What is that baby really saying? A lot of frustration seems to be tied up with language - and what they call "language delays" are all too often a part of parenting kids adopted internationally. Toddlers like to be understood - and when son (son!) uses a new word and realizes that we know what he means, his face lights up.

Of course, babies have their own language, and chances are, if you're an average parent adopting from China, you'll be meeting these new kids when they're really quite new indeed, so what you need right away is some kind of baby translator to know what the latest bout of crying is over. And now (supposedly) you can know for sure.

Yes, the good researchers at Dunstan Baby Language spent (supposedly) eight years researching the system that all babies use to communicate, regardless of culture. They say babies have five words they all use. One of these is "neh," which means, "I say, good fellow, would you be so kind as to direct me to the kitchen? I'm feeling rather peckish and thought I might sample whatever victuals are on offer." Yes, new parents tend to have their priorities in order, so it's good to know when the squalling youth requires food. Neh.

OK, so maybe I'm a little skeptical of the way Dunstan Baby Language is framing their product. I do think, though, that there's something to the idea that we're all basically wired the same at birth, and we all try to express ourselves in basically the same way, no matter where we're from.

That's why my eyebrow tends to rise when faced by evidence of neurological differences between Us and Them - especially when Us happens to be Americans and Them happens to be Chinese people. But apparently, according to some scientists, they really do see the world differently. Researchers led by Hannah-Faye Chua and Richard Nisbett of the University of Michigan studied people's eyes - specifically, the movements people's eyes made in the first instant they were confronted by a new photograph. North Americans focus directly on the central image. Chinese people flit around the background.

The researchers say this is because Chinese people seek context and want to know social roles in relation to each other, while Westerners evaluate things on an individual basis. They also, uh, trace this back to ancient rice farmers who had to share water, rather than the Greek vineyard owners who grew grapes without talking to their neighbors. Or something.

At any rate, the only bit that's really of use to adoptive parents comes right at the end, where they talk about the results of Asians raised in North America, and found their eye movements more closely matched other North Americans. In other words, what seems like a difference in brains (the way we move our eyes, the things we see first) is actually a difference in culture. We (and our kids) are Westerners in some surprisingly deep ways.


_{Photo credit: public domain image by Andreas Vesalius found on Wikimedia Commons}