Baby talk

Apparently speaking baby talk does no harm, and it may even be a valuable aid in the early stages of acquiring a language.

Peter Farb, Word Play

The English word infant apparently stems from a Latin word meaning "speechless." True enough, when a child begins talking we usually stop using the word infant, replacing it with toddler. Albert Einstein didn't begin talking until he was about 3, perhaps meaning that he was considered an infant longer than most other children with lesser brains.

We begin learning a language before we begin speaking it. Children begin learning language as soon as they are born, if not before. They learn, for example, the sound of their mother's voice. They learn that human sounds have meaning, even if they do not understand that meaning.

Peter Farb

The question Peter Farb deals with above is whether parents and other adults using baby talk help or hinder a child's speech development. Many people do speak baby talk around small children, yet most of those children grow up speaking their language as the adults around them speak to each other, not baby talk. When adults do speak baby talk around other adults it is usually an affectation, such as a woman trying to appear cute around men.

I have often prided myself on speaking like an adult around children, under the belief that this might help them learn to speak properly. Yet, I confess, I often used baby talk around my own son. More accurately, I adopted some of the pronunciations he used. For example, he pronounced certain words beginning with an S as if they began with the letter P, such as pasgetti for spaghetti. I started doing the same. He liked Fritos but called them Friggytoes. I have been calling them friggies ever since. In fact, I still sometimes say pasgetti when no one else is around.

Yet my son grew up speaking perfectly good English. Only I, apparently, was adversely impacted by baby talk.