Why is it that adults cannot understand babies babbling, and yet we spoke that 'language' ourselves?

Question

It baffles me when babies are babbling and they look at you as if to say "Hey, don't you understand me?" Are they really communicating in a language or is it just babbling?

Answer 1

idk

Answer 2

One of life's great mysteries I guess.  Maybe one day, some special human will come along that can speak Baby.  Then we will finally understand what those little runts are saying.

Answer 3

They aren't speaking a language. They are just vocalizing, with no structured intent.  

Answer 4

Don't forget babies speak their own language; they are petty but not dumb.

Answer 5

lol. I hear ya

Answer 6

It's no good trying to understand them. Babies talk shite. A lot of them never grow out of it.

Answer 7

Well we forgot.

Answer 8

Infant psychology is interesting because it explains alot of this stuff.  They are indeed learning phonetically.  Also, in Yahoo! News yesterday they explained "why" infants like words like Mama, Papa, Wawa, etc., its because when they hear or use these words, a specific region of the brain "lights-up" on Cat Scans, that has to do with Language, etc.  For some reason, we are hard-wired for repetitive words, I guess so that we can get a leg-up on learning language.  However, by using repitition, we 'fix' these words in our vocabulary.  This is comparable to infants crawling before they can walk.

Infants are also hard-wired (born with) the ability to recognize faces, even if the "face" is just a smiley face like the corny icon Wal-Mart uses.  Even turning these drawn faces up-side down, they still recognize it as a face.

Answer 9

dont know but i know that when my baby cries i no what he wants cause his cry is different when he wants a bottle to when he is crying because his nappys wet

Answer 10

they have yet to learn to talk, but they can express themselves by making use of vocal cords.

and also can you remember being say 8 months of age? no? then how can you can expect us to understand babbling. very much a head hurting question!!!!

Answer 11

Not got a kid yourself have you?

Answer 12

Sometimes they are communicating, sometimes they are just babbling trying to mimic sounds that they have heard to practice their language skills.  

Answer 13

Babbling isn't a language. Babies are exploring their body in multiple ways (sucking their toes, touching themselves "down there", trying to stand, etc.). Babbling is just another thing they're trying to explore. They're trying to immitate what their parents do all day-- talk. Talking is a learning process. No one gets it right on their first try. They're experimenting with different sounds and tones, trying to put words together. It's not a language. Babies can't understand what other babies are babbling about.

Answer 14

Think about it. . . do you remember a lot of things when you were a newborn baby? or a few months old? or a year old? I highly doubt it! Sooo how would you remember what you were saying when you were babbling? And anyway a majority of the babies mean different things when they babble we cannot remember what went on in our head when we were babbling let alone theirs!

However, we should still kow what they want when they "babble" I do :)

Answer 15

the speech is undeveloped yet, like ur p***s

Answer 16

Their parents usually understand the babbling because they are around the kids a lot.  Some babies can talk really early.  The key is to talk to children normally.  There is no sense in talking "baby talk" to kids.  It is no good to the babies and terribly irritating to the adults around them.  Oh, and what is worse is two adults talking baby talk to each other trying to be romantic.  Yuck!

Answer 17

its the same thing as us also not remembering ourselves when we were babies or in our mothers womb.

Answer 18

They are learning to make sounds.  

Answer 19

it's not a language. if it was a language, babies would understand each other. what they do is make noise really.. until they learn the language

Answer 20

They are definitely communicating. But it isn't a language. It's just sounds. However, I think at a certain age they sometimes think they are talking along with us when really they are just making nonsensical sound.