For Words and Back Words

It's fascinating to watch two different people of two different genders learn a language at the same time. Everyone told me that Emma would talk first. "Girls always talk first," they say. Actually, I think they say that girls do pretty much everything first. And Emma actually has met most of her milestones first: smiling, laughing, rolling over, crawling, walking, first word, waving, clapping--everything. But Ethan is always close behind, usually by about a week.

After Momma, Dada and bye-bye, Ethan was hit by a tidal wave of words. All of a sudden, he had to know the name of everything. His vocabulary has quadrupled in just a few months. He has even technically started sentences. He knows that words fit together to make sentences, but he also knows that he really only needs a few key words to be understood. So the rest is just "eeeehhh." Eeehhh is sort of like et al. or "and the rest."  Example: "Eh-doing? Eh-happened? Eh-going? Eh-sad?" One of his favorite movies is "Eeeeehhhh--Who" (Horton Hears a Who). He is becoming a very accurate imitator. I have discovered that abbreviating curse words with their initial letters is not a good enough substitute. They may be a little less offensive than the actual words, but when I first heard Ethan say, "G.D." I knew it was time to get serious about my offensive language.

Emma is learning so many new words too, almost as many as Ethan. Her words are not as easily understood, however. At first, I thought maybe she couldn't hear the words accurately, but I am almost certain that's not the case. She just has a little trouble making the leap from internal to external sound. I know she knows what she wants to say. But "pig" comes out as "gip," and "fish" comes out as "shif." Lots of her words seem to come out backwards at first, or the last syllable of the word comes out before the first.
I don't believe she has dyslexia, but I see the connection between what's happening and that disorder in which a person tends to swap the placement of letters, words or numbers in their mind. It creates a hurdle for reading. If Emma's one weakness is English, then she is in luck. Another random piece of information that came from who-knows-where is that the eyes interpret information backwards. If I'm correct, there is actually a mirror-like construction in the eye and/or the brain. I'm getting out of my territory here, but this could explain why letters are so commonly seen written backwards by early learners. Could this same theory apply to speaking? It seems like there is a common thread, but I don't think there is a mirror-like construction in the ear. Maybe it's just the last sound that she hears. The last sound that she hears must be the first thing she remembers. It is very interesting, but also a little troubling. I'm trying to reserve my worries about it because she does eventually get it right, and she is obviously very smart.

On another language note, there is one very short but elusive sentence that the babies have been hearing a thousand times a day since the day they were born. Rodney and I are dying to hear them say it, but neither one of them will even attempt it. Somehow they must know that it is the most sacred sentence of all. Maybe they are waiting until they have perfected each syllable. Maybe they are saving the best for last. Or maybe they just want to keep us on the edge of our seats, waiting, wanting, working to earn those three little words....



Frequent words and phrases:

Ethan
Uh-oh
Oh no!
edoin?
egoin?
cra-cra (cracker)
ya-ya (raisin)
sa-sa (Sesame Street)
Oh gosh
Sorry
happened? How?
Bite, bite
Eat
real good


Emma
Comere
Bite, bite
Y'ok, y'aright? (Are you ok? Are you alright?)
Show! (Jack's Big Music Show)
Keekue (thank you)
Gumornin
Hi.
Okay
Ticka-Ticka-ticka (tickle)
Sheep
Yee-Haw!