Previous studies have shown that babies can recognize the melody of their parents’ native language voices while in womb. However, the present study discovers that they can even mimic those melodies within the first week of life.
"Each language is characterized by very specific musical elements in the form of its prosody, that is, its intonation system and constituent rhythm," said Kathleen Wermke, co-author of the study and a researcher at the Center for Pre-speech Development and Developmental Disorders, at the University of Wurzburg in Germany.
"Based on prosody alone, human adults and even newborns are able to distinguish different languages," she said.
Study details
A team led by Wermke recorded and analyzed the cries of 60 healthy infants when they were just 3 to 5 days old. The researchers did not stimulate the babies’ cries; they occurred naturally.
Of these, half the babies were born into French families and the other half were born to German families.
A rising melody contour typical to French accent was noted in the cries of the French babies. On the other hand, German babies cried with a falling melody contour, from high to low, much like the emphasis Germans put while speaking.
The researchers concluded that, despite not having a matured vocal tract, babies are "capable of producing different cry melodies", because it just requires a co-ordination between muscles in the vocal tract and controlled breathing. This is the reason babies’ crying patterns were found to be similar to the native languages of their parents.
"The capacity to learn language is inborn, and it's shaped by what [infants] hear in the environment," Wermke said.
"Even before birth, the differences between languages are being heard, the babies are hearing the different melodic patterns, and they are born with the pattern that is more closely related to the melodic pattern they have heard in the language around them," she added.
Expert advice for parents
The parents should continue doing what they do, but be very careful about the newborn’s environment.
"Be aware of the environment you're placing that infant in, whether it's about stress or yelling," said Briggs.
"Although they can't tell us what they're learning and what they remember and taking in at this moment, we know that it really is getting lodged in their brain." Dr. Rahil Briggs, a child psychologistwho is a director of the Healthy Steps Program at Montefiore Medical Center in New York.
The findings of the study are published in the journal Current Biology.
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