typical early words for babies and toddlers in your language
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
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My oldest nephew's first words were nej (no), mamma, pappa (dad) and hej (hello). I think that these words are stereotypical first/early words for babies and toddlers here! But it's not always like that, of course. My mom has told me that my first word was "blomla" which was supposed to mean blomma (flower). My sister's first word was katt (cat) even though we didn't have pets of our own during that time, but mom and she used to look at the neighbour's cats through the window. Another word my nephew said early was "dato" = dator without the r (computer). His first phrase was titta dator (look computer). This has everything to do with the fact that his father spends a lot of time with his computer/laptop/ipad/whatever....
My friend has a daugher who is now a little over one year old. My friend's first language is Finnish, so that's what she speaks with the girl unless her husband (speaks only Swedish) is around. My friend's parents also speak Finnish with the girl. This girl only has two words so far: "ädi" or "dada". It's pretty clear that with "ädi" she's trying to say äiti which is Finnish for "mother". It seems to me like it's complicated for a small child to pronounce a word with three syllables.
It's fascinating to see how much toddlers are understanding and thinking, without being able to put it in words. The above-mentioned nephew is now 2,5 years and he still doesn't speak in full sentences. A couple months ago, I saw him "pick up" something pretty big from the floor. He then "put it down" in front of him, and then kicked "it" with a wide grin in my mom's direction. (She laughed out loud, which made him very confused.) It was so obvious that he was pretending to play with a ball! Still, he would never have been able to say "hey, grandma, come on and play with me, let's pretend we have a ball!" But he could comunicate what he wanted. :)
As a contrast, a friend of mine recently had a conversation with her 2,5 year old daughther (who has been speaking in full sentences for some time now) that ended with the girl saying: "Oh, that's typical!" She was expressing frustration over the fact that everything "fun" results in her being told that she's not allowed to do it... :)
I have heard that it is easier for small children to learn sign languages than spoken languages; that they can learn to sign long before they can speak.
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