Newborn Babies Cry In Native Tongue

From their very first days, the cries of newborns already bear the mark of the language their parents speak, scientists now find. French newborns tend to cry with rising melody patterns, slowly increasing in pitch from the beginning to the end, whereas German newborns seem to prefer falling melody patterns, findings that are both consistent with differences between the languages.

Research by medical anthropologists at the University of Würzburg in Germany found that infants begin picking up elements of language in the womb, long before their first babble or coo.

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