It's been long known that babies can hear what's going on outside the womb. But are they hearing enough to actually work an accent when they cry?

Vivian Manning-Schaffel: According to this article in The New York Post, a group of German, French, and American researchers suspect that babies start to learn language in the womb, "long before they utter their first coos or babbles -- and their wails can be distinguished according to the mother tongue."

The team studied the wails of 60 healthy newborns between the ages of three and five days old and found that "newborns are capable of producing different cry melodies and that they prefer melodies in the pattern of the language they heard in the womb." It was also discerned that "French newborns tend to cry with a rising melody contour, while their German neighbors prefer a falling melody shape -- patterns the researchers said fit with characteristic differences between the languages."

Mon dieu! That crazy French cadence of perpetual exclamation points is genetic! No wonder I've not been able to replicate it! I've often thought that it's pretty hard to master that German "HCHHHH" (sound of rolling uvula) sound unless it's indigenous to where you're from. This explains it!

What do you guys think?

Vivian Manning-Schaffel has written for Babble, Parenting, The Advocate, The New York Post, Business Week and a variety of other publications and lives and works in the heart of breeder Brooklyn with her husband and two kids. She authors two pop culture blogs: The Mad Mom and A Hag Supreme, and is on the web at vivianmanningschaffel.com.