A few months ago Armando told us that adults are able to retain language skills they were born with even if they have never spoken it, as in the case of babies who were adopted and taken as children to a country with a different language.
Now a new study proves that this recognition or identification of languages comes even before they are born, since Babies are able to distinguish between two languages since they are in the womb.
Two languages with different rhythms
The study, which was conducted by a team from the University of Kansas and published on the NeuroReport website, was attended by 24 pregnant women. What he wanted to try was if the fetuses reacted by listening to a new language with a different rhythm.
They chose to do the tests with two completely different languages: English and Japanese. Then they proceeded to put the audio fetuses of both languages, interpreted by the same person and monitor their heartbeat.
It was found that the fetal rhythm changed when they listened to the audios in Japanese (the new language) and that it remained the same when they listened to the audio by the same person but in English (the language with which they were already familiar). What the researchers conclude is that they are able to identify the rhythmic difference between both languages.
With research like this we can see that language acquisition is one of the first things babies learn, so much so that from the mother's womb they are able to distinguish between one language and another. Now perhaps we understand better why since childhood they are able to learn two languages at the same time.
