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Music, Math, and Language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Tyrion101 Senior Member United States Joined 3707 days ago 153 posts - 174 votes  Speaks: French | Message 1 of 16 24 March 2014 at 7:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would like to think that the three are related, as they all have grammar, spelling, and punctuation and what not. Am I way off base here?
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| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4501 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 2 of 16 24 March 2014 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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All have things in common and some sort of regularity in the way they are constructed,
but mathematics is so different in its application that it really doesn't make sense to put it in the same context as language and music. For my part, I enjoy all three. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6376 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 3 of 16 24 March 2014 at 8:27pm | IP Logged | ||
Tell that to this guy. The ancient Greeks considered music to be a subgenre of mathematics, didn't they? And mathematics is itself a language, if not in the same way as, say, Ukrainian is. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| alang Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7015 days ago 563 posts - 757 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 4 of 16 24 March 2014 at 8:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I believe all three help one another. Mathematics and languages are considered left
side of the brain activities. Music the right side. Put them together and more synergism occurs. At one time I thought each topic were totally separate and no connection to each other. There was an Ecuadorian math teacher in California named Jaimie Escalante, that emphasized the importance of the subject. An example if a student felt, that math was not important for a music career, he said something about counting beats. A person still needs math. It was an old video, and my library no longer has it, but the title was "Math ... Who Needs It?!" Multiple people from different fields encouraged the study of math. Music and languages, well I think enough forum members know those two definitely strengthen one another. It also helps the more stimulated your mind is with gaining strong discipline, then the more a person can achieve. Wikipedia articles references. Temporal dynamics Music and math Language of math Edited by alang on 25 March 2014 at 2:40am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4102 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 5 of 16 25 March 2014 at 12:28am | IP Logged | ||
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There is a shared capacity of discrete infinity in natural language and the natural
numbers. The evolution of this may be the landmark moment in human cognition which created language and potential mathematical "discoveries" in tandem. Regarding music, Stephen Pinker has written about its potential connection to the resonant frequencies in human language. For the link between music, mathematics and language (at least, formal languages), Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter is required reading, too. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4084 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 6 of 16 25 March 2014 at 1:48am | IP Logged | ||
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I have a mathematics degree, and I am unsure if mathematics has actual grammar. We have
symbols like !=, =/=, for negation, +, -, -V- for "for every", etc., but in terms of verb tense, noun gender, or noun case I see no exact analogy. Regarding word order, the BOMDAS for BOMDAS/Order of Operations, but this is to achieve a correct value, which remains independent of case, gender, verb tense, verb mood, SOV/OVS/SVO order, etc. One surely cannot mix up the BOMDAS order of operations because one feels like doing so, or to create emphasis like in some languages. Perhaps what you mean is that mathematics can be a type of language like computer programming. I remember even having to sit a term-long module for mathematical symbols and their usage, but it was not precisely like a language learning class. When one reads out mathematical symbols in words, for example in a lecture, the words would be translated back into the language wherein the interlocutor speaks, not into a universal "mathematical" language. I sat Complex Analysis and Modern Algebra, two modules that were a serious pain and whose symbols were like reading in a different language because there were so many thereof, but I definitely would not class maths as a language just due to this experience. Regarding spelling and punctuation, I have been told various times that mathematicians have poor spelling and punctuation, but as far as I know, I commit few errors in those fields despite not having a humanities degree. Rather than maths as a language, I find chess to be a language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wi ki/Algebraic_notation_(chess) Edited by 1e4e6 on 25 March 2014 at 2:02am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| soclydeza85 Senior Member United States Joined 3701 days ago 357 posts - 502 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 7 of 16 25 March 2014 at 1:57am | IP Logged | ||
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You managed to fit my top three favorite topics of study into one thread title! Absolutely, I definitely see a connection between the three and I've thought about this on more than one occasion. All three are, or can be, highly analytical (reguarding the theory aspect of music) and require certain structure to operate correctly/coherently (though this structure in music is highly subjective, which makes it more of an art). All three incorporate aspects of both the left and right side of the brain; music is obvious why, language can be analytical but it can also be poetic, and though most consider math to be strictly left-brain it is when mathematicians or scientists really know how to balance between both sides that they come up with abstract theories (also mathematical modeling can require a bit of creativity on ones part). It sounds funny and I can't really explain it, but there are times when I've looked at music and times during my language study (grammar/declention mainly) that I feel the same parts of my brain working that are required for when I'm doing math. When I was studying German cases and sentence structure I viewed it kind of like a multivariable equation in which you change one or more of the variables then you change the outcome of the equation (meaning of the sentence).
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6376 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 8 of 16 25 March 2014 at 5:52am | IP Logged | ||
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Of course maths has grammar! Mandarin doesn't have verb tenses, moods, noun classes or genders, but it still has grammar. Mathematics has grammar because not all formulations are valid. You cannot write "5+*", because the '+' operator needs to have a quantity on either side. It cannot operate on other operators. The order of operations is another case of grammar, and you can certainly use it to emphasise different things. 5x+5 is the same as 5(x+1), but the latter emphasises the (x+1) factor.
So, sure, mathematics doesn't function exactly as a natural spoken language, but it certainly has grammar. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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