'Accents' in the womb? A brief note

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Making the news this week have been some findings that newborn babies imitate aspects of the 'accents' of their parents' language. What's striking about these findings is not that fetuses pick up information about language in the womb—there is already plenty of evidence for learning about auditory stimuli in the third trimester. The real significance of these findings is that newborns are showing an ability to imitate those aspects of the language they are destined to learn. This shows that they have considerable control over the articulatory system: the muscles in the throat and mouth that shape speech.

You can read some more of my thoughts on this study, and its possible significance, here.