I just ran across a new blog, Our Journey Into Language, written by a former linguistics professor whose classes I took back several years ago. It’s nice personal collection of essays covering topics in the psycholinguistics field and looking at early language development in her own children. If you’re interested in the subject, this is a nice up-close blog. Check it out. (And Go Lynn!)
We have a 1.5 year-old baby and it’s very captivating to observe how she is learning Spanish and English simultaneously. For the most part I’m in charge of speaking English with her, and my wife takes care of speaking Spanish with her. And she’s learning. Right now she still does not use full sentences, but she uses many words to express herself.
One thing she does, that I find fascinating, is how she uses two words– one in English and one in Spanish– to describe the same thing. If we’re about to leave the house, and her mother says vámonos, the baby’s reply is ámono, but then if I reply yeah, let’s go, she responds again, in kind, ss go or go go go. The mouths of babes are interesting places. Indeed that was going to be the title of this post and, although intriguing, I don’t know if it conveys the same meaning as the current title.
