TELL ME HOW YOU CRY... AND I'LL TELL YOU WHERE YOU ARE FROM!!!

BABIES CRY USING THEIR MOTHER TONGUE'S TONE

Late researchs claim that little babies' tone when crying differs depending on two different factors; the first one is the country where they are born and the second one is what their mother tongue will be, as they are able to listen to their mother's voice from the uterus in the last term of gestation. But how is it possible?

Our accent is an identifying feature of us; that's to say, it shows the place we come from without need to be revealed. An Italian or a German sounds different from a French person when speaking, even if the language used is English, a foreign language in those cases. Have you ever thought the tone could give our origin away before learning how to speak?
Kathleen Wermke, who is a Linguistic Antrophology Teacher at Würzburg University (in Germany), has shown with her recent research that babies cry with their mother's tone when they are just born. According to her investigations, newborns assimilate her mothers' language sound standards and after being born, they reproduce the tone in their cry or weep. The foetus just perceive the rythm and tone of his/her mother tongue and in a natural way to communicate, reproduces it.

A Chinese or Afrikan baby cry is more melodious and harmonious than the cry of a European baby due to the different quality of tones used in Chinese or Afrikan languages, which can be deep or high-pitched and it makes a great difference.

Würzburg researchers performed two lines of work about this topic. First of all they analysed sixty newborns' cries, all of them from monolingual families. Thirty of them were French and thirty of them were German. The crying patterns of those babies coming from French families had a rising melody contour while the German ones performed the opposite pattern; changing from high-pitched sounds to deeper ones.

The second line of work shows the most curious remarks. For example, babies from Camerun's cry last for longer and with a more variable tone in comparison to Germans. In addition, it can be said that scientists observed how babies try to answer their parents by means of the articulation of simmilar-to-vowels sounds... the vowels they hear from adults.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE (In Spanish)

THE GROUNDHOG DAY

                                                                 

Grounhog day is a holiday celebrated on February the 2nd in the United States and Canada. It is a folkloric event to make a weather broadcasting according to the groundhog's performance:
If it is cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day, spring will come early. If it is sunny, the groundhog will supposedly see its shadow and retreat back into its burrow; that means that the winter weather will last at least two more weeks.
The largest Groundhog celebration is held up in Punxsutawney; Pennsylvania.

Now, pay attention to important images and vocabulary about the celebration:

What is "a groundhog"? Also known as a whistle-pig, woodchuck, or land-beaver is a rodent, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as "marmots".

What is "a burrow"? It is a hole or tunnel dug into the ground by an animal to create a safe and suitable space for habitation or refuge. Some animals that usually make burrows are groundhogs, rabbits, cobayes, mice...

What is "weather broadcasting"? It is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a given location. Weather forecasts are made from collecting data about the current state of the atmosphere and using scientific understanding processes to project how the weather will evolve.
Nowadays we can find computer-based models to predict the weather, but this is something that human beings have been doing informally for millennia, using methods that have to do with folklore more that with science. Some of these methods are: groundhogs (in North America and Canada), Cabañuelas (in La Mancha, Spain), etc.

Tongue twister:

HOW MUCH WOOD WOULD A WOODCHUCK CHUCK IF A WOODCHUCK COULD CHUCK WOOD? (If you can pronounce it properly, you'll get an extra point!!! hehehe)    ;)   ;P

THE BLESSING OF THE BIKES (N.Y)

Last Saturday (10th of April) the "Blessing of Bikes" was celebrated in New York.
New York has a flourising cycling community, and a especial event is the blessing of those vehicles and their pilots!
You had to wear your usual cycle clothing and bikes (motorized or not) inside the Cathedral church of Saint John the Divine, in New York. If you usually wore cycling shoes with exposed cleats organizers would ask you to take them off so as not to damage the cathedral floor.
The contribution with money was absolutely free; if you wanted to give some money, you could do it. One hundred per cent of the collected money goes directly to the church and the rest of the money is destinated to help homeless people
The reverend (priest) called Thomas P. Miller said some kind words and then sprinkled the bikes with Holy water. In the celebration, there was a moment of silence to remember the cyclist lost the previous year in accidents and later all the bike bells rang at the same time.
The event is wonderful but brief, so people is on time or they may lose it!
If we have a look on the reaction of people we can find people who see this event as a joke, some take it serously, other people feel deeply ofended.

QUESTIONNAIRE:

a) What do you think about it?

b) Have you got a bike? Do you usually use it?

c) What do you prefer, cycling a bike of drive (be given a lift) a car? Why?

INTERNATIONAL PILLOW FIGHT DAY

On Saturday and Sunday of April (3rd and 4th),there are massive pillow fights in cities around the world... Some examples of this celebration can be seen in several cities such as Antigua (Guatemala), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Accra (Ghana) or Ann Arbor (Michigan).
The organizers use some posters to make sure everybody (or a lot of people at least! know about the event). Here you are:

Everybody can join this celebration, but there is only one and important requirement: You MUST bring your own pillow (feather pillows better)!
Here you can see a simple ad. about the event on the internet. You may have a look on it at Facebook, too.
Time: SUNDAY, April 4th, 2010, 12:00PMLocation: State Street & North University Ave. “The Diag”Host: A2 Pillow Fight ClubWebsite: Facebook Group

Yesterday (3rd of April, 2010) it was celebrated in Madrid, from 18.18 to 20.00 h.
You might have seen some people enjoying the fight at Plaza España. There were some rules to follow, too. A couple of interesting ones were:
a) Enjoy and try to hide your pillow in your clothes (like Sancho Panza, if you hide it in your tummy). It will look like a carnival and you'll surprise the rest of people there.
b) Don't allow people or enterprises, try to take advantage of it with commercial intentions. Hit them (with your pillow, of course!)!