Babies Engage In A Hilarious Talk Which Turns Into A Loud Cry

The mystery of what babies say to each other deepens. This video gives us more questions than answers. Two babies (twins? siblings?) engage with one another. They are not only “talking” to each other, but look each other in the eyes as they do it. It’s almost like the baby on the right is passing a bit of gossip to the baby on the right.

“And yesterday at the nursery I heard little Johnny Tibbles say he liked the little Branson baby.”

Clearly baby on the left asks a query, “He did?”

“But the Branson’s are moving.” Baby on the left (we’ll call her little Jeannie) seems to study her sister’s face for a reaction.

“Great news! I can’t stand the little Branson girl! I’m still in the running, then.”

“Little Johnny said he would never be caught in the same playpen with you. Says you’re too whiny.”

“Don’t tell me that sister, you know it’s going to make me cry again,” and she does so, visibly working herself into a cry.

Uh oh, you did it now Jeannie. You made your sister cry.

You can tell little Jeannie regrets having gone too far, as she searches her brain for a way to fix her sister. She just can’t. Well, two can play at this game. Not to be outdone, the sister on the right who started this mess cries louder, and rolls over, and even her face is turning red. Talk about your head games! You want to see a drama queen? I’ll show you a drama queen, little sis!

The truth is that we could imagine many scenarios and script substitutions here. The dialogue, if we can call it that, gives the appearance of a coherent communication. Barely any “words” are said between the two, but the babies share rapt attention. What possible cue could have caused the sister on the left to start crying? Maybe this is just a matter of play acting, where babies go through random patterns of sounds combined with emotions that are only the elements—building blocks, of grown up behavior. Grownups, after all, “babble” to each other, and as a result of all this babbling, they sometimes laugh, and sometimes cry. It could be such exercises have no meaning at all, other than to serve as practice for growing up.

Two things are going on here. The first is each baby making verbalization, no matter how nonsensical, in order to practice talking. The second thing that’s going on is a much more complicated and subtle behavior, and that is reaction. Humans learn to respond in the most nuanced and stylistic ways, nearly instantly and directly, to their social contacts. The kernel of society, and also social psychology, is built upon the very interaction we are seeing in this video. As such, videos of babies talking to each other are excellent mini laboratories for social scientists. You might reasonably argue that there isn’t any real “talk” going on here, but you can’t say these babies aren’t really communicating. They are engaged in the serious business of learning.