Yes, this baby is definitely a human. But if you only heard him, you might struggle to believe that.
This sounds like the easiest question in the world. What does human laughter sound like? Unless you’re dead on the inside, you can make that sound.
But one baby’s laugh sounds very different. His family just can’t believe it.
It all started when the family was playing together one day. The dad did something funny in front of the baby.
Naturally, the baby started laughing away. But that laugh sounded like the baby was going “Bababaaabaaaabaaa.”
That’s right, his laughter sounded just like a sheep “baaaing” or “maaaaing.”
The entire family was amazed. Soon, everyone was trying to get the baby to laugh. And every time, the baby would baaaa away.
The baby’s mom started recording, needing to share her son’s laugh with the world.
The next time the baby laughed, no one could resist laughing themselves. The family’s laughter sounded human enough. So how come the baby sounded so odd?
Then the dad pretended to be outraged. He slammed his hands on the floor in front of the baby and said, “This laughing situation’s got to stop!”
Despite these instructions, the baby started baaaing away again. The dad couldn’t maintain his serious routine any longer and collapsed with laughter himself.
Then he lifted himself up again and said, “You’re not a sheep. You’re a boy.” But in an act of defiance, the baby just started baaaing more enthusiastically than ever.
“You’re a boy!” the dad demanded. The baby laughed back, as if to say, “No, I’m a sheep.”
The dad kept on telling his son that he was a boy and not a sheep. Judging from the baby’s laughter, this message wasn’t going to sink in any time soon.
So the dad changed tactic. He pointed at the son and said, “Stop it.” But this instruction only led to more sheeplike laughter.
Then the video cut out with the baby baaing away. Who knows how long this went on for?
Luckily, this footage then appeared on YouTube, where it became a viral hit. It has managed, to date, to gain over 1.5 million views. It also has more than 3,100 likes and 150 comments.
People have been saying things like this:
That little boy is making the whole world happy through the gift of sheep laughter, it seems!
This video raises an interesting question. Just why do babies laugh in the first place? After all, it’s not like they can appreciate a good Saturday Night Live sketch.
Baby laughter has actually puzzled the science world for well over 100 years.
In fact, even Charles Darwin studied his baby son to discover why humans laughed at such an early age. It’s lucky his son didn’t laugh like the baby in this video, or he’d have said that humans’ closest evolutionary ancestor was the sheep!
In more recent years, Caspar Addyman, of Birkbeck, University of London, has been researching baby laughter.
He’s surveyed over 1,000 parents about their babies and their laughter. He hasn’t yet identified why babies laugh. But he has discovered some interesting facts.
For instance, babies first smile at around the age of six weeks (although, naturally, this varies a little from baby to baby.) Also, he discovered that babies are much more likely to laugh when they fall over than when they see someone else fall over. So it turns out that babies like to laugh at their own misfortunes and not the misfortunes of others. Who’d have guessed!?
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