Crying Babies

This is absolutely fascinating, yet another reminder that the structure of language infects everything. Here's Nell Greenfieldboyce, at NPR:

The distinctive sounds of a newborn's first cries may be influenced by the mother tongue of its parents.

A new study of over a thousand recorded cries from 30 French newborns and 30 German newborns found differences in the cries' melody patterns. French cries tended to have a rising melody, while the German cries tended to have a falling melody.

The...