I just happened upon the speculation about how human bipedalism (obligatory, habitual, and distinctive among our closest relatives) may have contributed to the origins of language and music. The research was presently published by
Larsen & Falk
Direct Effects of Bipedalism
Current Anthropology vol. 66 No. 2 pp. 257-278 April 2025
I only have access to the abstract:
journals.chicago.edu/doi/10.1086/734554
and some other online reports on the ideas presented. My understanding is that they are saying that the appearance of feet and the rest adapted to human terrestrial bipedalism had these sorts of effects
Infants were less able to cling to their mothers, and the mothers would bond with the infant by speaking “motherese”.
Bipedal walking is more rhythmic than the sort of way that other primates go.
It makes me think, if this non-scientist may be excused, that basic human language would be poetry.
Sorry, I made a mistake I the address of the article. You can reach the abstract at
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/734554
Anyway, I wanted t point out that they are suggesting biological evolution by natural selection of what many think of as in the domain of consciousness: music and language. I was suggesting poetic language (as the first human language) - I haven’t seen the whole article, but I wonder about accounting for the noun-verb distinction, which may be a universal of natural human language.