The fetus already knows the mother tongue

Children begin to learn the language from before birth, ie when they are still pregnant in the womb, according to a new study.

Previously, it was believed that newborns began to distinguish language sounds within the first few months of life. However, a new study finds that children have the ability to learn and remember the basic sounds of native language during the last 10 weeks of pregnancy.

Researchers found that children started learning languages ​​since
still in the womb and only a few hours after birth was possible
sound discrimination of mother tongue with sound of foreign language.

'Since more than 30 years ago, we have learned that humans began to recognize prenatal voices by listening to the sounds of their mother's conversations. However, this is the first study to show that people began learning to recognize certain speech sounds of their mother tongue before birth , "said Christine Moon, a professor of psychology from the University. Pacific Lutheran (USA) and leading researcher, said.

According to the researchers, only a few hours after the birth cry was born, children were even able to distinguish the sounds of their mother tongue from the sounds of a foreign language.

Children are told the vowels in Swedish or English and they can control the number of times they hear the vowels by sucking a dummy connected to the computer.

Vowels are chosen to be used in research because they stand out, and researchers believe they can be easily recognized in the mother's continuous speech, despite noisy background sounds in the womb.

In both countries, babies suck their dummies longer when they hear foreign languages ​​than when they hear their mother tongue, no matter how long they experience after birth. The team identified this as a reference to the child learning the vowel sounds from within the womb.

Patricia Kuhl, co-author of the study from the University of Washington, added: 'We used to think that children learn after birth but now discover that this learning activity is even earlier. They are not completely vague about syllables when they are born '.