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footnote on the Icelandic case:<br>
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?<br><br>
another footnote:<br>
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.<br><br>
Dan Slobin<br><br>
<br>
At 06:47 AM 8/29/2007, Brian MacWhinney wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Dear Marie,<br>
All children do this to some degree. What is
remarkable is that some<br>
chidlren only do a little bit of this and others much more. It
would be<br>
very helpful if you could tabulate his complete vocabulary and compute
the<br>
percentage of words that are conventional from the total. It would
also be<br>
helpful if you could track this over the next 10 months. If you had
just<br>
this basic information on a case of this type, you would perhaps have
more<br>
than I can think of in the current literature. Possibly other
info-childes<br>
readers will know of something I have missed.<br>
There is, of course, the famous case of the lady in
Iceland who invented<br>
her own language and forced everyone to learn that. If you couldn't
speak<br>
her language, you couldn't really interact with her at all. I
wonder what<br>
experiences your son has when trying to communicate with people outside
your<br>
family who have not yet learned his language.<br><br>
--Brian MacWhinney <br><br>
<br>
On 8/29/07 6:05 AM, "mariehojholt"
<mariehojholt@stofanet.dk> wrote:<br><br>
> <br>
> Dear all!<br>
> Being new at this network I wish to thank you all for a fantastic
opportunity<br>
> to correspond with equals, or, kind of. I am graduate student of
linguistics<br>
> in Aarhus, Denmark.<br>
> Here is my question:<br>
> I am looking for relevant studies of children who do not seem to
acquire<br>
> actual words as much as onomatopoeic sounds.<br>
> My two-year-old son Harald, is developing "according to
plan" but doesn't care<br>
> for the "linguistic symbols that the surrounding environment
has as<br>
> consensus": words.<br>
> <br>
> Here is a short list of his sounds and utterances:<br>
> "Mor (mummy) aa-aj (~not) bzzz (sound of
fly) krqr (sound of<br>
> breaking which means "egg") - pip-pip
(sound of bird) krqr<br>
> (sound of breaking" <br>
> - so: Mummy, flies don't have eggs, BIRDS have eggs!"<br>
> <br>
> "words":<br>
> water: "aah!" (sound you make after drinking)<br>
> food: "mtl-mtl" (chewing-sound)<br>
> sleeping/bed: "hhhrr-pfffff" (sleeping sound)<br>
> toothbrush: "hrhr-hrhr"<br>
> Cracker/"broken"/egg: "krqr" <br>
> Pooridge: "ph-ph-ph" (sound of boiling)<br>
> <br>
> <br>
> Apart from this he uses all the usual onomatopoeic sounds typical
for<br>
> children: animal sounds, vehicle sounds...<br>
> He does have some actual words: Mom, dad, diper, blue, Gorm
(brother), home,<br>
> now, more, shoe, in, ...but not too many verbs.<br>
> I hope some of you have comments on this, or links, references or
anything.<br>
> I am not worried about him, since he is a happy, clever boy who
communicates<br>
> adequately and relevantly, and - to me - intelligably.<br>
> Though, I am hyperinterested in understanding his procedures and
apparently<br>
> somewhat onomatopoeic-ICONIC language behaviour.<br>
> He is not interested in us telling him what the real words are, and
if we try<br>
> to push him, he ignores us or get angry.<br>
> All my best,<br>
> Marie Hoejholt<br>
> </blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><br>
Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School<br>
Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics<br><br>
Department of Psychology email:
slobin@berkeley.edu<br>
3210 Tolman
#1650
phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292<br>
University of
California
phone (home): 1-510-848-1769<br>
Berkeley, CA 94720-1650
fax: 1-510-642-5293<br>
USA
<a href="http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://ihd.berkeley.edu/slobin.htm<br>
</a>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><br>
<br>
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