Crying Accents

After examining sixty healthy babies, researchers found that:

• French newborn babies cry with a rising inflection;
• German newborn babies cry with a falling inflection.

As announced by the BBC, this was reported by the journal Current Biology under the heading “Crying Melodies.”

It has not been a secret among researchers that for three months before emerging fetuses can “memorize” sounds from the outside world. But what is new is the finding that, after emerging, babies echo their mothers’ accents in their cries to ingratiate themselves with them. The proper word is “bonding.”

Following the BBC report one assumes maternity wards in the developing and the developed world are crowded with researchers and their recording devices. At last, after three months of frustratingly silent rehearsals in the listening wombs, the babies can perform freely to invited guests.

As described by Current Biology, babies “memorize” their mothers’ “melodies.”

This raises the ever-fascinating question about the relationship of music to language. A musical “idea” – a theme, a phrase – expresses something that cannot be said in words. In that sense, music is another language. (It usually adds counterpoint – difficult but not impossible to do with words. Glenn Gould tried it.)

The more one thinks of these connections, the more amazing it seems that in the last generation so many first-class performers of classical Western music have come out of China, Japan and Korea. Their languages have no relation to the music they perform.

How is this possible?