Helen FieldsScience Writer

Newborn babies might seem like they don’t do anything but cry, sleep, eat, and excrete – but there’s really a lot going on as that tiny human adjusts to a whole new world. Today for ScienceNOW I wrote about a clever study in which the scientists recorded German and French newborns crying and found a difference in their cry melodies that corresponds to the differences between the languages. French babies’ cries tended to go up like French, and German babies’ cries tended to go down like German.

This is pretty crazy. These are seriously tiny babies – 2 to 5 days old. People knew that newborn babies could hear the difference between languages, and they knew that by four months or so, they’re babbling in language-appropriate ways, but to find that they’re actually producing language-appropriate sounds a few days after birth is totally new. The other scientists I showed it to were super impressed.

Here’s my story about baby cries.

Special bonus link – you must see the seriously hilarious picture on the project webpage. We would have used it with the story, but the baby is way too old. Look how happy he is – he’s all, hey! I’m a German baby! Doing science! What up!