Baby's first words!!

/mamamamama/../dadadadada/. What is this? s it gibberish? Well.not

really! To put it simply would say that this is music to a parent's ears! These
are very often a baby's very first words. So what exactly is this pure instinct
or mere experimentation?

Some are adamant about the fact that babies all over the world will purposely
choose to call their parents before uttering any other words mainly due to the
biological connection they have with them. This explains why every other
sound which comes out of an infant's mouth is totally ignored by the ever-so-
keen parents. And let's be honest here.you would want your child to call
YOU first, wouldn't you? (n my years of being surrounded by people and
babies 've even overheard mini-arguments between parents during which the
mother was totally convinced that her child loved her more because his or her
first 'word' was /mama/ and vice versa).

However, these eager parents are unfortunately wrong. Not only are
/mamamama/ and /dadadada/ sounds which are totally unrelated to the
biological connection between a child and his or her parents, but neither are
these sounds a baby's first utterances. Speech is a very complex area in a
human being after all it plays a very big role in the way we communicate
throughout our whole lives. t is specifically for this reason that even when a
baby cries communication is being established (even though sometimes we
might not understand what causes the crying). n fact, studies have shown
that child language acquisition takes place in 5 stages.

1. rying generally during the first two months of a child's life and it is
the most primitive form of vocal sound. Children cry to try and
communicate their state of being (hunger, discomfort, pain etc.) to adult
human beings. "Some of the most basic areas of speech, such as the
ability to control air flow and produce rhythmic utterances, are being
established at this time (taken from %e Cambridge Encyclopedia of
te Englis Language David Crystal).
. ooing - these sounds begin to emerge when a baby is round about 6
to 8 weeks. Cooing sounds develop together with crying and they are
"quieter, lower-pitched, and more musical, typically consisting of short
vowel-like sounds (taken from %e Cambridge Encyclopaedia of te
Englis Language David Crystal).
3. 'ocaI PIay - at this stage a baby is more in control of the sounds he or
she is producing. This shows that at this point babies begin to
experiment with their vocal chords and they begin to discover that
different sounds come out of the mouth when the airflow is controlled in
one particular way as opposed to another, or when the mouth is
shaped in a specific way. This stage takes place when babies are
between 3 and 4 months old.
4. BabbIing sounds like /mamama/ and /dadada/ begin to be produced
during this stage. At this point (which lasts for about 5 to 6 months)
babies start experimenting with different syllables, consonants and
vowels. At the beginning it's generally a repetition of the same
consonant and the same vowel, however, as time goes by children will
also start changing the consonants and vowels in the different
syllables. So for example a sound like /mabuda/ is now possible for a
child to utter. At this point a child would still not know that sounds have
meaning.
5. First Words Prosodic features, such as the rhythmic and melodic
features of the mother tongue, would be highly developed by this
stage. Even though vowels and consonants are still not fully
articulated at this point, children generally tend to rely heavily on these
prosodic features in order to get their message across, and since they
are frequently successful in doing so, it can be said that at this stage
babies start uttering their first words.

Finally (and this is very interesting!!) here is a sequence of the development of
consonants in babies which emerged after a study that was carried out by
Pamela Grunwell in 1987.

/m, n, p, b, t, d, w/ - by the age of
/k, g, h, q/ - by the age of .5
/f, s, j, l/ - by the age of 3
/t , , v, z, , r/by the age of 4.5
/, , -/ after the age of 4.S

So in conclusion, the only reason why a baby says /mamamama/ and
/dadadada/ before anything else is that the nasal sound /m/ and the plosive
/d/ are two of the easiest sounds for kids to utter.

! apologise if !'ve just burst your bubble..