The wail of a newborn may sound the same to the ears of sleep-deprived parents the world over, but according to scientists, that's not the case: Babies cry in the language their parents speak from the first days of life.
An international team of researchers said a study of 60 newborns suggested babies start to learn language in the womb, long before they utter their first coos or babbles -- and their wails can be distinguished according to the mother tongue.
French newborns tend to cry with a rising melody contour, while their German neighbors prefer a falling melody shape -- patterns which the researchers said fit with characteristic differences between the two languages.
Kathleen Wermke of the University of Wuerzburg in Germany, who conducted the study with French and American colleagues, said it showed newborns "are capable of producing different cry melodies" and that they prefer melodies in the pattern of the language they heard in the womb.
Wermke's team recorded 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.
Their analysis, published in journal Current Biology, revealed clear differences in the shape of the newborns’ cry melodies, based on their mother tongue.
Previous studies have shown that human fetuses can memorize sounds from the external world by the last three months of pregnancy and are particularly attuned to melodies in both music and language. Vocal imitation studies have also shown babies can match vowel sounds spoken by adults, but only from 12 weeks old.
Wermke's team said their research showed an "extremely early" impact of native language and confirmed that babies' cries are their first proper attempts to communicate specifically with their mothers.
"Newborns are probably highly motivated to imitate their mother's behavior in order to attract her er bonding," they wrote. "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."
对于世界各地那些被折腾得没法睡觉的父母们来说，宝宝的哭声听起来都一样。但按照科学家们的看法，事实并非如此：宝宝从一出生开始，就在用父母所说的语言啼哭。
一个国际研究小组日前称，一项对60名新生儿开展的研究表明，宝宝们早在咿呀学语之前，还在妈妈肚子里时就开始学习语言了，并且他们的啼哭声可根据他们的母语来辨别。
法国宝宝的哭声一般为升调，而德国宝宝多为降调。研究人员称，这恰好与法语和德语各自的声调特点相一致。
德国维尔茨堡大学的凯思琳•威尔姆克和她的法国和美国同事们共同开展了此项研究。她称，新生儿“能够发出不同调子的啼哭声”，而且哭声的音调往往和他们在母亲肚子里所听到的语言的音调一致。
威尔姆克的研究小组录制了60个健康新生儿在出生三天至五天时的哭声。其中30个宝宝出生于说法语的家庭，另外30个出生于说德语的家庭。
在《现代生物学》期刊上发表的这项研究揭示了新生儿啼哭声调的明显差异，这一差异正基于他们的母语。
此前研究表明，胎儿在母体内的最后三个月能够记住外界的声音，尤其是音乐和语言。声音模仿研究也表明，宝宝从出生第12周开始就可模仿成年人说话时所发的元音。
威尔姆克的研究小组称，他们的研究表明，母语对宝宝的影开始得“极早”，并证实了婴儿的啼哭是专门和母亲进行交流的最初的尝试。
研究人员写道：“婴儿往往会努力模仿母亲的行为，以引起母亲的注意，加强与母亲之前的联系。因为母亲说话的声调是婴儿最容易模仿的，这或许可以解释为什么音调的模仿开始得这么早。