Baby Language Blog
Feb. 24th, 2007 08:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
percivalMy 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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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 ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
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.
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.
