• zikzak025@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    100
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    26 days ago

    Can’t remember where I heard this, but I believe the terms themselves evolved around common infant mouth sounds. Hence why so many languages use the term “mama” for mother.

    The baby makes random sounds, meaning is ascribed to them by the parents, the baby is given positive feedback and starts to make those sounds more frequently, and then the meaning eventually sticks for the child once they actually begin developing language.

    • TheMinions@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      ·
      26 days ago

      This is what I’ve heard as well. Ba/Da/Ma/Pa are the first sounds we interpret as “words” coming from babies.

      • rmuk@feddit.uk
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        48
        ·
        edit-2
        25 days ago

        My first words were “boba” and “kiki” but my parents were both abstract two-dimensional shapes so that might have affected things.

        • naeap@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          25 days ago

          Is Ma?

          According to (German) Wikipedia M is not part of the list of bilabial sounds

          • athatet@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            25 days ago

            If you can make an ‘m’ sound with only one lip I would certainly like to hear it.

            • naeap@sopuli.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              24 days ago

              I was thinking the same

              But I’ve never heard that word before and just looked it up in Wikipedia. And there they state to list all of them, but I didn’t see an ‘m’ - which I would put in as well, if I understood the definition correctly

              That’s my point, I’m not sure, if I miss something here or the article just isn’t correct/complete

              https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilabial

              Edit: seems, I’m just blind

  • skisnow@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    25 days ago

    My niece refers to herself as “you” because she doesn’t understand that when people refer to her as “you”, that isn’t her name.

    She’s 27 years old…

  • monotremata@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    25 days ago

    I’d like to point out that children do, in fact, get confused in this way.

    When my sister’s child (who now uses they/them pronouns) was quite young (maybe three years old? I’m not certain), when something upset them, they would say “oh no wha happen?” because they knew that when their parents responded with concern after they scraped a knee or something, they would always respond with “Oh no! What happened?” So even though the new situation didn’t rise to the level of provoking crying or whatever, because they wanted that same level of attention and concern, they just directly asked for that response. It was pretty cute.

    Similarly, when they wanted something to happen, they would ask it as a question: “want to make those guys talk?” (which meant “please make believe with me and provide voices for some of these stuffed animals”). Or “want to just bring the bowl down?” (which meant “I’m not sure which candy I would like! please bring the candy dish down so I can pick them by looking at them [and maybe take more than one]”). So they were definitely imitating things their parents said before understanding the full grammar of the situations involved.

  • affenlehrer@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    25 days ago

    The very first document my daughter received by mail after she was born was her Tax ID. Thank you, Finanzamt.

  • bitchkat@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    24 days ago

    I have a theory that those sounds are what a baby naturally says as their start tgeir vocal journey. So we adapted the words we use to mean mother /father accordingly.

    • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      24 days ago

      You might be on to something. There’s so many languages where the short word for mother is some variation of “ma”. Likewise with da/ba/pa for the father.

    • hirihit640@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      25 days ago

      I think it’s talking about parents who say “say daddy” to the baby. If the baby was just parroting back, they would say “say daddy” back, but if they just say “daddy”, then it implies that they know what “say” means

    • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      25 days ago

      I think it’s trying to imply that Only a sociopath wouldn’t understand the mechanism.

      The guy in the picture is Dokes from the TV show Dexter. He’s the only one that recognized there was something wrong with Dexter.

  • Thurstylark@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    26 days ago

    My guess is that understanding language is just a brain thing, and formulating and speaking language is a brain and motor skills thing