an onomatopoeic toddler

[Dan I. Slobin]

footnote on the Icelandic case:
This was not an instance of onomatopoeia, but of twin language.  A 
boy and girl twin in the late 18th century, as reported by a 19th 
century Danish linguist, created a private language, as is sometimes 
documented for twins.  Because they weren't readily acquiring 
standard Icelandic, the parents separated the twins, sending the boy 
to a distant farm, where he died.  After that, the girl continued to 
speak their shared language, and the community learned it in order to 
communicate with her and to insure that she learned enough religion 
for the salvation of her soul.  There is almost no documentation of 
the language, so we can't know how close it was to Icelandic.  The 
few other documented twin languages that I know of turn out to be 
quite clearly based on the surrounding language, with some 
phonological alterations and some innovations.  Has anyone documented 
the extent to which such innovations are creative sound icons like 
those reported by Marie?

another footnote:
Marie's examples seem to be attempts at iconic representation in the 
acoustic modality, like visual icons in the motor modality shown in 
early gesture in both hearing and deaf children.

Dan Slobin


At 06:47 AM 8/29/2007, Brian MacWhinney wrote:
>Dear Marie,
>    All children do this to some degree.  What is remarkable is that some
>chidlren only do a little bit of this and others much more.  It would be
>very helpful if you could tabulate his complete vocabulary and compute the
>percentage of words that are conventional from the total.  It would also be
>helpful if you could track this over the next 10 months. If you had just
>this basic information on a case of this type, you would perhaps have more
>than I can think of in the current literature.  Possibly other info-childes
>readers will know of something I have missed.
>     There is, of course, the famous case of the lady in Iceland who invented
>her own language and forced everyone to learn that.  If you couldn't speak
>her language, you couldn't really interact with her at all.  I wonder what
>experiences your son has when trying to communicate with people outside your
>family who have not yet learned his language.
>
>--Brian MacWhinney
>
>
>On 8/29/07 6:05 AM, "mariehojholt" <mariehojholt at stofanet.dk> wrote:
>
> >
> > Dear all!
> > Being new at this network I wish to thank you all for a fantastic 
> opportunity
> > to correspond with equals, or, kind of. I am graduate student of 
> linguistics
> > in Aarhus, Denmark.
> > Here is my question:
> > I am looking for relevant studies of children who do not seem to acquire
> > actual words as much as onomatopoeic sounds.
> > My two-year-old son Harald, is developing "according to plan" but 
> doesn't care
> > for the "linguistic symbols that the surrounding environment has as
> > consensus": words.
> >
> > Here is a short list of his sounds and utterances:
> > "Mor (mummy) aa-aj (~not) bzzz (sound of fly) krqr (sound of
> > breaking which means "egg") - pip-pip (sound of bird) krqr
> > (sound of breaking" 
> > - so: Mummy, flies don't have eggs, BIRDS have eggs!"
> >
> > "words":
> > water: "aah!" (sound you make after drinking)
> > food: "mtl-mtl" (chewing-sound)
> > sleeping/bed: "hhhrr-pfffff" (sleeping sound)
> > toothbrush: "hrhr-hrhr"
> > Cracker/"broken"/egg: "krqr" 
> > Pooridge: "ph-ph-ph" (sound of boiling)
> >
> >
> > Apart from this he uses all the usual onomatopoeic sounds typical for
> > children: animal sounds, vehicle sounds...
> > He does have some actual words: Mom, dad, diper, blue, Gorm 
> (brother), home,
> > now, more, shoe, in, ...but not too many verbs.
> > I hope some of you have comments on this, or links, references or anything.
> > I am not worried about him, since he is a happy, clever boy who 
> communicates
> > adequately and relevantly, and - to me - intelligably.
> > Though, I am hyperinterested in understanding his procedures and apparently
> > somewhat onomatopoeic-ICONIC language behaviour.
> > He is not interested in us telling him what the real words are, 
> and if we try
> > to push him, he ignores us or get angry.
> > All my best,
> > Marie Hoejholt
> >

 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School
Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics

Department of Psychology        email: slobin at berkeley.edu
3210 Tolman #1650                 phone (Dept):  1-510-642-5292
University of California             phone (home): 1-510-848-1769
Berkeley, CA 94720-1650         fax: 1-510-642-5293
USA                                      http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm
 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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