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1.5.5 Baby Talk, or "Motherese"
According to the mother-infant communication hypothesis of the distinguished scholar Ellen Dissanayake, selective pressure gave rise to music as a vocal and rhythmic communication and coordination system between mothers and pre-lingual infants. This musical baby talk, or "motherese," enabled better maternal care over a longer period of time, and better survival rates of infants into childhood and adulthood.
Pre-lingual infants have and use musical abilities at birth. So do handicapped children and adults born without any capacity to learn language.
Worldwide, mothers vocalize with their infants in a particular, distinctive style of baby talk (called “motherese”). Mothers do not learn motherese culturally—they’re born with it, evidence that selective pressure evolved the brain circuitry to do this.
Baby talk has a number of clearly musical characteristics:
- Melodic (variably pitched)
- Repetitive
- Grouped in phrases of 3 to 4 seconds, like the phrase groupings of poetry and music found in every culture.
As well, mothers communicate with infants via rhythmic, rocking motions, possibly a precursor to dancing. Both vocalization and rocking, rhythmic motions are hallmarks of music as a temporal art.