Tonight I was waiting in the car with Baby V and I decided to do a little experiment. I'm sure someday she will be really mad at me for all this, but until then I'll take my chances.
It was just a harmless little phonetics experiment. I decided to test the consonant sounds we use use in English, starting at the front of the mouth and moving back. So first I said, "Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh." This is the voiced bilabial stop, made by pressing the lips together.
The perfect little mimic said, "Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh."
I decided to continue with the stop consonants: "Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh."
V repeated, "Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh." (This is the voiced alveolar stop; the tip of the tongue presses against the alveolar ridge).
The same pattern continued for the velar stop, "Guh-guh-guh-guh-guh-guh."
I then went through all of the voiceless stops, which were successful, and also the nasals, "muh-muh-muh" and "nuh-nuh-nuh." So far, this was all a raging success; she repeated the sounds without any delay and, in fact, without even having to think about how to do it. The right sounds came out completely naturally.
Until I got to the labiodentals, that is. Her "fuh-fuh-fuh" came out sounding more like her "puh-puh-puh." The same was also true for "vuh-vuh-vuh"--her was more of a "buh-buh-buh."
When I said the "suh-suh-suh," sound, she said it as one continuous hiss: "Sssssssss." But when I said, "Zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh-zuh," she pretty much said it perfectly.
I know better than to test her liquids and glides at this point (the l, w, and y sounds). The same is true for her vowels. She does pretty wells with most vowels, but they are still kind of all over the place. For example, her beep still comes out more like bap. Maybe it's safe to say she has the lower vowels, but not the high vowels? I feel another test coming on!
Bear with me, poor little kid ...
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