Katherine update
May. 6th, 2005 12:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dtmOkay, I realize that I didn't do the quick Katherine post that I said I was going to do, so here it is now while I work out some thoughts for another post I want to make.
I keep thinking that any day now I'm going to be able to post about Katherine taking her first independent steps, but that just isn't happening. She just doesn't have the balance (and that probably means ankle strength) to stand independently. She can cruise the furniture pretty well, and will take some steps with us if we hold her arms up - it's a bit like walking a marionette - but doesn't like doing that, and wants to drop to her knees and crawl.
Which is understandable, because she's pretty darn fast at the crawling. She's also very good at the climbing, and has no problems crawling the entire staircase in one burst. (She also can back down the staircase safely, though these days it's more of a feet-first controlled belly slide rather than the backwards crawling she started with) She has no problems pulling herself up onto the sofa or the coffee tables in the TV room, despite the fact that both of those involve climbing upon something that's as tall as her belly-button. And when for some reason she's too tired to be successful with that, she's learned the word "up".
Which brings me to what I really wanted to talk about - language acquisition. Katherine knows about 10 or so words now, and this is an attempt to document them so that we'll know later.
Words are listed in approximate order of acquisition. When I use IPA, I'm looking at the "standard scheme" from this page
That's all I can remember at the moment, though she may have more that I've forgotten about. She's also working on "all done" to indicate that she's done with her meal, though she already has a pretty good indicator for that (pulling her bib off over her head).
She also will go through her repertoire from time to time for no apparent reason, along with several multisyllable sounds that may or may not have meaning. She'll babble [mɑmɑmɑmɑmɑm] sometimes, and we've been trying to interpret that as "mama", but she doesn't use it consistently enough for us to be sure. (We're already certain that saying that she was saying "daddy" several weeks ago was premature) Another favorite bit to repeat over and over is [ɒbiː']; no ideas there either.
update: fixed some transcription errors.
I keep thinking that any day now I'm going to be able to post about Katherine taking her first independent steps, but that just isn't happening. She just doesn't have the balance (and that probably means ankle strength) to stand independently. She can cruise the furniture pretty well, and will take some steps with us if we hold her arms up - it's a bit like walking a marionette - but doesn't like doing that, and wants to drop to her knees and crawl.
Which is understandable, because she's pretty darn fast at the crawling. She's also very good at the climbing, and has no problems crawling the entire staircase in one burst. (She also can back down the staircase safely, though these days it's more of a feet-first controlled belly slide rather than the backwards crawling she started with) She has no problems pulling herself up onto the sofa or the coffee tables in the TV room, despite the fact that both of those involve climbing upon something that's as tall as her belly-button. And when for some reason she's too tired to be successful with that, she's learned the word "up".
Which brings me to what I really wanted to talk about - language acquisition. Katherine knows about 10 or so words now, and this is an attempt to document them so that we'll know later.
Words are listed in approximate order of acquisition. When I use IPA, I'm looking at the "standard scheme" from this page
| Pronunciation | English source word | Meaning/Usage |
|---|---|---|
| au | meow and ow | "Cat". This was her first word, and it acquired the cat meaning immediately (after all, our cats say it), but she also started to say it early on by parroting us when we said it right after she pulled an ear, nose, or lip. She uses this for even pretty abstract representations of cat, (such as in her board books, though that's probably because we told her that those were cats) and for catlike things like cheetahs on TV. |
| uff | woof | "Dog"; often said as "oof oof" in response to dogs outside barking. However, she'll use this to refer to pictures of dogs, to dogs on TV, and to horses. (on TV; she hasn't met real ones yet). We think the common element must be the long nose - the dog she has the most experience with is my parents' lab-retriever mix. |
| nʌm | yum | "Yum", as in "I've just eaten something I like." Also used to mean "I would like to eat some of that", or (while holding food out) "Here, have some of this" |
| aɪ gə' | unknown | "Please give me" or "please take this", depending on whether her outstretched hand has something in it or not. |
| ha' ɪ | hi | "hi", though the meaning may not be fully there yet. Mostly, she seems to use it as a "communicate with me" word - she says it to make you say it back to her. (And will repeat it until you do) She charmed all the waiters when we went out for Easter dinner by turning to them and saying "hi" as they passed. |
| wiː | whee! | Used for anything that involves lateral motion - swinging in the hamoc, riding on her rocking horse, etc. Occasionally used for being carried outside when it's windy. |
| wəu | whoa | Used for a wide variety of sudden downward motion - letting go of the table and landing on her butt, when I carry her downstairs and thunder down the stairs (which she enjoys greatly), etc. |
| iːuː | ew | "Daddy's just opened my diaper on the changing table". Children learn the words they hear... |
| niəu | no | I'm not certain how she means this. Mostly, she uses it as a question back at us right after we've said "no". Occasionally, she'll use it before we even say "no", e.g. she'll sometimes look at me and say "no?" right after I take something away from her that was headed towards her mouth. |
| baɪ | bye | "bye", complete with hand wave. Of course, the meaning isn't really there yet, I don't think, and she often uses this in the same way as she uses "hi" - namely, just to get people to say it back to her. |
| ʌp | up | "Pick me up". Also used for "put me down", but we're working on learning a new word for that, and she may soon have "down". She also uses this to mean "get me out of the carseat/shopping cart/bathtub". (Though with the bathtub, she'll say "up" while simultaneously pulling herself up and throwing a leg over the side) |
| duː | shoe | "shoe". She'll say it while holding one of her shoes, or while pointing to one of ours. It seems to apply mostly to shoes not being worn. |
That's all I can remember at the moment, though she may have more that I've forgotten about. She's also working on "all done" to indicate that she's done with her meal, though she already has a pretty good indicator for that (pulling her bib off over her head).
She also will go through her repertoire from time to time for no apparent reason, along with several multisyllable sounds that may or may not have meaning. She'll babble [mɑmɑmɑmɑmɑm] sometimes, and we've been trying to interpret that as "mama", but she doesn't use it consistently enough for us to be sure. (We're already certain that saying that she was saying "daddy" several weeks ago was premature) Another favorite bit to repeat over and over is [ɒbiː']; no ideas there either.
update: fixed some transcription errors.