Is Music a Language, as Stevie Wonder Sang?

是否像史提夫·汪达所唱的那样，音乐也是一门语言？

One of the liveliest debates in linguistics is over whether all languages share fundamental properties. If so, perhaps language is a universal feature of evolution. To find out, scholars have looked to other universal features, and one in particular: no society on Earth lacks music. The comparison illuminates what is special about both.

语言学中最具争议的一个话题就是，是否所有语言都具有共同的基本特性。如果真的如此，那么语言或许是人类进化过程中的普遍特征。为了找到答案，学者们将目光投向了人类进化过程中所存在的其他普遍特征上，尤其有一点引起了学者们的注意：音乐同样普遍存在于世界的每一个角落。通过比较方能阐明两者之间的特别之处。

Music and language seem intimately linked, but how? Did language start with song, as Darwin believed? Or is music “auditory cheesecake” that developed from language and other useful faculties, as Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist, has said? Is music itself a language, as Stevie Wonder intoned? Might the two be fundamentally the same?

音乐和语言似乎是密不可分的，但它们之间究竟存在着怎样的关联？是否就像达尔文所认为的那样，语言是由音乐发展而来？亦或像哈佛大学心理学家史蒂芬·平克所说的那样，音乐是由语言及其他能力发展而来的“听觉盛宴”？音乐本身是一门语言吗？两者从本质上来说是否具有一致性？

Some similarities are obvious. Both can utilise the unique human vocal tract. Both have a kind of beat. Both can express emotion. Both can be either carefully composed or spontaneously improvised. And both are highly social. Although the origin of music is unclear, it seems likely to have involved celebration, communal worship or martial inspiration and co-ordination.

音乐和语言的相似之处显而易见。两者都依靠人类独特的声道、都具有节奏感、都能用来表达情感、都可精心创作或即兴发挥、都呈现高度的社会化。虽然音乐的起源仍然是个谜，但它的由来似乎与庆典、集体礼拜、士气鼓舞以及排兵布阵有关。

At a structural level the parallels are striking, too. With a finite set of notes or words, and a finite set of rules, an inexhaustible variety of novel melodies or sentences can be created. This “discrete infinity” is often said to be the hallmark of human language. Animal communication, by contrast, is only able to convey a limited number of thoughts (the location of a source of food, for example, or the presence of a predator).

两者在结构方面也同样非常相似。只需有限的音符或词汇，加之有限的规则或语法，就能创造出无穷无尽的新奇旋律与妙语。这种“离散无限性”的特点常常被看作是人类语言的标志。相比之下，动物之间的交流则仅能传达有限的信息（比如交流猎物的位置，或提醒捕食者的到来）。

Aniruddh Patel of Tufts University has argued that music and language, rather than being essentially the same, rely on the same bit of the brain. In an experiment he presented his subjects with a sentence that contained a grammatical trick (“The scientist confirmed the hypothesis was being studied in his lab”), revealing one word at a time. The subjects were to press a button for each word at their own pace. Many paused at the unexpected “was”. “The scientist confirmed the hypothesis” seemed a complete sentence.

塔夫斯大学的阿尼鲁德·帕特尔认为，音乐和语言在本质上并不相同，只不过调用的大脑部位相同。为此他做了一项实验，他向受试者展示了一个包含语法技巧的句子（The scientist confirmed the hypothesis was being studied in his lab），但每次只显示一个单词。受试者按照自己的节奏在每个单词出现时按下按钮。许多人在was突然出现时停顿了一下。因为The scientist confirmed the hypothesis似乎已经是一个完整的句子了。

They also heard music as they performed this exercise. Some were treated to a new chord in a pleasing progression with every word that was revealed. Others heard a jarring chord at the moment they reached the trick word “was”. Both groups slowed down – but those given the discordant notes did so much more. Mr Patel hypothesises that this is because sentence structure, and the structure of the harmony, draw on shared, limited resources in the brain.

他们在参与这项实验的过程中还会听到音乐。其中一部分人在整个实验过程都伴以舒缓愉悦的音乐。而另一部分人则会在暗藏玄机的was出现时突然听到刺耳的音乐。两组参与者都会在was出现时停顿一下，但听到刺耳音乐的人停顿的时间更久。帕特尔认为，这是因为加工句子或音乐所占用的是大脑同一块区域的有限资源。

For all the overlap, there are big differences. Both music and language can make you feel and even think, but only language is truly propositional. A quip attributed to Bertrand Russell – “no matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest” – might be adapted for music. Language can express contingencies, pose counterfactuals and talk about the future. Music’s nuances are of a different order.

虽然两者确有相似之处，但也大有不同。音乐和语言都能让你为之触动甚至引人思索，但只有语言才能真正地表达观点。伯特兰·罗素曾经说过一句名言：“一只狗叫得再动听，它都无法告诉你，它的父母虽然穷但很诚实。”这句话很适合用来形容音乐。语言可以用来表达偶发事件、提出反设事实，还能展望未来。音乐的精妙所在则截然不同。

Another stark contrast lies in the range of human aptitude for each ability. Nearly all children produce complex sentences by the age of three and become fluent speakers just a few years after that. As adults, they create striking and novel utterances every day. Conversely, only a minority of adults are talented musicians; even fewer are skilled composers of new, hitherto unheard works.

两者之间的另一个鲜明对比在于，人类掌握这两种能力的天赋不同。几乎所有的三岁小孩都能说出复杂的语句，再过几年就能流利地与人交流。而成年人更是能够出口成章、妙语连珠。反之，天赋异禀的音乐家却很少见，而能够创作出新颖绝伦乐曲的作曲家更是少之又少。

Victor Wooten, a bass player and music teacher, has an explanation for that disparity. Children, he points out, learn to talk by being constantly surrounded by linguistic virtuosos – fluent older speakers who, in musical parlance, are “jamming” with the novices almost from birth. Their fumbling efforts are encouraged. On the other hand, students of music often keep company with other beginners, and are stopped every time they make a mistake.

贝斯手兼音乐教师维克多·伍顿就这一差异进行了解释。他指出，孩子们自打一出生就在语言大师（那些能够流利交谈的年长者）的熏陶下不断地学习语言，用音乐术语来说，这些人自打一出生起就在和语言大师“即兴合奏”。人们往往会对牙牙学语的孩子加以鼓励。反之，音乐生通常是和其他初学者一起学习，一旦犯错便会受到老师的严厉斥责。

It is not that simple, reckons Jay Keyser, an emeritus professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a jazz trombonist. For him, music is not like spoken prose, which almost everyone can do proficiently, but instead resembles a specific, rhythmic form of language: poetry. And, he says, “most human beings are bad at poetry.” The number of grammatical sentences is vast. But the number that are fit for verse, in terms of both meaning and prosody, is much smaller. Finding those is hard – like composing music, or improvising jazz.

麻省理工学院语言学荣誉退休教授、爵士长号手杰伊·凯瑟认为，事情或许并没那么简单。在他看来，音乐不同于几乎人人都能张口就来的口语化散文，它更像是一种特定、有节奏的语言形式：诗歌。他还说：“大多数人都不擅长诗歌创作。”合乎语法规则的句子不胜枚举。但既具有含义、又具有韵律的诗歌却少之又少。因此，诗歌的创作就好比作曲或即兴说唱一样很难。

On Mr Keyser’s plausible view, using ordinary language is a less rarefied talent than making music. But while it may not instil wonder and joy, as music can, it is still a miracle – just an everyday one.

在凯瑟看来，日常语言交流不比创作音乐那般需要天赋。虽然语言不像音乐那样能给人带来震撼与快乐，但语言的诞生仍然是个奇迹——只不过人们已经习以为常了。

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