The wail of a newborn may sound the same to the ears of sleep-deprived parents the world over, but according to scientists, that's not the case: Babies cry in the language their parents speak from the first days of life.

    An international team of researchers said a study of 60 newborns suggested babies start to learn language in the womb, long before they utter their first coos or babbles -- and their wails can be distinguished according to the mother tongue.

    French newborns tend to cry with a rising melody contour, while their German neighbors prefer a falling melody shape -- patterns which the researchers said fit with characteristic differences between the two languages.

    Kathleen Wermke of the University of Wuerzburg in Germany, who conducted the study with French and American colleagues, said it showed newborns "are capable of producing different cry melodies" and that they prefer melodies in the pattern of the language they heard in the womb.

    Wermke's team recorded the cries of 60 healthy newborns, 30 born into French-speaking families and 30 born into German-speaking families, when they were three to five days old.

    Their analysis, published in journal Current Biology, revealed clear differences in the shape of the newborns' cry melodies, based on their mother tongue.

    Previous studies have shown that human fetuses can memorize sounds from the external world by the last three months of pregnancy and are particularly attuned to melodies in both music and language. Vocal imitation studies have also shown babies can match vowel sounds spoken by adults, but only from 12 weeks old.

    Wermke's team said their research showed an "extremely early" impact of native language and confirmed that babies' cries are their first proper attempts to communicate specifically with their mothers.

    "Newborns are probably highly motivated to imitate their mother's behavior in order to attract her and…foster bonding," they wrote. "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."

    對于世界各地那些被折騰得沒法睡覺的父母們來說，寶寶的哭聲聽起來都一樣。但按照科學家們的看法，事實并非如此：寶寶從一出生開始，就在用父母所說的語言啼哭。

    一個國際研究小組日前稱，一項對60名新生兒開展的研究表明，寶寶們早在咿呀學語之前，還在媽媽肚子里時就開始學習語言了，并且他們的啼哭聲可根據他們的母語來辨別。

    法國寶寶的哭聲一般為升調，而德國寶寶多為降調。研究人員稱，這恰好與法語和德語各自的聲調特點相一致。

    德國維爾茨堡大學的凱思琳？威爾姆克和她的法國和美國同事們共同開展了此項研究。她稱，新生兒"能夠發出不同調子的啼哭聲",而且哭聲的音調往往和他們在母親肚子里所聽到的語言的音調一致。

    威爾姆克的研究小組錄制了60個健康新生兒在出生三天至五天時的哭聲。其中30個寶寶出生于說法語的家庭，另外30個出生于說德語的家庭。

    在《現代生物學》期刊上發表的這項研究揭示了新生兒啼哭聲調的明顯差異，這一差異正基于他們的母語。

    此前研究表明，胎兒在母體內的最后三個月能夠記住外界的聲音，尤其是音樂和語言。聲音模仿研究也表明，寶寶從出生第12周開始就可模仿成年人說話時所發的元音。

    威爾姆克的研究小組稱，他們的研究表明，母語對寶寶的影開始得"極早",并證實了嬰兒的啼哭是專門和母親進行交流的最初的嘗試。

    研究人員寫道："嬰兒往往會努力模仿母親的行為，以引起母親的注意，加強與母親之間的聯系。因為母親說話的聲調是嬰兒最容易模仿的，這或許可以解釋為什么音調的模仿開始得這么早。