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376children are much ahead of their Japanese counterparts in the acquisition of vocabulary.This difference has its social background: “...American mothers are inclined to verballylabel the parts of toys their children play with; at 19 months, American babies havenearly twice the vocabulary of their Japanese counterparts” (Shweder, 1993:59). As forthe enigmatic and totally neglected differences in the age of acquisition of a phonologicalsystem, I think this could be the result of innate differences between the East Asian andEuropean populations. A study of other East Asian and African populations could becrucial in this context.From Polyphony to Monophony:Belated Appendix to the “Case Studies #2 and #3”The disappearance of the tradition of vocal polyphony, suggested in theconclusions of the case studies #2 and #3 was extremely long, multi-century and multimillenniaprocess, no question about that. This process started after the articulated speechentered human evolution and transformed not only the supralaryngeal tract, thebasicranium, and human facial details, but affected the whole set of social relationshipsand the efficiency of human communication. Speech must have been a main reasonbehind marginalization of pitch communication and gradual decline of human musicalabilities. This section of the book discusses the dynamics of the gradual disappearanceof the vocal polyphonic tradition. Despite the hypothetical nature of this reconstructionit can be thought-stimulating.• Starting point is the archaic Homo sapiens society, where the speech has not yetbeen established as a leading medium of human language (this population is also knownas Homo erectus). Plenty of social activities in this society are based on singing:everyday communication, ritual singing, establishment and maintaining social bonds,avoiding conflicts, defending themselves from predators and obtaining food. Everyoneparticipates in musical activities and there is no division of society on the performers andthe listeners. Struggle for survival favors individuals with a good musical ear, good soundproduction and good sense of rhythm. Most (or even all) members of the society haveperfect pitch.• Articulated speech enters human social life as a much more efficient medium oflanguage. More elaborate ideas are communicated through the new medium (speech).Singing is marginalized from several of its important functions – everydaycommunication (almost completely), establishing and maintaining social bonds andavoiding conflicts (partially). Ritual singing, and possibly defensive and food-obtainingfunctions are maintained. Since the emergence of articulated speech struggle for survivalwithin human groups favors individuals with good articulation. Musical ear and goodsound production starts to decline. Number of individuals with perfect pitch is declining.Members of human societies are communicating via articulated speech, although the rateof speech pathologies (like stuttering) is very high.