Newborns Cry with their Mothers' Accent!

Recent research suggests that babies are learning, or at least paying attention to, language while in the womb.  Multiple studies have been conducted comparing the cries from babies in their first week of life.  It was determined that the tone of the babies cries mimicked the tone of their mother's language!

For example, the cries of babies from Mandarin speaking mothers were more melodic, with higher high tones, lower low tones, and more rapid pitch changes.  As compared to German babies, whose cries did not have as much variation in tones.  Mandarin is considered a 'tonal language' - meaning one word can have multiple meaning depending on the tone that's used, therefore the baby is exposed to a large variety of tones while in the womb.  Whereas the German language is much more limited in it's tone variations.

This discovery suggests that newborns are already learning the nuances of speech before they're even born!