typical early words for babies and toddlers in your language

[dustthouart]

From both my (admittedly introductory) study of linguistics and my own experience with my 14 month old, it seems that the early words of children are guided chiefly by #1 what the children themselves find most urgent and interesting to communicate, #2 what their unskilled and immature muscles find possible to form, and #3 starting with nouns and

Comments

[di_glossia]

Because she may now be differentiating, likely because you seem to be signing while speaking. I'm not saying that children can't differentiate, just that from your post (Ditto EAT and MORE, which she managed to sign very early, but still has not attempted to say.), a far more likely explanation for a child using "milk" in one language but not another would be that the child is unaware that another word is needed. Since you sign and speak at the same time, the connection was eventually made through repetition that sound and hand gestures were both parts of the word. Essentially, you were correcting the notion that spoken mama and signed milk were the correct ways of communicating the words.

Why milk would not be used could have a lot to do with breastfeeding vs. bottle feeding. I know of plenty of babies who say some form of "bottle", but do not say milk. Water is a taught word since it's considered a basic concept, but there is no need to give milk a name if it's the only thing the child drinks and it always comes in a sort of container, so "drink" or just plain "give me" are more common. Milk is also difficult to say in English. "Ba-ba" is not, nor are "dink" or "gimme".