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."

Comments

Re:Isn't this child abuse?

[dgatwood]

Nah, the Republicans fully support post-birth abortions, and in record numbers.

<sarcasm>There's nothing wrong with frying an innocent man, just as long as you don't kill an undifferentiated bundle of cells that might become a man. Taking the life of a fully-grown adult convicted of a serious crime is perfectly fine... even in states like Texas with a long history of false convictions, cases overturned *after* executions due to DNA evidence that the state deliberately barred that would have cleared the defendants, etc.</sarcasm>

Anyone who chooses a Republican who supports capital punishment over a Democrat merely because of the Democrat's support for abortion needs to seriously rethink his or her values.

They're Not "Babies," They're Fetuses

[RobotRunAmok]

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...

Re:Genetics

[Alex Belits]

A calculator program on my celphone knows more about language than any human will until he is 8 years old. Make it 14 for "pro-lifers'" kids.

(and I can't wait to ditch that phone after I'll get a better one).