It’s true: As parents, we’ll stop at nothing to silence the sound of a baby’s cry. But researchers in Würzburg, Germany, are doing the opposite: They’re tracking the sound of a variety of infant cries in order to hear the nuances and prove that, yes, babies actually do cry in different languages, according to Kathleen Wermke, Ph.D., a biologist and medical anthropologist, and her team of researchers at Würzburg University’s Center for Pre-Speech Development and Developmental Disorders.
Her findings? That baby cries reflect the rhythm and melody of the speech they heard in utero. For example, German infants produce more cries that fall from a higher to a lower pitch—something that mimics the intonation of the German language—whereas French babies replicate the rising intonation typical of French.
But there’s more: The New York Times reports that, as Wermke has expanded her research, she has found that newborns who were subjected to more tonal languages in the womb (like Mandarin) tend to have more complex cry melodies. And Swedish babies (whose native tongue has something called a pitch accent) produce more sing-songy cries.
Bottom line: Babies—even in utero—are greatly influenced by their mother’s intonation and speech.
Per Wermke, this comes down to something called “prosody,” which is the idea that, as early as the third trimester, a fetus can detect the rhythm and melodic phrasing uttered by their mom, thanks to a stream of audio (i.e., anything you say around your belly) that is muffled by tissue and amniotic fluid. This allows babies to cut sounds into words and phrases, but they focus on the stressed syllables, pauses and cues—an inherent part of speech—first.
Those patterns then materialize in the very first sound they let out: their cry.
So the next time you’re up late soothing your kiddo, take a deep breath and then see if you can spot any familiar intonations or patterns. Sure, there are nights when it feels like the tears will never stop, but it’s kind of cool to think that they’re mimicking your language…and that it’s all a precursor to actual words.
