Baby Language Blog

[percival]

My blogging time is so limited that I keep stalling planned entries on religion, books, and knitting. I'm reading voraciously at the moment because DD insists on feeding for an hour before bed - hence I get through 2-3 books a week. I'm starting to feel the lack of a proper German lending library or bookshop very keenly. I feel my native tongue slipping away from me, and good writing helps a lot in keeping it alive and well and sustaining my vocabulary.

As for knitting, thanks to the URL wahlee98 gave me and the book rec of Dr. Spouse (Stitch'n'Bitch), I finally "got" purling and have a Finished Object (shock horror!) - a scarf for my husband in rib stitch (knit 2 purl 2). I even showed up at the ed_stitchnbitch National Museum knitting event and overcame my natural shyness to sit down and work a few rows of garter stitch. I've really been bitten by the bug, knitting in front of the telly and on the bus home from work. It's ideal for switching off, thinking, musing ... My gauge is too tight at the moment (chronically so) and I need to look at that, but in the mean time, I'm glad I can at least produce something!

But now, to the main topic of this entry, for which I wangled some baby-free time from DH: a list of DD's vocabulary, aged 18.5 months. Compared with other toddlers (e.g. The Leery Polyp's Sophia), our daughter is "just" normal, maybe even at the lower end, but hey - she's acquiring two languages ...


I've attempted to transcribe the words using SAMPA (ASCII phonetic alphabet), and I'm going to list them in five categories: words that sound the same in English and German, words that she has in both languages, words that she only has in English, words that she only has in German, and onomatopoetic words where she mainly mimicks sounds. The grand total is 24, counting words from the second category as two, and I'm sure I've forgotten some or that there are words she uses that I can't decipher. We do get the odd two-word sentence telling us that something is "there" or should be "there". I also think I've heard "here", which would be in the first category, and "my/mine".

German/English homophones
/bea/ "bear/Baer
/bU/ "book/Buch
/be:bi/, /bebi/ - Baby, doll (in German)
/nana/ - fruit in general, bananas, oranges
/tEdE/ - teddy

English and German equivalents
/nO/ /nOU/ - /naI/ no/nein
/dea/ - /da/ there/da

German only
/mama/ - Mum (Mama)
/baba/,/papa/ - Daddy (Papa), men in general
/tUtU/ - car (Auto)
/tUtU/ - down (runter)
/o:/ - up (hoch)
/mea/ - more (mehr)
/baj/ - Ball and anything round such as balloons
/bap2:/ - fruit puree (Frupue, Fruchtpueree)
/ja/ - yes (ja)
/ajo:/ - hello (hallo)
/u:@/ - shoes (Schuhe - yes, it's the sign of an early fetish!)

English only
/dow/ - doll (according to nursery)
/oU di:a/ - oh dear
/baI baI/ - bye-bye

Onomatopoetic
"roar" - lion/Alex (Madagascar much?)
/U/ - woof (dog)

"peekaboo" is now more or less silent, and the gorilla I reported in October seems to have been a one-off.

Comments

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

I'd be inclined to categorise /nana/ in both, as it's a reasonably common word for English-speaking toddlers too. Sounds like fun, though. Now I take the bus to work, I get a lot more reading done too, which I really like (except when it's too noisy to read).

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

Yes, /nana/ is something L uses as well.

The list looks very much like where he was at just before Christmas (so, 21 or so months, but he's a boy, so they're probably on a par). He went mad over Christmas and I stopped counting words shortly after, he was adding half a dozen a day.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Amended, thanks! And yes, I used to read on the bus, too, but I find knitting better for switching off those worry cells

[aome.livejournal.com]

/mama/ - Mum (Mama)
/baba/,/papa/ - Daddy (Papa), men in general
/be:bi/, /bebi/ - Baby, doll (in German)
/baj/ - Ball and anything round such as balloons
/nana/ - fruit in general, bananas, oranges
/tEdE/ - teddy

I'm not sure why all of these have been classified as German-only, given that they are exactly the same in English.

Sounds like she's progressing fine, especially given the bilingualism. I used to keep track of the girls' vocabularies, and then one day I realized there were too many words to count. :D

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm looking forward to that stage, too - it'll be really cool.

Thanks for your eagle-eyed comments. I've moved baby, teddy, and banana, but kept mama, papa and ball. Actually, Mama is one of those bilingual ones, because she has both mama and mamI - the first comes from me, the second must come from nursery, because I never call myself "Mami". As for "Papa", I'm waiting for English "dada" or "dadI" as the other word. The reason "ball" is in the German section is the vowel - it's really /a/, not /O/.

This is really tantalising, I feel I only know half the english words she produces. At nursery, they say that she speaks, but in her own language :)

I've often wondered whether your girls are still sensitive to the Chinese tone contrasts ...

[aome.livejournal.com]

I've often wondered whether your girls are still sensitive to the Chinese tone contrasts

I doubt if they are anymore.

[piperx.livejournal.com]

Sounds like she's doing great! Like aome said, soon you won't be able to keep track of all her words.

[queenriley.livejournal.com]

She's developing quite the vocabulary! Before you know it she'll be more intelligible and using full on sentences. Sam seems behind in language, only slightly compared to Ruth, but I have to remind myself over and over that Alex, while very slow for the fine motor skills, was very advanced in language.

Sam only has a small handful of words... MumMum, Daddy, Gampa (Grandpa), Gama (Grandma), vroom vroom (car), ookie (cookie), all done, and beebo (bellybutton). He does, however, have a pretty developed signing vocabulary of eat, drink, more, tired, ball, cookie, please, thank you, diaper, dirty, clean, no, finished, and a few others.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

R was very similar at Sam's age. She's fine language-wise, but it's her motor skills that really shine (as opposed to her mum's motor skills, which are dire, to say the least).

It's lovely to hear more about your kids. I can't believe Alex is so big already - it must have been only yesterday that she paraded round your Houston apartment in my shoes!

[queenriley.livejournal.com]

I ought to do an update with pictures... it's amazing how big she's gotten. I'm not so sure she remembers you, but she does say her favourite bear, Nemma, was given to her by Ms. Maria... so while she doesn't necessarily remember your visit, she does remember you as a person.

I can't believe she's almost 6!

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

Colin didn't have any words at all at that age, so colour me impressed :-)