We knew babies learned a lot in the crib, but a new report suggests they start developing a building block of language in the womb, reflecting their parents’ speech pattern as soon as they start crying.

In a study of 60 French and German babies, European researchers found newborn cries reflected the different tones of their parents – a rising melodic tone for French babies and a falling tone among German infants, Lisa Belkin reports this week in The New York Times parenting blog, Motherlode.

The research is interesting on several levels, including the idea that newborns are picking up their native language even before they are born, Science Daily says. And it is further support for quality prenatal care, a focus of work at Thrive by Five Washington and other early learning groups.

I guess early learning begins before birth.

Of course, many parents think it’s important to talk and sing to their babies in the womb, but this new finding suggests those sounds have a specific impact. (It will also spur another round of potentially silly devices, Belkin points out.)

''The capacity to learn language is inborn, and it's shaped by what [infants] hear in the environment," she (Diane Paul, director of clinical issues in speech-language pathology at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) says. The new study is saying that ''even before birth, the differences between languages are being heard, the babies are hearing the different melodic patterns, and they are born with the pattern that is more closely related to the melodic pattern they have heard in the language around them." – Newborns' Cries Reflect Parents' Language, EMedicinehealth, 11/5/09.

Although it can't hurt to talk or sing to your unborn baby, Paul says parents-to-be should realize that there is no guarantee doing so will mean the baby will talk sooner or better than those not sung or talked to before birth.