Baby Tone

How can you tell the difference between a French baby and a German baby? No, it's not that one is wearing a saucy little beret while the other is tucked into tiny pair of lederhosen. Well, maybe that's part of it. But a new study in the journal Current Biology shows that the babies [actually:definitely] sound different. Because the melody of an infant's cry matches its mother tongue.We all know that babies start [eavesdropping:crying] while they're still in the womb. So when they come out, they know their mother's voice. When they're older, they start to imitate the sounds they hear. [Eventually:Gradually] they babble, and then start to speak, and then you never hear the end of it. But long before that first burble or coo, babies are [learning:trying] the elements of language.A team of scientists recorded the cries of 60 newborns: 30 born into French-speaking [families:groups] and 30 that heard German. And they found that French infants wail on a rising note while the Germans favour a falling melody. Those patterns match the rhythms of their [native:natural] languages.