Nov. 5, 2009 -- The cries of infants as young as three days old already reflect the language their parents speak, according to a new study that compared the newborn cries of French-born and German-born children.

It's well known by experts that parental voices, especially a mother's, are perceived in utero and memorized, as are other sounds, such as simple musical melodies, says Kathleen Wermke, PhD, a medical anthropologist at the University of Wurzburg in Wurzburg, Germany, and a researcher of the study.

What has her new study added? "The surrounding language seems to affect infants' sound production much earlier than researchers thought," she tells WebMD in an email interview. The study is published online in Current Biology.

The new research suggests that well before babies coo, babble, or say "Mama" or "Dada," they already have picked up the pattern of their native language -- and it comes out in their cries.