RES: Babbling / First word

[Zena Eisenberg]

If I may pitch in, my Portuguese speaking 2 year old's first words were:
"dá" (give me) , "nanã" (no) and "adê" (where is it?).  As a language
conscious mom, I awaited anxiously for the first "mamãe", as his first word,
but that took a while to come up. As did "papai" (daddy).  Anecdotal data
aside, there is no reason to believe that mommy or daddy should be
children's first words, but more likely the saliency of words in the
parents' talk, their functionality and the phonetic complexity.  In the
example above, "give me" might be much more complicated for an English
speaking child than "dá", for a Portuguese native.  


Zena Eisenberg
PhD at CUNY - Graduate Center

-----Mensagem original-----
De: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org]
Em nome de Matthew Saxton
Enviada em: terça-feira, 12 de setembro de 2006 05:04
Para: Annette Karmiloff-Smith; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org;
dev-europe at lboro.ac.uk
Assunto: Babbling / First word


In response to Annette's query, I have heard the same story, but with
"momma" (or some /m/-initial variant: "mom", "mummy") suggested as the
child's first word. Ease of articulation was given as the reason in this
case also.

Having said that, my son's first word was "cheers," presumably because the
champagne being handed round was more salient than either of his parents.
The point here is that ease of articulation is probably only one factor
dictating production of the child's first recognisable word form.

Without some hard evidence, though, I think we may have another case of
counting words for "snow" in Eskimo.......


*********************************************************************
 
Matthew Saxton MA, MSc, DPhil
Senior Lecturer in Psychology,
School of Psychology and Human Development, Institute of Education,
25 Woburn Square,
London,
WC1H 0AA.
U.K.
 
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7612 6509
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7612 6304
 
www.ioe.ac.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
[mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Annette Karmiloff-Smith
Sent: 12 September 2006 08:40
To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org; dev-europe at lboro.ac.uk
Subject: babbling

Someone has asked me whether it is true that babies' first word is Daddy and
whether this is because the articulation position of D is easiest?  not sure
either is true but would appreciated comments from those who study this
area.  Are the words for Daddy/Papa etc. and Mummy/Maman etc. easier because
there is no change of place of articulation?  All thoughts on the topic most
appreciated.
thanks
Annette K-S


--
________________________________________________________________
Professor A.Karmiloff-Smith, CBE, FBA, FMedSci, Head, Neurocognitive
Development Unit, Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N
1EH, U.K.
tel: 0207 905 2754
sec: 0207 905 2334
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