The "shape" of a baby's cry

Many blogs this week have mentioned the new report out of Germany which showed that newborn babies in Germany and France differ in their pattern of crying, with the varying pitch of the cry corresponding to their mother's native language.

The bawls of French newborns tend to have a rising melody, with higher frequencies becoming more prominent as the cry progresses. German newborns tend to cry with a falling melody... These differences match the melodic qualities of each respective language. Many French words and phrases have a rising pitch towards the end, capped only by a falling pitch at the very end. German more often shows the opposite trend - a falling pitch towards the end of a word or phrase.

Ed Yong's outstanding Not Exactly Rocket Science blog includes depictions of the phonograms, shown above.

In some ways, this isn't surprising. Features like melody, rhythm and intensity (collectively known as prosody) travel well across the wall of the stomach and they reach the womb with minimum disruption. We know that infants are very sensitive to prosodic features well before they start speaking themselves, which helps them learn their own mother tongue.

More info at the link.