Showing 6 posts tagged babies

Babies May Pick Up Language Cues In Womb

The distinctive sounds of a newborn’s first cries may be influenced by the mother tongue of its parents.

A new study of over a thousand recorded cries from 30 French newborns and 30 German newborns found differences in the cries’ melody patterns. French cries tended to have a rising melody, while the German cries tended to have a falling melody.

The finding suggests that newborns just a few days old may already be trying to imitate the prevailing intonation patterns of the language they heard while still in the womb.

continue reading…NPR

  • NPR