Living Language
Most people I've talked to over the years have family terms that derive out of two to four-year-old speech, either mangled words, or made-up words as the child struggles to express thoughts obviously going on inside their heads. An awful lot of this strays into the "Oh how cute" zone--wherein love fuels about 90% of the fun factor. "Our Little Bit says bafwoomb instead of bathroom. Isn't that precious?" And you nod with a fixed smile--knowing your smile is going to unleash a cascade of similar anecdotim.
But--at least for me--there are the oddities of kid communication that aren't easily explained away by soft palate development. Like (yes, here it comes, my own Little Bit story, go ahead and click away if your stomach is turning) when my daughter was two and just starting to talk, she made a clear distinction between what she called "babies" and "beings". To us, the two terms appeared at first to include every human under the age of six months. But she was persistent in two separate terms, though she could not articulate a difference. "That's a baby." "No. A being." "Is that a baby or a being?" "Baby." Finally it gradually became clear that infants were beings and babies who had begun to look at you and gabble at you, reach for you, had become babies. It seemed an odd distinction to make but I guess at two there was a profound difference between the small ones who just lie there wiggling and looking vague, and the ones that begin to interact with others.
Then there are terms that you wouldn't think of but make sense. Like a four year old who warned another child not to touch a fragile crystal statuette, before the other adults in the room could leap up. "Don't touch! That's glassible." Glassible. What a great term. of course by the time that kid was in kindergarten her language had been guided into conventional channels, and she'd even forgotten about glassible. But I've been on the watch for kid neologisms for years, especially the ones that give a clue to their thinking processes.
But--at least for me--there are the oddities of kid communication that aren't easily explained away by soft palate development. Like (yes, here it comes, my own Little Bit story, go ahead and click away if your stomach is turning) when my daughter was two and just starting to talk, she made a clear distinction between what she called "babies" and "beings". To us, the two terms appeared at first to include every human under the age of six months. But she was persistent in two separate terms, though she could not articulate a difference. "That's a baby." "No. A being." "Is that a baby or a being?" "Baby." Finally it gradually became clear that infants were beings and babies who had begun to look at you and gabble at you, reach for you, had become babies. It seemed an odd distinction to make but I guess at two there was a profound difference between the small ones who just lie there wiggling and looking vague, and the ones that begin to interact with others.
Then there are terms that you wouldn't think of but make sense. Like a four year old who warned another child not to touch a fragile crystal statuette, before the other adults in the room could leap up. "Don't touch! That's glassible." Glassible. What a great term. of course by the time that kid was in kindergarten her language had been guided into conventional channels, and she'd even forgotten about glassible. But I've been on the watch for kid neologisms for years, especially the ones that give a clue to their thinking processes.