Babies cry in their native language
Posted by Filed under Observations
I was catching up on some of the Dr Karl podcasts on the ABC the other day (I love that man), and he mentioned something about babies crying in their native language.
A smallish study was done with babies born into French and German families, and it was found that the babies’ cry melodies matched up with the intonations found in their parents’ languages, even from the very early days. French babies have a rising cry melody, and German babies tend to cry with a falling tone, both of which match up with characteristics from their mother tongue.
Apparently babies can distinguish voices in the last three months in the womb, and matching their cries to their parents’ voices is a way to communicate and increase bonding with their mothers. The parents may not even notice (didn’t you always think that all babies crying sounded the same?), but I wonder if parents would notice the difference between babies ‘speaking’ their own language, and a foreign one.