There was a time when we thought a baby’s babbling was simply
cute, but there might be more to it than that; Babbling on
today’s Moment of Science. A friend of mine recently had a baby,
and the whole experience has made her cuckoo. The baby opens its
mouth and makes utterly meaningless sounds–you know, ga ga, goo
goo–and my friend actually thinks that all that babbling
nonsense is a precursor to language. At first, I thought it was
total nonsense. But then I began to research the idea. I found
that other researchers have discovered one particular detail
about infant babbling that suggests it may very well be a
precursor to language. And that is that babies babble more out
of the right side of their mouths than the left side. When
talking, adults just happen to open the right side of their
mouths more too. Researchers think that this is because neural
circuits controlling language are located on the left side of
the brain, and each brain hemisphere usually operates the
opposite side of the body. It’s only in l