Language Is a Virus, Part 3

I saw this guy on the train
And he seemed to gave gotten stuck
In one of those abstract trances.
And he was going: "Oo-ah...Oo-ah...Oo-ah..."

These lyrics, particularly the bit about the man on a train in a trance spouting gobbley gook, remind me of young Master Bertram and his current obsession: Curious George. I’ve already noted that mimicry is one of young Master B’s specialties. Mimicry serves Bertram well when he imitates the way in which my fellow Parental Unit and I read books aloud. For instance, when we read Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Tom Thumb, does Hunca Munca merely squeak with joy upon seeing the doll’s food laid out upon the table? Oh no, she squeeeaks with joy! So delighted is Bertram at this pronunciation that he repeats it to us as, “Mommy squeeeks with joy! Daddy squeeeks with joy!”

Where this toddler mimicry becomes a problem is when Bertram decides to imitate that cartoon monkey George. So instead of words, I get to hear, “oooh, ahhh, ahhh, ahhh, oooh aaah.” That’s right, young Master B speaks monkey. When I remind Bert to use words, he takes that as a cue to repeat his monkey declarations, only louder and with stomping and jumping for extra emphasis. Thank you, PBS Kids.

What I want to understand is why so many kids'shows feature shouting unintelligible creatures like George or characters like Sesame Street’s Baby Bear, who speaks with a lisp. Many of young Master B’s contemporaries seem similarly drawn to mimicking, so I have to wonder what the thought process is for the child education experts (supposedly working for these shows) who create these characters with speech impediments—yes, I am looking at you Elmo: Parental Unit One wants to introduce you to her new paper shredder.

Random Assortment

Just in case anyone missed the obvious, young Master B is an awesome kid. Here are a few highlights:

In the picture included with this post, young Master B is listening to his beloved songs from Yo Gabba Gabba, his favorite television show. I would prefer that he took a nap, but I suppose having quiet time with a few stuffed friends is okay too.

For young Master B’s language development, we’ve been trying to get him out of repetition mode and into conversational mode. If you’ve known for Parental Unit #2 for a long time, you might be aware that he used to respond with an occasional “beep” over the course of conversation. The beep usually signaled an affirmative response. Once we had Bertram, the beeping fell out of favor. So you can imagine our delight at the breakfast table when this happened:

Bertram: Yummy. Cereal.
Parental Unit #2: Bertram, do you like cereal?
Bertram: Beep!

Parental Unit #2 swears that he did nothing to encourage this. Bertram is drawn to the sounds of computer beeps and car honks.

After his bath, Bertram likes to run naked around the apartment. The other evening, while wearing just a diaper, he ran around in a circle yelling at the top of his lungs, “Naked boy! Naked boy!”

Edited on 4/29/09 to add the following: I got out of the shower in my natural state, and young Master Bertram pointed to his mommy and said, “Naked boy! Naked boy!”

Oh, the fun we have here.

Language Is a Virus, Part 2

Young Master B’s vocabulary is exploding! This is a good thing because it distracts us from the fact that his potty days have, well, gone down the toilet. I think we had a fluke burst of potty lust, and now we’re back to diapers, diapers, diapers.

But I digress; my point is that he’s picking up words like crazy. I’m not just talking about mimicry and repetition (although there is plenty of that, too); young Master B understands the words too. Last Friday, as we walked back from the sitter’s house in the bitter cold, young Master B looked up at the starless NYC sky and said, “sky.” I have no idea how he made the connection between the twinkle, twinkle stars that shine “like a diamond in the sky”—a song he has heard a bazillion times— to the thought that “this black veil of night above me is called sky.”

I also hate to admit this publicly, but I also think that young Master B’s word options have grown through exposure to TV shows like Yo Gabba Gabba, Jack’s Big Music Show, and the classic, Sesame Street. Yes, we read to him and yes, we talk to him; but put a singing puppet in the mix and you’ve got Bertram’s full attention. Words that are featured on the shows—for example, “fun,” “dance,” and “music”—have quickly become part of young Master B’s lexicon.

All this praise to the boob tube when The New York Times just reported that one of the key traits of happy people is that they watch less television. Maybe so, but how is their vocabulary???

Language Is A Virus

And he said: Hey! Are you talking to me?
Or are you just practicing
For one of those performances of yours?

Over the last three weeks, young Master B's vocabulary has exploded. I can't say if it's his addiction to the My Baby Can Talk series on the video i-Pod or if it's just developmentally the right time. Truly, these baby sign language DVDs have earned their worth and then some. I think he would watch these same two, 35-minute videos in repeat mode all day if I let him.

On the way back from the Bronx zoo last week, Parental Unit 2 and yours truly started an Excel sheet of Bert's words to date. We even took the time to break down into columns spoken words, words that are signed, and words he understands but does not pronounce clearly or substitutes (eg, quack is now used for 'duck,' down is used to indicate both 'pick me up' and 'put me down'.) Pretty nerdy, I know, but we're fascinated by how some words come to Bertram through ASL signs, then become spoken and how some words enter his vocabulary, clearly from exposure to the DVDs (and good ol' parental reinforcement, although we're OD'd on My Baby Can Talk), but skip the signing stage and go right to the spoken stage.

This past week, he has become more parrot-like, echoing certain words back to us, regardless of whether he truly understands what those words are. The word stinky comes to mind. You can guess when I might say that. Anyway, now Bertram repeats the word when I say it, as in

Parental Unit 1: "Whew-wee, this diaper is stinky!"
Bertram: "Stin-ky!"

Now I need to be mindful of my tendencies to elongate my vowels theatrically as in, "This diaper is stank-kay!"

Apparently, the next step is putting two words together in a phrase. I'm sure this will inspire some creative boddler phrasing.

And, a quick coda, I think it is high time we put the word boddler to rest. Bertram is a fully functioning bi-pedal boy with 50 words at his command. So hence forth, Bertram is a toddler.