Babies learn mother's accent in the womb

As soon as they are born, babies cry with the same "accent" as their mothers, suggesting that they begin to learn language in the womb, new research has found.

Past research has shown that unborn babies are able to memorise sounds from the outside world by the third trimester of pregnancy and that newborn babies are able to recognise and prefer to listen to their mother's voice.

However, the research is the first to show that a mother's voice penetrating the womb has an influence on the baby's speech as soon as it is born.

The German team of researchers recorded and analysed the cries of 60 healthy newborn babies between the ages of 3 to 5 days. Half of the babies were born into French-speaking families and the other half were from German-speaking ones.

The results, published in the journal Current Biology, showed that the French babies cried with a different "accent" compared to the German ones.

French babies were found to cry with a "rising melody," whereas German newborns preferred a "falling melody". Both patterns of crying were "consistent with characteristic differences between the two languages," the researchers said.

Earlier studies have shown that infants can match the vowel sounds of adult speakers from 12 weeks on. To do this at an earlier age would be physically impossible for a younger baby, the researchers explained.

But crying is only dependent on a good pair of lungs and not on "articulatory mechanisms," making it possible to copy their mother's accent.

"Newborns are probably highly motivated to imitate their mother's behaviour in order to attract her and hence to foster bonding," said Dr. Kathleen Wermke from the University of Wurzburg, who led the study.

"Contrary to orthodox interpretations, these data support the importance of human infants' crying for seeding language development," she added.

This article was published on Fri 6 November 2009