434 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The imitation of others' articulate sounds begins very early, 

 and long before the sign-making impulse appropriates them as 

 true words. The impulse to imitate others' movements seems 

 first to come into play about the end of the fourth month, and 

 traces of imitative movements of the mouth in articulation are 

 said to have been observed in certain cases about this time. But 

 it is only in the second half year that the imitation of sounds be- 

 comes clearly marked. At first this imitation is rather of tone, 

 rise and fall of voice, apportioning of stress or accent, than of 

 articulate quality ; but gradually the imitation takes on a more 

 definite and complete character.* 



Toward the end of the year in favorable cases true linguistic 

 imitation commences that is to say, word-sounds gathered from 

 others are used as such. Thus a boy of ten months would cor- 

 rectly name his mother " mamma," his aunt " addie " (aunty), and 

 a person called Maggie " Aggie." f This imitative reproduction of 

 others' words synchronizes roughly at least with the first onomat- 

 opoetic imitation of natural sounds. 



As is well known, the first tentatives in the use of the common 

 speech forms are very rough. The child, in reproducing, trans- 

 forms, and these transformations are often curious and sufiicient- 

 ly puzzling. 



The most obvious thing about these first infantile renderings 

 of the adult's language is that they are a simplification. To be- 

 gin with, a child is at first incapable of reproducing the complex 

 sound structures which we call a word. He tends to cut it down. 

 At the start, indeed, it seems almost a general rule that the word 

 is reduced to a monosyllabic form. Thus biscuit becomes "bik," 

 candles " ka," bread and butter " bup " or " bu," and so forth. 



The formidable word periwinkle was shortened to " pinkie," 

 and the no less difficult handkerchief was reduced by the eldest 

 child of a family to " hancisch," by the next two to " hamfisch," 

 and by the last two to " hanky." 



There seems to be no simple law governing these reductions of 

 verbal masses. The accentuated syllable, by calling for most 

 attention, is commonly the one reproduced, as when nasturtium 

 became " turtium." The initial and final sounds seem to have an 

 advantage in this competition of sounds, the former as being the 

 first (compare the way in Which we note and remember the ini- 

 tial sound of a name), the latter as the last heard and therefore 

 best retained. The lingual facility of the several sound-combina- 

 tions, and the consequent interest of a quasi-sesthetic kind in 



* Prcyer's boy gave the first distinct imitative response to articulate sound in the 

 eleventh month. This is, so far as I can ascertain, behind the average attainment, 

 f Tracy. The Psychology of Childhood, p. 71. 



