Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The House of Grammar Part 2: Escape From the House of Grammar

The content of this post is entirely new. As a few of my readers may know, prior to yesterday's post there was a gap between posts of nearly three years.  In that time not only have I continued to be a homeowner, but D and I also conceived, gave birth to, and are now in the process of teaching language to, a small child.  On our way to daycare this morning I spent some time quizzing him on various colours and the thought came to me that it might be interesting to delve into the words and language he uses, as a way to better understand how language develops.
So without further introduction, I give you Liam's words.

Miam: His name.  He can't quite make the letter "L" yet.
Mommy: Every single woman he sees, including his actual mommy. If I were another man, this would make shopping for a new spouse remarkably simple.
Daddy: Almost every man he sees, though he has started to differentiate between me and other men. He now normally applies this to only tall, lanky men with short dark hair, and when he sees a picture of Zachary Levi.
Ack Ack: Bird. This is due to an error I made when educating him.  We were working on animal sounds, and given we have a lot of crows in the area I thought I'd teach him what a crow says.  At first he played a game with me where every time I asked him what a crow said, he would reply "Choo choo" and grin. Then he made a logical connection. Crows are birds, therefore all birds must be crows, therefore all birds must say "Ack Ack." Given the types of birds we mainly have in Halifax this is not entirely erroneous, since he mainly hears seagulls, crows, and bluejays, which all make very similar sounds. However, this will be a difficult logical fallacy to fix.
Dock dock: Hammer. Because of the sound the hammer makes.  He came up with this one entirely on his own.
Zoon Zoon: Anything that makes a loud mechanical whirring noise, like a vacuum or a blender. Also an expression of fear and distaste because he really does not like these things given how loud and surprising their sounds can be.
Water: Water, obviously.  However it has many uses.  Sometimes he uses it as a noun: "Look! Water!" It can also be used as an imperative sentence: "I want you to give me water!" Recently he has used it as an interrogative sentence: "Can I play in the water?"
Wan: I want. Used frequently.
Mo: This can mean either "Milk" or "More."  There are actually subtle differences in the pronunciation depending on which he means.  Mo said with more emphasis on the "M" and a sharp stop after the "o" means milk. Mo said with an elongated "o" sound means more.
Toneh: Thomas the train engine. Usually used in the imperative "I want to watch Thomas the train engine!" but occasionally as a simple noun, such as when he sees a picture of Thomas that he wants you to pay attention to.
Choo choo: Train, obviously. Usually combined with Wan: "Wan Choo Choo." Or, strangely, combined with Bunny as part of an interrogative sentence:"Bunny Choo Choo?" By which I think he is asking if our pet bunnies would like to play with his trains, because we sometimes let them out of their cages to hop around on the same mat his train set is set up on and he's made the connection.
Chooda: Cheerios. Also Susan, our daycare provider. It took me forever to realize he was asking if we were going to daycare, and I kept giving him cheerios he didn't want. "Chooda?" (daddy hands him a few cheerios) "No Chooda. Chooda?" (daddy looks confused)
On the Baat: On the bus. Can mean a variety of things.  Sometimes interrogative: "Are we going on the bus?" Sometimes declarative: "I'm on the bus." or "I've just put something in my toy bus." Occasionally he uses this to ask one of us to sing him "The Wheels on the Bus." before changing his mind and saying "No on the baat.  Choo choo!" By which he means he actually wants us to sing D's variant "The Wheels on the Train." (actually the same song, but with train inserted wherever bus would normally be applicable, which is a surprisingly difficult thing to remember to do, and he corrects you on it EVERY TIME.)
Rock: Used at bedtime, because D and I typically give him a rock and a song before bed.  Recently has been used to indicate his preference for who does so: "No daddy rock.  Mommy rock." This preference is rarely the opposite.
Cha: Chair. Rarely used as an actual noun. Normally only used as an imperative: "I want to sit in the chair." or a declarative "I'm sitting in the chair." Has recently been combined with "Rock" to make "rock cha" which he does use as a noun.
Poon: Spoon. I giggle every time he says it.
Boon: Balloon.
Bubbo: Bubbles, indicating he wants a bubble bath. Also Bottle. It depends on what emphasis he puts on the "u" which one he means.
Way: Multiple meanings. "You're in the way." or "Put this away." or "I would like to get the thing you just put away." or "I'm going to put this away."
Heeen: Horse. This is how he says "neigh".
Ssssssss: Snake. Took forever to teach him.
Pig: Actually means pig. He can't say "oink" so this is one of the few animals he calls by its actual name. This is also the word he uses instead of "oink" when you ask him what a pig says: "Pig pig!"
Hone: Home. Often used as part of an interrogative sentence: "Mommy, Daddy, Miam Hone?" by which he is asking if all three of us are going home.

While this is a big list of a lot of the words he uses, it's by no means comprehensive.  What I find interesting are some of the ways he combines some of them. "No all done mommy rock." for example would indicate that he's not ready for D to put him in his crib yet, and that he wants her to keep rocking him."Peter Daddy hone?" is actually him asking, "Did Peter's daddy take him home?" while "Hone Peter Daddy." would likely state "Peter's Daddy did not come to take him home." because in this case "Hone" is the location of "Peter's Daddy" and spoken in the context of Peter and his Daddy not being present would be a statement of a fact that occurred in the past.
Obviously the basic grammar is there, but trying to interpret his meaning from the structure of his statements is a challenge because with his limited vocabulary (most of it nouns), it is often the order of the words he uses or the emphasis he places on them that determines their significance. This makes sense, but it is like trying to communicate with someone of a different culture where there is no common linguistic background, because I am forced to listen without preconception and rely more on context rather than the words actually spoken, which is VERY DIFFICULT for someone like me.
 Watching and participating in this process is, however, a fascinating exercise, and a challenge that forces me to question my own preconceptions around how I use the English language. That's actually part of why I started The House of Grammar.

6 comments:

R said...

"pig pig" made me laugh.

I don't know what kind of weird crows you have, but the ones outside our window in the morning say "caw" like regular crows. Also...other than crows and chickadees ("chick-a-dee-dee-dee" and "phebe"), do any other birds HAVE sound words?

Jeremy said...

Um. Quack? Honk? Cluck Cluck?
And those are just some of the basic ones.
Also, what we hear as the "C" in "Caw" is part of a repetitive click/pop that the crow makes in addition to the more audible "Aw" sound. They often make the same clicking noise independently of their full call, but we hear it as a "C." When I mimic the sound for Liam I tend to omit the "C", but he's no good with "w" sounds and so when he repeats it back it comes out as "Ack ack!"

cdnkaro said...

Very cute! I had a hard time with baby talk at first as well- it just did not come naturally to me, and I was often at a loss to comprehend the garbled speech based mostly on context. Years of studying linguistics will do that to you I guess. By now I'm a pro, though- it gets easier:)

p.s. You said something about a link to me but I don't see it...?

Jeremy said...

Right hand side there's a little black bar thingy.... which for some reason doesn't actually have in it what I thought I put in it. Hang on.

Jeremy said...

Okay, fixed by applying a simpler template. Liked dynamic, though... gonna play around with that later

R said...

I was just coming back to say that I'd been thinking of song birds and that I've now realized that I'd completely forgotten about "cluck" and "quack" and "hoo" and "gobble". . . but you beat me to it.

Still, the chickadee is the only small, whistling bird that I can think of that has its own words. Perhaps that's because they were the dominant LBB where I grew up and other regions have other bird song words. Or maybe ornithologists know a lot of them.