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

[famulan]

When my nephew was about 1 year old, we were sitting on the floor near my dog. In one moment the nephew's foot was found in the dog's mouth. The dog is kind so no one was scared, it was even funny. The nephew was obviously impressed, and next morning he worded "собака" (a dog in Russian). It was one of his first word :)

There are three syllables in the Russian version of the word so It's rather difficult word to a young toddler. When other parents heard how the nephew pronounced it on playgrounds (they didn't know that it was almost the only word he knew) they melted, "The little kid gives a really good speech" :))

The stereotypical first/early words for babies and toddlers are мама (mom), папа (dad), да|нет (yes|no), дай (give), пить (drink).

[viciousdisorder]

I'm not sure how easy some signs are to form recognisably and easily... but my guess is that in most languages most children will learn words/sounds that are as you say easy to repeat and infact are often repetitive as well eg mama vs "antidisestablishmentarianism". And as you say concrete examples (in the form of nouns and perhaps verbs) are going to be preferentially used first because that's what they can immediately have an association with, babies aren't exactly about to understand metaphysics on a subatomic level and start sprouting on about quarks etc

[alessandriana]

My first word was sort of odd; it was apparently "plane." (There was one flying in the sky overhead at the time.)

(I suspect I must have really pronounced it something more like "play" or even "pay," because that seems an awfully hard combination of sounds for a small child to make, but...)

[di_glossia]

My explanation for this would actually be that your daughter is not able to differentiate between Mandarin, English, and ESL (or, indeed, understand that they aren't one language) and your response to her learning a word in one language reinforces that that word is acceptable for all communication, thus negating the need to learn the equivalent of the word in other languages. I really don't see your explanation as different languages resulting in different early words.

Regardless, early words for English? Water, Mama, Dada, no, want. Children who use pacifiers or blankets often have pet names for them. My first word, though, was duck, and my sister's was sock.

[dustthouart]

Do you have an explanation then for why she said "mama" six months before signing MOTHER, and now she uses them both? Why she signed DOG a month before saying "do do do" and now can actually say "dog"? Why she signed BABY four months before saying "baby" and now uses both? If has no need to learn how to voice something she can sign or sign something she can voice, why does she now use both when before she only used one

[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

[biascut]

To use anecdata, every baby I know in real life who signs had MILK as their first sign. I have never heard of a single baby who had "milk" as among their first English words, whether they sign or not. Surely this point to the fact that "milk", being a very consonant heavy word, with a liquid and a palatal consonant, and with a vowel sound that is not common among early babbling, is not an easy word for babies to say? Milk, the concept, is certainly one of the most important things in any baby's life.It is, but is it the word that most parents use for it? Most of my friends say something like, "Oh, are you hungry baby?" or "Oh, are you ready to nurse?", not necessarily "do you want some milk? MILK?" Lots of my friends kids had something which meant "I would like milk" as an early word, but it was usually something completely different - "nana" or "boovah" or "momomom" or whatever, possibly based on whatever sounds the baby things she's hearing when her parent feeds her

[tekalynn]

My first word was "cat".