Babies 'cry in regional accents'

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Baby Kai Rooney could soon be crying in a scouse accent like his parents Coleen and Wayne.

According to new research, babies quickly learn to cry in regional accents, in a subconscious attempt to bond with their parents as soon as possible.

According to reports on the BBC, researchers at the University of Wurzburg have discovered that babies cry instudied the cries of 60 healthy babies born to families speaking French and German. They found the French newborns cried with a rising accent while the German babies' cries had a falling inflection.

Writing in the journal Current Biology, they say the babies are probably trying to form a bond with their mothers by imitating them. The findings suggest that unborn babies are influenced by the sound of the first language that penetrates the womb.

Kathleen Wermke who led the research, said: 'Newborns are highly motivated to imitate their mother's behaviour in order to attract her and hence to foster bonding. 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.'

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Friday 6 November 2009

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