Experts Speculates Bilingualism is Developed in the Womb

A recent study suggests that expecting parents who often converse in two languages is likely to encourage the baby to tune into both languages after his/her birth. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in France as well as a group of psychological scientists from the University of British Columbia in Canada has observed the sucking reflexes of several newly born babies of mothers speaking in monolingual English as well as of mothers who are speaking in both English and Tagalog, the native language of Filipinos.

According to the researchers, the sucking behavior of these newborn babies indicates their interest towards a certain stimulus, possibly a spoken language. The group has noticed that the babies of monolingual mothers have shown increased sucking behaviors as a response to the English language. However, their response to Tagalog was not the same. On the other hand, the babies of bilingual mothers have shown the same sucking behavior when exposed to both languages.

According to the researchers, the babies preference or interests towards a specific language directs their listening attention to the language. Therefore, the newborns of bilingual mothers and their interest towards both languages facilitate further learning about each language.

The findings of the study were released last January 20, 2010 and will be published in the journal Psychological Science.