18 August 2007
On the topic of talking
I've just read two blog posts about baby talk (Mama on Undercover in Japan and Words and things on The Smell of Little Pong) and have to add my own experiences to that.
Not much has changed since my last and last but one posts that mentioned Yannick's speech development. He is still signing loads but not really talking. Only recently we've had a new addition to his repertoire of sounds which is 'oo oo'. This stands for 'woof woof' and comes out in addition to the sign every time we see a dog. He also tried to copy the sound of a ship on one of his toys which is a bit like 'hoot hoot', and guess what it sounds like when Yannick does the sound? Correct, it's 'oo oo'! In addition to these, he knows that anything dirty is 'bebe!' (just a German sound we do, in German I would spell it 'bähbäh!) and as this is an easy one we often get to hear that whenever he checks out the rubbish bin in the kitchen.
Yannick definitely understands a lot. I notice that when I ask him about where certain items are. If I ask him in the morning where his trousers, socks, or t-shirt are, he'll get them for me. He knows various body parts and other items that are important in his life, like wooden car, fire engine, motorbike, etc. He understands when I say no and often starts shaking his head in anticipation when he wants something that he is not usually allowed to have. Very fun to watch.
Yannick also seems to have understood that apart from signing there are two other languages in his life, German and English. He is a lot more talkative when there are more German speakers around and goes relatively quiet when I take him to an English language environment.
Back to talking. Even though Yannick is able to say 'mama' he has not copped on to the fact that he could call me with that. When we ask him where Papa (German for daddy) is, he usually points at Frank, but when we ask him about Mama, he quite often ignores the question. Maybe he's smart and thinks, why are they asking me that, she's right here, you stupid people, but to be honest I don't think he's got the connection quite yet.
And then we have 'dada'. Everybody keeps telling me that he can say daddy, *sigh*, but NO, he can't. As I just mentioned, in German we say Papa and he has never ever done that combination of sounds. The closest he got so far was 'baba' or 'bap', but these also don't seem to mean much, he's just practising. If anything da would mean there in German. However, when pointing at things we just get 'ah ah'.
As far as I can tell, 'baba', 'mama', 'yaya', and 'dada' are simply the sounds that come easiest to the little ones. I think all babies go through the same stages in sound development, and it's only the cultural/mother tongue influence that assigns the meaning to this babbling. If the baby is clued in he or she will pick up quickly what we think they are saying, but some don't… Usually Yannick gets away with 'ah ah' and pointing as we react very quickly to what he wants, so even for things where he knows the signs (like drink and eat) he doesn't have to make too much of an effort to get what he wants. Maybe we are simply too attentive?