Last year was marked by 4 weddings of very good friends. This year is marked by 4+3 babies. There were a few last year too. Kiran (Shanta & Ian in Berkeley) and Diya (Kuru & Anu in Cochin). Looks like babies come in bunches! Tia (my niece) and Miles (My friend Krisztina and Bryant's baby boy) arrived early this year. In June in Ottawa will arrive Alejandra and Stephane's second baby. Then look for 2 in September (Satya & Anil in Bangalore, Savitha & Pramod in Berkeley), one in November (Rekha & Alec in London) and one more in December (Pratibha & Raj in Seattle). At work too, our year end report boasted 4 babies!
It is interesting to observe babies but sometimes even more interesting to observe what babies do to adults. The most obvious thing being the difference in the way we talk. What is it about babies that morphs perfectly articulate adults to "babytalking" heads? One of my favorite websites "The Secret Life of the Brain" gives this explanation.
Babies learn to speak by listening. And all of us all over the world help them, modulating the sounds of the quicksilver flow of speech in fundamentally the same way. Put simply, when we speak to infants we speak in a very funny style. When confronted with a baby, adults produce a signal that is raised about an octave in pitch and slows down very carefully and creates these swooping contours. It's not a job interview voice. It's a very distinct voice that's fetching to a baby. Why would every person on the planet do it if it's not important?
Doctors and scientists have analyzed it every which way, and learned that adults make an unconscious effort to stretch the signals, exaggerate the acoustic components that are exactly the dimensions that the baby needs to pay attention to in order to form the maps for speech.
I am looking forward to practising my baby talk.
Fascinated by the brain? Then look through the eyes of a newborn and then discover the world of optical illusions that play on the adult brain.
