Twinkle twinkle

Lots to comment about just now.

Today was V's first full day with her babysitter, and there was already something to discuss. When I went to pick her up, the babysitter said, "She's really verbal," which I thought was interesting. I have always kind of thought so, but then of course I do, I am her mother. But the babysitter said that other kids she has taken care of don't really talk until they are two years old. V has been talking a bluestreak since she was about ten months.

The most recent development, in Finnish, was the word for star, which in Finnish is tähti. This brings her total number of Finnish words up to four: mennään 'let's go,' voi voi 'oh dear,' anna 'give,' and tähti.

Star is another one of those concepts that she has words for in each language, including, as of today, in Finnish. We sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in English, and she shows the twinkling with her hands, opening and closing her fingers. She also points when her pappa says "stjärna" in Swedish, but she doesn't say it yet. She actually says star and tähti.

She has got a few speech acts already. Not surprising, the most prevalent so far seems to be the request. Tonight, for example, she kept repeating, "Bottle, bottle," and I ignored her and gave her other food (we usually just give her a bottle when she goes down for the night). Finally, she grabbed my hand, took me to the kitchen, pointed to the cupboard where we keep her milk and bottles, and then she pointed to the microwave. "Bottle," she said again. OK, this time I got it: she wanted a bottle, and she wanted it NOW, not later. She knows how to ask for what she wants!

Now a word about her pronunciation. Bottle is a new word for her, as of a couple of days ago. It's interesting that she says it with an aspirated t, like a speaker of upper-class British English would (RP). The reason this is interesting to me is because I am her pronunciation model for this word, and I say bottle with an American flap, which most people think sound like a d (ie, something like baudle). So where does she get this t sound from? Or is this a good example of how the phoneme gets acquired before the allophones? Curious.

I noticed tonight that she definitely doesn't have the l sound yet. We were playing with her toy fruits and vegetables, and every time she handed me the lemon, it sounded like either Yemen (as in the country that has been in the news lately on account of its al-Quida activity) or nemon.