" together also fulfill evolutionary functions.
"Universal commonality"
There is also speculation as to whether, why and when these two forms of communication could have developed from a possible common ancestor. In any case, what is missing is a truly coherent definition of the difference between spoken language and a "song" as well as scientific analyses of the fundamental acoustic similarities and differences across different cultures, the researchers write in their paper.
The new findings were largely consistent with findings from similar studies, which, however, largely only dealt with English or other Indo-European languages, and the assumptions of the research team prior to the evaluation. Despite the many exceptions found, the new study provides clear indications of "statistically universal" similarities and differences between speech and song in general across all the language groups studied. (SDA)
