Newborn babies, such as this boy seen in a file photo, are born with accent-like intonations—crying in roughly the "melodies" of their mother tongues -- according to a November 2009 study. [Photograph by Jason Edwards, NGS]
Posted on 12/04/2009 6:46:16 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Newborn babies start learning language in the womb -- and are born with what you might call accents, a new study of crying babies says. That fetuses hear and become accustomed to language is nothing new. Several studies have shown that, when exposed to different languages shortly after birth, a baby will typically indicate a preference for the language closest to the one he or she would've heard during gestation... For the new study, a team led by Kathleen Wermke at the Center for Prespeech Development and Developmental Disorders at Würzburg University in Germany studied the cry "melodies" of 60 healthy newborns -- 30 French and 30 German... The melodies of the newborn babies' cries followed the same intonations of the languages the babies had heard in the womb. The French babies' cries, for example, tended to end on a rising note... "Further analysis of human infants' crying and other utterances," she said, "may contribute to resolving the enigma as to how language may have emerged in early [human ancestors]."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
Newborn babies, such as this boy seen in a file photo, are born with accent-like intonations—crying in roughly the "melodies" of their mother tongues -- according to a November 2009 study. [Photograph by Jason Edwards, NGS]
|
|
|||
Gods |
To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
He looks like he is speaking German...
Ich bin ein Bawlinner
How can an “unviable tissue mass” learn language? /sarc (of course)
:o)
You win the prize!
How much ‘Grant’ money did this study cost?
Some of it came from Lee.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
