At this point--and I have a feeling this could be the case for some time--V only has one term for each individual concept. In other words, a candle is always ljus, and dog is always dog (not hund, like in Swedish), etc. I can't think of any exceptions to this. So the languages are definitely not sorted out yet: she doesn't know both the Swedish and the English word for all of the things in her universe.
Still, her universe is expanding! She takes delight in stringing all of the words she knows together. Yesterday morning, for example, she was laying in her bed saying, "Mamma bear, baby bear ..." I don't think she knows that that means, necessarily, she is just playing with language.
She continues to use an awful lot of nonverbal communication, as well. It's mostly pointing at this stage, which is, of course, a very effective tool. She points at the food she wants, she points at her bottle when she wants to go lay down, she points or lifts her hands when she wants me to carry her. The cuddling and patting continues, as well. If she likes someone, she reaches over to pat their arm. During the past few days, she has become more attached to her nighttime bear. When she sees it, she hugs it to her chest and says, "Oooooh, bear."
Her pronunciation of bear is "baw." This is typical, of course, and could continue until she is even 5 or so. Other than the r sound, I honestly have to say that I think the rest of the English phonemes are more or less there. A couple of weeks ago I wrote that she didn't seem to have the n sound; she pronounced it perfectly in all word positions only a couple of days later. She has offered perfect renditions of her sister's name, which starts with n.
I'm curious. Do you think that a candle is a ljus and a dog is dog because of who introduced her to those words, or who uses them the most with her? Ez and I really like reading about V's language acquisition. Ezra's got quite a bit of linguistics interest and actually came up with the above question. I'm just the monkey with the typewriter.
ReplyDeletexoxo
deb
Wow, the first comment! Thanks, Deb and Ezra! Yes, V totally associates the words with the person who uses them the most. The second her dad walks in the door at night, she starts pointing to the light and saying "lamppa," because that's what she talks about with her dad. He shows her the lights, the candles, other stuff than I do. So when she talks to me, she talks about apples, dogs, other stuff. But even when she shows me the light, it's still "lamppa," because that's the only word she has for it so far.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading! You guys are sweet. :-) Hugs from us!