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Babies Begin Learning Language In the Womb
Hugh Pickens writes "Science Daily reports findings from a new study which suggest that infants begin picking up elements of what will be their first language in the womb, long before their first babble or coo, and are able to memorize sounds from the external world by the last trimester of pregnancy, with a particular sensitivity to melody contour in both music and language. Newborns prefer their mother's voice over other voices and perceive the emotional content of messages conveyed via intonation contours in maternal speech (a.k.a. 'motherese'). '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 fetal life, within the last trimester of gestation,' said Kathleen Wermke of the University of Würzburg in Germany. Wermke's team recorded and analyzed the cries of 60 healthy newborns, 30 born into French-speaking families and 30 born into German-speaking families, when they were three to five days old. The recordings of 2,500 cries as mothers changed babies' diapers, readied babies for feeding or otherwise interacted with the youngsters show an extremely early impact of native language, with analysis revealing clear differences in the shape of the newborns' cry melodies, based on their mother tongue."
How do we know that genetics didn't play a role in the formation of their vocal cords, changing the way they utter their first cry?
Surely teaching languages like French and German to poor, defenseless, not even yet born babies breaks some law.
I'm glad we have scientific evidence to back it up, but did anyone believe this wasn't the case? Is anybody surprised by these findings?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Discussed here by someone who actually knows about this stuff:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1869
Aberrations have appeared in my destiny prognostication engine!
When is it human? When is it a person? How early is "abortion" ok?
Hate to be "off topic", but that line above really sparked the question.
I thought this was a well-established fact -- I remember being taught this in one of my psych classes.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
The pro-abortion crowd isn’t going to like this. The Science Daily better prepare themselves for personal attacks. If you’re a scientist anyways, that shouldn’t matter IMHO. Knowledge is knowledge.
I would think that nerds see that eating meat is just like abortion.
Does that mean the girls who "talk like THIS," ending every sentence or phrase on a higher note like they're asking a QUESTION, are going to breed more people who sound like dipshits right out of the womb? Credit due Stewie for defining this behaviour.
I wonder what this would imply for infants developed in artificial wombs, with no physical contact with another human until after the moment of "birth" (as in Huxley's Brave New World). How would it affect the child's linguistic development and psychology?
I remember when my daughter was born. She was 9 weeks early, so she spent several weeks in the neonatal ICU. What was interesting (and maybe somewhat relevant) is that quite often when my wife spoke, our daughter would seem to turn her head towards the sound. My voice didn't seem to have the same effect, nor did the voices of the medical staff.
The nurses at the hospital thought it was "cute" and didn't seem all that surprised - so I guess I am rather surprised this stuff is apparently new info and not settled science.
#DeleteChrome
Blame the victim.
When homosexual homeless men become bored they begin writing. It's babylonian. It does not even matter what they write about. When homosexual homeless men become bored they begin writing.
Makes sense. Even without an ear, the baby is basically living in a giant fluid filled sac connected only a couple feet away from the source of the noise. A person's body is basically one giant ear (hence why you can hear something you whisper or a bone in your foot crack when you stretch despite the fact no one around you can hear it).
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Ability of a fetus to learn in the womb has been part of Hindu mythology for a loooooong time.
Check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhimanyu
Hindus have strict restricts on pregnant women because of this. Of course not everyone follows these, but it is generally the case to keep pregnant women in a pleasant and positive environment..
It is good to see that this has been scientifically validated.
This begs the question how to teach an infant the basics of Java, Perl, C# or other language... Should you start with syntax or semantics and how would you teach either?
Which language would you teach an infant, I guess I would go for Assembly, that way it'd garner a greater insight into the workings of.. hmm maybe I misinterpreted something here.
Troll? Yes.
But - There is a certain poetic rhythm to the post.
It's sad when a potential artist turns to the dark side.
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
Not only is Kathleen Wermke a hot babe goddess, but speaking of the University of Wurzburg, has anyone ever tried making a pancake batch or waffle batch using Wurzburger Dark beer?
Really makes for a great breakfast!!!!!!
You're going to have to demonstrate that "to save the life of the mother" is equivalent to "i can't live with a child"
How about "I'm so poor that if I feed a child, I starve to death"?
The chosen terminology by each group is pro-life and pro-choice. Respect it.
Do "pro-choice" platforms take into account the father's choice or the child's choice?
No surprise here.
I thought there was no more Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia existed until June 2006, when Montenegro declared independence. (From 2003 to 2006 it was called "Serbia and Montenegro", but it was still the same Yugoslav state established in 1992.) It may be the case that the law hasn't changed noticeably in the former Yugoslavia since then.
If we start calling them "babies," then we won't be able to murder them by the millions, guiltlessly.
C'mon, people, get a clue...
Summary of why the reporting on this story is mostly bogus here:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1869
Would someone please explain to me what this has has to do with abortion (currently tagged)?
And yes, I consider having sex consenting to become pregnant. You know damn well it can happen, if it would be a problem, keep your damn legs shut.
And yes, I consider driving on the highway consenting to be maimed and crippled for life, or killed. You know damn well it can happen, if it would be a problem, keep your damn car off the highway.
Too easy.
Don't take it personally, but I'm not going to read your pithy response to my post.
Good to see that misogyny is alive and kicking well into the 21st century.
We got together about once a week during here last two trimesters. They weren't keen on going out or being isolated so we went to their place and talk smart. After a while it seemed the soon to be born boy was responding to my deep voice and belly laughs. Mom thought that he was enjoying it, in any case she was and that may have been a clue to him. (Hmm, another study) After the boy was born I think he was very quick to respond and comforted by my deep voice and belly laughs as he seemed to recognize them. I've seen other studies showing how infants are able to understand speech and use sign language at around six months, months before their vocal cords give them the ability to speak. You have to wonder if foetuses ever contemplate their own existence, feel loneliness or a sense of purpose.
Change your question to nine months instead of three months, and now you have a reason to make all contraception illegal. Heck change it to one year and you have a reason to force either partner to have sex when the other wants a child.
FAIL.
It's a mass of tumorous cells until the mother decides it is "wanted".
If I am not wrong, this is not new. This is already documented in "Mahabharata", the story of Bharata, an Indian epic.
The story goes that, Abhimanyu, son of Arjuna, learns about the secret technique of entering into a special batallion formation, while still in womb, being explained outside by Krishna to Arjuna. But he happens to hear only half, he is moved away and does not hear how to come out. This hurts him during the war of Mahabharata, when he remembers to enter the formation but not able to come out.
Of course you will. You just have to wait a few years then frame them for a crime.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I guess this explains my affinity for mid-1980s synthesizer music.
I'm glad we have scientific evidence to back it up, but did anyone believe this wasn't the case? Is anybody surprised by these findings?
I'm extremely surprised, and in fact very suspicious of this finding, for the simple reason that newborns are unable to control the noises they make. They're not even aware that that sound is coming from their own tiny mouths, or even that they have a mouth.
Babies have to learn what their senses mean and what their bodies can do. They don't know they have hands, and may be frightened of those little things wiggling in their field of vision, or their grasping reflex might cause them to claw their own eyes, which is unpleasant and makes them cry, but it doesn't occur to them that they can stop doing it. They may be scared of the sound of their own crying, but it doesn't occur to them that they can just stop. It's not until about 6 to 8 weeks after birth before they slowly start to realize that the weird sensation in their ears happens every time they cry, and that they have some control over this process. Gradually over the course of months they discover new sounds they can make, and like to practice those for hours on end, until they discover a new one and start to practice that.
The suggestion that newborns immediately after birth have the ability to control their vocal cords enough to imitate what they hear, be it on a conscious or subconscious level, not only goes against the literature I've read about the subject, but also against my own observations. My English 'speaking' baby cries just like my brother and I did when we were German 'speaking' babies. Not surprising, since he looks just like me as a baby, and I looked like my brother as a baby, so all three of us probably had a similarly shaped mouth and vocal cords.
The real fact behind this is of course, that for women, it often does not matter all all, what the actual words say. It's the emotions that she receives. This is perhaps the single biggest misunderstanding in relationships. So men, try to listen to the emotional content of your communication for once, when you notice a lack of harmony. And women, try to look at it with plain emotionless logic, in those cases. (Who am I telling this to? Everybody knows there are no women on /. ^^)
I'm not saying that any of those forms of communication is better or worse. (If you thought that was was I was saying, that says more about your own views and biases. :) :)
I think it's pretty great that we have those two highly advanced forms of communication, adapted to the specific needs. Just as we have specialized genders. You will never be able to do alone, what you can do with teamwork. So yay to genders and their differences!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.