In the course of my miscellaneous musical reading, I found an article by the organist and composer Friedrich (or, in England, Frederic) Weber, “On Melody in Speech,” in the Feb. 1887 issue of Longman’s Magazine (pp. 399-410). Weber notated the pitches and rhythms of the cries of several animals (dogs, birds, donkeys), and added some transcriptions of human speech. I don’t think his notations are particularly accurate, but I do like their wayward tunes and irregular rhythms, so I harmonized them for string quartet.
