In the first days of their lives, French infants already cry in a different way to German babies. This was the result of a study by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, the Centre for Pre-language Development and Developmental Disorders (ZVES) at the University Clinic Würzburg, and the Laboratory of Cognitive Sciences and Linguistics at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris.

In this study, the scientists compared recordings of 30 French and 30 German infants aged between two and five days old. While the French newborns more frequently produced rising crying tones, German babies cried with falling intonation. The reason for this is presumably the differing intonation patterns in the two languages, which are already perceived in the uterus and are later reproduced.