Babytalk

By Emmanuelle

PUCKER the lips for the tsup tsup then stretch them wide for the mwah mwah. Smack a yummy yum yum for a mouth-watering fingerdip; spit out a yackity yuck for that nasty icky taste. Duh for the dumb act, ahhh if it dazzled and wawawi if you are staggered. Please meme the bebe to sleep. Momo, say hello to the mamaw. And stamp the foot nonononono to counter stamp the foot likelikelikelikelike!   

If you think you are past beyond baby talk, you’ve got another think coming.

Only a very select of the very rare type remembers the first time they became aware that a word is representative of something. Maybe it’s because they were just six months or so out of the womb.

At that age, baby’s first word would probably be when it poked its pink tongue between toothless gums and came out with an unintelligible dede, at the same time grasping with chubby fingers the source of its food – a bottle of infant formula, or one of mother’s breasts dripping milk. On the other hand, baby’s first word could have been when it wowed its mother with mama! And since then, because baby was so pleased when mother’s eyes sparkled and she shrieked and clapped with delight at hearing its first word, baby instinctively called this delightfully shrieking clapping sparkling woman mama! 

Never mind the other person hovering beside mama! who was not the mama! not the mama! but was probably the papa! Or possibly the yaya!

A fortune-teller did not have to predict said baby’s next words.  Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Dumdilidumdilidum. Damdilidamdilidam. Or the like.  

In relation and cousin to the above, let us go over some concepts culled from the research of noted anthropologists Ember & Ember: the baby’s first moment of awareness of the significance of the spoken words is “a milestone for humanity. Not just in the acquisition of language, but in becoming acquainted with all the complex, elaborate behavior that constitutes our culture.” 

Admittedly, there are other systems of communication available aside from spoken language. These maybe directly through body stance and gesture, or indirectly through signs and symbols such as writings, paintings, codes, equations, musical notes.

The spoken language, though, is the major transmitter of culture that allows us to share and pass on, at first hand, our beliefs, attitudes, traditions, patterns of behavior, etc.  

Physiologically, a child is equipped from birth with the capacity to reproduce all sounds used by any of the world’s languages and to learn any system of grammar. But the language and the grammar that the child actually learns is the one spoken by the parents or caretakers. 

So, working parents who entrust the entire care and upbringing of their child to the yaya with little or no supervision, from the moment of waking-up to meme time, is courting more trouble than convenience.

More so, if the yaya happened to be the indomitable Inday. The last we heard, Inday was warbling Arabic. Aside from English, Spanish, German and Greek.                                      

(More next week.)

(Readers may reach columnist at jingmil@yahoo.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/
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