Day: April 22, 2024

By Michael Seifert All newborns could learn any complex spoken language in the world. However, cultural differences are already apparent in the first sounds that babies make. This is proven by the long-standing research findings of Professor Kathleen Wermke from the University of Würzburg, which she recently summarised in the book “Babygesänge. How crying becomes speech”. The head of the Centre for Pre-Linguistic Development and Developmental Disorders and her team have observed, for example, that French babies actually cry with an accent. Their melody line runs from low to high, while babies of German-speaking mothers cry with a falling melody,… Read More