Eventually, of course, children learn the words they hear around them, including the rules for combining them, and grow up using them more or less as other people do.

But when they are first producing language they do so not by simply imitating but by creating, using those language elements they have some sort of control over to comment on novel happenings, to complain about injustice, to satisfy whatever need they have at the time. (Or, indeed, to play with words and sounds just for the sheer pleasure of doing so).

And words, to a young child, do not necessarily coincide with those language units which, when written down, tend to have a space before and after.

My elder daughter Céline (in Guernsey, 1965).

Later on I’ll be coming to my granddaughter Amélie. But first, let’s look at a sequence produced by her aunt Céline when she was a bit younger than Amélie is now:

                             Daddy naughty girl more tea

which - written that way - looks rather like five words.

In fact, it was more like:

                            Daddy  + naughtygirl +  moretea !!!!!!

In other words what would be five words in adult speech were actually three units in Celine speech, and they can be glossed as follows

Daddy               = ‘Daddy’ (no surprise there)

naughtygirl      = ‘unacceptable behaviour’ (on anyone’s part)

moretea            = ‘something drinkable’

She heard the unit naughtygirl directed at her when we were not pleased with her behaviour. Why, then, shouldn’t she use the same sequence when not pleased with her father’s behaviour?  (After all, the girl element was not yet meaningful to her).  Nor, indeed, did the tea element appear to mean ‘that hot liquid which Mummy gives me sometimes in my special plastic mug’.    And, to cap it all, more didn’t mean ‘more’.  Why not?  Simply because we never asked her do you want or would you like + some tea. That’s because, when tea was available, we knew - from experience - that she would like some, and just gave it to her.  We weren’t, however, sure that she would invariably want a fill-up of tea, which was why she was very familiar with the two units.

       

            Would you like (or) Do you want + some more tea.

(Not surprisingly, some, being a very short, relatively empty word, didn’t make it into her vocabulary as early as the highly meaningful ‘words’ more tea.)

And what about the context in which she angrily produced this sequence, one she had never heard from our lips, one she had never produced before nor would again, one - more than possibly - which was unique in the history of human speech?

Christou, Céline’s mother, had gone out to buy some food for a party we were to be holding that evening. I, meanwhile, was doing some other preparations, including filling the fridge with beer, juice and cans of coke.  Yes, coca cola, that nectar to two year olds which young Celine was rarely allowed to drink, which she had noticed me putting into the fridge and which I had refused to let her have.  Her annoyance with me lasted for just a matter of minutes; but it seems that it had been seething away below the surface because - twenty minutes later, when she heard the front door opening - she rushed to her mother and shouted:

Daddy wouldn’t let me have any of that coke in the fridge, the bastard!

or, at least, the nearest that her linguistic resources could come up with.

My younger daughter Sabine (in Algiers, 1967-8)

                     

By the time Sabine had reached the age of Céline then and her daughter Amélie now, I had started a very detailed diary study of her linguistic development.  This was not because I found her language intrinsically more interesting than that of her sister, but because I had already been accepted to do an MA in Linguistics two years later (at the end of my stay with the British Council in Algiers) and thought it was too good an opportunity to miss.

Sabine, unlike her sister - who had started to learn to speak in the monolingual setting of Guernsey, with French only occasionally heard within the household - was in a position to grow up not just as a bilingual, but as that rare being, an ambilingual: someone equally at home in two languages. She would be going to the English-speaking international school during the day; the rest of the time, however, she would be in a French-speaking environment in the block of flats where we lived, which was mainly occupied by French ‘coopérants’.

This kind of situation is very rare. Most bilinguals have a sort of lopsided exposure to the two languages. Sabine, however, would be speaking to adults as well as children, half the time in English, half in French; would, for example, learn ball-bouncing and skipping games in both languages as well as becoming aware of the different forms of language appropriate with children and with adults.

This double exposure came at something of a price, though one well worth paying.  The learning load was heavier, since most referents in her world needed two forms of linguistic encoding.  And, since children have the most amazing urge to communicate, it is perhaps not surprising that many of Sabine’s utterances contained elements from both of her languages, especially when she had acquired a word in language A. but not in language B. Here are a few typical examples from when she was 2 years 8 months.

(I will use something approaching standard spelling to make the transcriptions easier to understand, and will use bold type for all French elements.  Brackets are placed around letters where the corresponding sounds are omitted: thus (h)at indicates that the/h/ sound in ‘hat’ is missing; and p(r)op(er)ly) shows that the word ‘properly’ had the 2nd consonant sound as well as the 2nd vowel sound missing, reducing the word to two syllables.

(S. = Sabine; C. =  Céline; M. = Michael; Ch = Christou; Z. = Zohra.)

Bilingual utterances

Daddy tapé  Sabine!  ( = ‘Daddy smacked Sabine!’)

Donne petit peu boi(re) Mummy.  (= ‘Give Mummy a little to drink’ – offering empty glass to me)

Où il est shoes? (= ‘Where are the shoes?’)

1000. M.   We’ll wait and see where its house is.
      

19. S.     House où il est?  (= ‘Where’s the house?’)
    

Donne piece. (of cheese) (= ‘Give me a piece’)

1000. M.You’ve finished in the bath, then?
      

19. S.   Fini in (th)e baf.  (= ‘I’ve finished in the bath’)
    

culotte dirty  (= ‘my pants are dirty’)

Ch.  Go and put your pants in the bathroom

S.    culotte barfwoom 

(tried to sit on my knee, but blocked by table)

Assis p(r)op(er)ly  (= ‘I want to sit properly’)

(Offered her some pants, but she pointed out that they were her sister’s)   Céline les pants! (= ‘They’re Céline’s pants’. Note French definite article with English noun)

(Dropped button. ‘Fing’ - her version of ‘thing’ - was a general word for items she couldn’t name.)  Fing tombé (= ‘X has fallen down’)

(Fell off wheeled toy dog and hurt herself. The first word is a reduction of ‘camion’ = ‘lorry’, and ‘bobo’ is a child word for ‘hurt’, used in either language)

Cam(i)on si(t)down bobo!

(Had taken Nathalie’s shoes, and when Christou took them back, said)

(Na)thalie donne ‘the’ shoes.  ( ??‘Give me Nathalie’s shoes’ )  Later added  Donne MY shoes!

(Heard us telling Zohra, our nanny/housekeeper, to go to baker’s and saw us hand over money)

Zohra shop bread cinq.  (cinq, literally meaning ‘five’, = ‘money’)

(Offered her glass of water to sister)

Céline water (pe)tit peu. (= ‘take a little water, Céline’, or ‘here’s a bit of water for you, Céline’)

(Celine not keen on porridge)  Mangez porridge. (= ‘Eat porridge)

Fermé!  Open! (= ‘(the door is) closed, open it’)

(Placed doll on table and said) Dolly assis, si(t)down (= ‘Dolly is sitting down’ or ‘I’ve sat dolly down’)

1000. M.Show me your nose
      

19. S.  Show me mon nose.  (‘mon’ = ‘my’)
    

(Pointing to my eyes)  Eyes deux.  ( = ‘Two eyes’)

100. C. Who’s been giving you the sweets? 
     

S. Zoh(r)a le (s)weet  …. Zoh(r)a le bwed (= ‘Zohra (gave me) the sweets; Zohra (gave me) the bread’)

(C. had her toy tortoise)

Tortoise! Donne à Sabine tortoise!  (=‘Give the tortoise to me/Sabine’)

Dis nigh-night Daddy (either ‘I want to say goodnight to Daddy’ or ‘I want Daddy to say goodnight to me’)

Head bwush belle. (= ‘let me brush your hair and make you beautiful’)

Items appearing in both languages

During this same period she would occasionally emphasise an item by saying its equivalent in the other language, eg

Couteau knife.

(Re English friend’s cap on askew)

(h)at!  Chapeau.  p(r)op(er)ly  (= ‘put your cap on properly)

(re new decoration)  P(r)etty!  Joli. 

Mi(l)k   pe(tit) lait. (petit lait is the French for ‘whey’)

These were all addressed to bilinguals (usually me, Christou or Céline).  With monolingual French speakers  (and with Zohra who, though speaking both Arabic and her native Berber language, used only French with us) she was increasingly able to confine herself to French.  Thus, when I told her to go and show Zohra her ‘pants’, she went off and said ‘culotte’’; when complaining to me that she hadn’t got a knife she used the English word, but said ‘couteau’ to Zohra, and so on.

She was, however, prepared to use an English item if it was the only one she had in her repertoire. So, when I told her ‘You’re going to the shop with Zohra’; she turned to her and said:

Zohra! Shop  s’en va! (From ‘on s’en va’ = ‘we’re off’ or ‘let’s go’. The French equivalent magasin didn’t turn up for a few more weeks)

Monolingual sequences: French

Donne couteau!  Ma couteau!  (= Give me the knife. It’s my knife’. Note that it is easier to learn the English ‘my’ than the French equivalent, which can be mon, ma or mes depending what follows. In this case standard French would be mon couteau, since couteau is a masculine noun).

Tiens les souliers. (= ‘here are the shoes’ or ‘hold the shoes’)

J’ai fini. Céline a fini. (= ‘I’ve finished. Céline has finished’.)

(Cho)colat donne! (= ‘Give me some chocolate’) ......

Sabine manger (cho)colat (= ‘I want to eat some chocolate’)

(On finishing breakfast) Moi j’ai fini.  (= ‘I’ve finished.’)

(One shoe had been put on, stretched out foot for the second) L’aut(re)!  (= ‘The other’)

(Christou called out ‘Céline!’ as lunch was on the table. Sabine added

Céline!  Dans la maison! (Literally = ‘Céline. In the house’ = ‘Come inside’)

(I was giving her a piggyback, but she wanted to join the other children playing)

Aussi Sabine!  (= ‘Sabine as well’)

Ch.  Va demander à Zohra de mettre de l’eau pour faire du thé.

(= ‘Go and ask Zohra to put some water on for tea’)

19. S.    Zoh(r)a!  De l’eau!  Thé!  Maman!  Soif! (= ‘Zohra. Water. Tea.
    

        Mummy. Thirsty’)

(Referring to deflated lifebelt) Cassée bouée!  (= ‘broken lifebelt’)

Monolingual sequences: English

Ch.   Go and tell daddy to get up.

19. S.       Daddy! Mornin(g)!  get up!  Tea!
    

No cut it, Daddy  ( = ‘Don’t cut my meat’)

(After using toilet by herself, ‘pipi’ being general word used in either language.)   Goo(d) girl pipi toilet.

100. C.  That’s mummy’s  (re shirt)
     

19. S.   Mummy shirt.
    

(touching both headlamps of car)  Two lightout

(Out walking with her. I turned back home, hoping she would follow, and she ordered  Do(n’t) go (a) way!  (= First example of negative don’t).

Open de door!

(Wanting me to follow her up the steps) Up comin(g)!

(Flushed lavatory) Gone. Gone. (It’)s all gone.

(I’d been cutting her toenails and she thought one still needed cutting)

Cut it foot one!  Cut it foot one!

Lightout pipi!  (= ‘I want the light on so I can go to the lavatory’)

Lightout (pu)titon!  (Same context)

Door open!  (= ‘Open the door’)

Book pictures .. see!  (= ‘Show me the picture book’)

(H)and filfi .. washin(g) (= My hands are filthy and need washing’)

Lo(t)s fuluz  (literally = ‘lots of flowers’, but was used the first time we went into a forest, reacting and referring to the tall trees, ‘lots’ being  used to refer to size as well as quantity).

(H)at (h)ot!  (Re Christou sitting under hair dryer)

My grand daughter Amélie (at our cottage, April 2011)

creative use of language

The last two entries for Sabine are examples of how young children use language creatively, when dealing with novel experiences: combining items in their active vocabulary in novel ways. (Later examples included her saying ‘Fire drink water’ when watching me fill up the paraffin heater, and ‘I like the big telly!’ on first seeing a film at the cinema).

Amélie, as her father Gerry told me this last weekend, produced a nice creative example on seeing her first fireworks: ‘Bubbles with lights on’.

exposure to English and French

Amélie is, in fact, exposed to a certain amount of French, since Sabine is proud that her daughter is a quarter French and is - understandably - keen on her growing up bilingual. So Amélie hears a reasonable amount of French from her mother, and is looked after by a French-speaking child-minder once a week.

Unlike Sabine and Celine, however, Amélie doesn’t have a French-speaking father and has never lived in a French-speaking environment. English is by far the language which she is most exposed to (and that includes C Beebies, the Simpsons and so on). As a result of this she doesn’t volunteer a great deal of French, and I didn’t hear a single French word from her over this last weekend.

negatives

Her English has, however, put on a real spurt in the few weeks since we last spent time together.  She seems, for example, to have mastered the fairly complex grammar of negativity.  I noted the following three sequences, all following the standard rules:

‘I don’t want it.’  (response to my ‘You want your juice, don’t you’)

‘I don’t need my nappy’. 

‘I can’t see it’.

Her mother, at the same age, was mainly using ‘no’ as a general marker of negativity in English e.g

‘No cut it Daddy’.  (= ‘Don’t cut it, Daddy’)

‘No wan(t) (to)mato’. (= ‘I don’t want the tomato’)

‘No sleep’. (As a response to ‘Do you want to sleep?’)

‘No want it butters’. (As a response to ‘Don’t you want any butter on it?’)

This she was alternating with a form of ‘don’t’, e.g.

‘Do(n’t) go (a)way’.

‘Don(t) wan(t) back’. (= I don’t want to be in the back of the car).

‘Don(t) want it!’ (Refusing meat; note the missing ‘I’ in these last 2 examples).

verb forms and questions in general

Amélie is, in fact, producing a much wider variety of verb forms than her mother at the same age. Here’s a selection I noted over the weekend (not counting the negatives already mentioned).

‘Look at Amelie d(r)awing’ /’ Where’s your stick gone?’ /

‘Here’s your stick. Where’s it gone?’ /

‘Where’s your other stick gone?’  / What’s that bird?’ /

‘What’s my f(l)ower doing?’ / ‘I want a d(r)awing here. / 

‘I (ve) finished my letter ... I done it, I done it!’

‘Are you gointo d(r)aw?’  You d(r)aw airp(l)ane? /

‘Let’s go dis way /  ‘What’s that f(l)ower?‘ /

‘ I’ll put it in my pocket’ / ‘I’m d(r)awing a circle’

‘I’ve taken your hat.’ / ‘I can’t see it’ / ‘I want a pen; let me have it’.

‘Have you got a leaf?  I’ve got my leaf’.

‘Are you reading your garden?’ (= Guardian)

You can d(r)aw bumber bee / You d(r)aw my yellow for me (‘yellow’ and occasionally ‘blue’ refer to colouring in general. This is an example of the common use of a member of a set to refer to the set in general. cf. Sabine’s use of ‘cinq’ = ‘five’ for any coin).

orders

You hold my hand! / You take my dicks  (= ‘sticks’) /

Look at the b(r)anches / Look at Amelie d(r)awing. /

Put it in the pocket  / You d(r)aw a airp(l)ane for me. /

You d(r)aw dis here. /  You d(r)aw a epedant  (=‘elephant’).

consonant sounds

There is a hierarchy of sounds that a child is able to produce. The earliest consonant sounds in use universally are the bilabials (produced by closing and opening both lips) found at the beginning of the words papa, baby and mummy. This, it seems reasonable to infer, is because the child can actually see this lip movement and, in production, doesn’t need to control the tongue position.  And, not surprisingly, many, many languages include these sounds in the words meaning ‘father’, ‘mother’ and ‘baby’.

The next consonant sounds tend to be /t/ and /d/, where the tip or blade of the tongue contacts the back of the teeth. Again, this is fairly easy for a child to be aware of, which may well explain why languages include these sounds in such words as daddy. (Many, such as Polish, Romanian, Ukrainian and Czech, have a /t/ sound in their equivalent of daddy).

The /h/ sound tends to emerge late, as do the two versions of the ‘th’ sounds as in this and bath, (so Sabine said ‘filfi’ instead of ‘filthy’).  And, at the moment, Amélie refers to my wife Jane as ‘Dane’.

But sometimes it is not the actual sound that is a problem in production, but where the sound is to be found. English has a lot of what are known as consonant clusters where two, or sometimes three, consonants are found with no vowel separating them.  (Examples just in this paragraph include actual, problem, production, consonant, cluster, example, just, paragraph and include.)

Not surprisingly, you wouldn’t expect to find too many of those words in the speech of a two-year-old. But clusters pop up at the start of quite a few simple words such as flower, draw, sleep, blanket, (air)plane, stick and please, all of which are part of Amélie’s active vocabulary. Like most English-speaking children of her age, she copes with them by dropping the second element of the cluster. Thus:

flower        =      f(l)ower

drawing    =      d(r)awing

sleep          =      s(l)eep

blanket      =      b(l)anket

airplane     =      airp(l)ane

please         =     p(l)ease

And the same happened when imitating ‘tantrum’, which came out as ‘tant(r)un’, and ‘branches’, which became ‘b(r)anshes’.

By contrast, when attempting the word stick (which she used several times when we were walking in the wood) she dropped the first element, the /s/, and voiced the /t/ to produce dick. And the rather complex bumblebee - a new word this weekend - became budderbee, then bulbee and finally bumber bee.

Conversation

As you can see from the photos above, Amélie was in our bed finishing off her breakfast.  She was holding a piece of yellow paper on which was written ‘Jane - income’. She was scribbling/drawing on the paper, pretending to write a letter, and the following conversation took place. (J. = Jane, A. = Amélie, M. = Michael).

M. What are you writing?

A.  I witing.

10. J.  She’s writing a letter
    

A.  A letter.

J.  Dear Jane, here is your income.

A. Income.

J. You have to put ‘love from Amelie’ when you’ve finished your letter.

A. I (ve) finished my letter.   …….....  I done it, I done it.

J. Have you put ‘love from Amelie’ at the bottom?

1. A. (kisses paper twice)
   

1000. M.Are you going to eat your toast?
      

1. A.My reading my (?) pen.    …. I’m not reading my blue (?) pen (= probably = ‘I’m not writing/drawing with a coloured pen’ since ‘blue’ and ‘yellow’ may represent colours in general)
   

10. J.Tell me what it says in your letter
    

1. A. In my letter.
   

J. What are you going to draw now?

1. A.You do my bulbee (= bumblebee) for me. (Jane draws various things for her: a plane, a bumblebee, spider etc.)
   

1. A. What are you doing?
   

10. J.There you are he’s flying along. (the bumblebee)
    

1. A.ang kou. (= ‘thank you’)
   

10. J.Now I’ll carry on until the sky is full of bumblebees.
    

1. A.I love my pencil (= pen)  … You done my budderbee.  (then Amélie makes her additions to Jane’s paper, hands the pen to Jane and says More p(l)ease.
   

1. A.After Jane has drawn an elephant, mentioning the word 4 times,  Amélie takes the pen back, does her version and says That’s my efedant
   

1. A.An(d) you d(r)aw.
   

10. J.  Aren’t you going to draw?
    

A. Are you gointo d(r)aw.  Dere page!  (pointing)

10. J. What do you want me to draw this time?  A house?
    

1. A. A house!     ……….  You d(r)aw airp(l)ane?
   

Imported language.

Little children who spend time outside the family (in a nursery or with childminders, for example) tend to import sometimes surprising language into the home.

I was delighted, this last weekend, to hear an extraordinarily adult ‘Back in a minute’ from Amélie before she went off to speak to Sabine.

Even more surprising was to hear her repeat the ‘be careful!’ I’d said to her (when we were walking in the woods, with nettles and branches on the ground) with one delicious addition: ‘Darling, be careful!’, said solicitously as I walked ahead of her.

Goodness knows what she’ll be coming out with next time we meet.