Babies 'cry in mother's tongue'
German researchers say babies begin to pick up the nuances of their parents' accents while still in the womb.
The researchers studied the cries of 60 healthy babies born to families speaking French and German.
The French newborns cried with a rising "accent" while the German babies' cries had a falling inflection.
Writing in the journal Current Biology, they say the babies are probably trying to form a bond with their mothers by imitating them.
The findings suggest that unborn babies are influenced by the sound of the first language that penetrates the womb.
Cry melodies
It was already known that foetuses could memorise sounds from the outside world in the last three months of pregnancy and were particularly sensitive to the contour of the melody in both music and human voices. Earlier studies had shown that infants could match vowel sounds presented to them by adult speakers, but only from 12 weeks of age.
Kathleen Wermke from the University of Wurzburg, who led the research, said: "The dramatic finding of this study is that not only are human neonates capable of producing different cry melodies, but they prefer to produce those melody patterns that are typical for the ambient language they have heard during their foetal life.
“Newborns are highly motivated to imitate their mother's behaviour in order to attract her and hence to foster bonding” Kathleen Wermke, University of Wurzburg
"Contrary to orthodox interpretations, these data support the importance of human infants' crying for seeding language development."
Dr Wermke's team recorded and analysed the cries of 60 healthy newborns when they were three to five days old.
Their analysis revealed clear differences in the shape of the infants' cry melodies that corresponded to their mother tongue.
They say the babies need only well-co-ordinated respiratory-laryngeal systems to imitate melody contours and not the vocal control that develops later.
Dr Wermke said: "Newborns are highly motivated to imitate their mother's behaviour in order to attract her and hence to foster bonding.
"Because melody contour may be the only aspect of their mother's speech that newborns are able to imitate, this might explain why we found melody contour imitation at that early age."
Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/8346058.stm
Published: 2009/11/06 10:38:56 GMT
© BBC MMIX
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Volunteers required to help out at +9 Charity Shops
The +9 Charity Shops in Msida and B'Kara fund the HOPE Crisis Pregnancy Support service which over the past couple of years has supported many women, 21 babies born to date, and many others on the way.
Amongst its services, HOPE offers free information and support to pregnant women in crisis throughout the pregnancy and beyond, for as long as is necessary .
The +9 Charity shops also help fund PAIS, the Pro-Life Awareness in Schools programme , which annually equips teachers and students in local schools with pro-life learning and resources.
Gift of Life also offers help to women who may need support as a result of abortion.
The Gift of Life foundation is currently asking for help by pro-life individuals who are ready to commit to volunteering a minimum of one morning or afternoon of their time per week (shop hours) to help out in the Charity shops.
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We are generally nine months older than what we claim to be on our birthday. Use the +9 symbol to draw awareness to this. Today everyone in Malta knows what +9 means .It is now being used in other parts of globe also. It is a simple message that screams through all the semantics and lost values. Go here to view a +9 advert in Maltese, as seen on National TV in a recent campaign in Malta.
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