Parentese, Universally Conserved Adult to Baby Human Speech

[BillTre]

NY Times article here.
Paywalled Nature Human Behavior article here.
bioRxiv preprint here.

Sing-songy talk to babies has been observed in

1,615 voice recordings from 410 parents on six continents, in 18 languages from diverse communities: rural and urban, isolated and cosmopolitan, internet savvy and off the grid, from hunter gatherers in Tanzania to urban dwellers in Beijing.

Adults of any culture seem to be able to identify baby talk in any other language.

Many think that baby talk leads to more adult language development.
Some have suggested it also leads to music, which is also present in all cultures.

I have always been interested in the music that underlies speech patterns.
I used to be able to imitate people talking with my electric guitar.
There are definitely musical patterns in speech.

 

[fresh_42]

There are definitely musical patterns in speech.

You must not consider British English as the only possibility to talk. We get along without artificial tunes here.

 

[fresh_42]

Adults of any culture seem to be able to identify baby talk in any other language.

A newborn has only a piece of rudimentary information on its hard disc. Maybe the baby talk is simply meant to say: "I won't eat you!" Personally, I'm no fan of it. I learned that they manipulate you from the first moments on, I don't see a reason not to take them seriously.