Crying with an accent

You might think that all newborns sound the same when they cry. Yet a recent study suggests that they pick up speech patterns in the womb and mimic these patterns when they cry. In other words, newborn babies cry in their mother tongue.

The researchers behind the study recorded the cries of French and German newborns. The cries of the French newborns rose in pitch while those of the German newborns fell in pitch. These pitch patterns match those of spoken French and German. Babies hear these patterns in the womb and imitate them to bond with their mothers. Read more about the study's findings in Babies cry in mother tongue (www).