59 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



at the breakfast-table) became in her mouth something not easily dis- 

 tinguished from pd pd. This may perhaps account for her unwilling- 

 ness to take up the new name. 



Ba or bo, book. 



" More," or rather md, often prolonged to md-a or mo-a to ask 

 for more of some food, etc., or to ask for any action that pleased her 

 to be repeated. This word enabled her to form an approach to a sen- 

 tence : thus, md . . . md md (" more, mama "). 



Td td (taught her as the usual baby word for good-by, but extended 

 by herself) ; always distinguished from the single td noted above. Td 

 td not only is used to say good-by, but expresses the general idea of 

 going out-of-doors. Thus she says td td to her perambulator, and on 

 seeing one take up a hat or overcoat. 



A final nasal sound is now produced : she tries to say " down," what 

 she does say being roughly dad take me down from my chair a very 

 frequent request, as she can by this time walk easily, and is fond of 

 running about the room. 



The vocabulary is now increasing fast, and almost any word proposed 

 to the child is imitated with some real effort at correctness. The range of 

 articulate sounds is still very limited : a, a, i (short and long) are the 

 only vowels fully under command ; d occurs in a few words, and is the 

 usual result of attempts to form o : thus, nd nose. The long sound 

 of English i (at) cannot be pronounced ; when she tries to imitate it 

 she says id or i-a. No approach is yet made to the peculiar English 

 short sound of a in such words as hat, bat. Of consonants g, I, r (the 

 true consonant initial sound ; the final semi-vowel, as in more, poor, is 

 easy enough to her), and sibilants, aspirates, and palatals, are not yet 

 mastered. " Guy " (a younger cousin's name) is called dd, or perhaps 

 rather dd, the d or d produced far back and apparently with effort ; k 

 is also produced far back in the mouth, with an approach to t. Final 

 consonants are seldom or never given, and the vocabulary is essentially 

 monosyllabic, the only exceptions being in the nature of proper names 

 ("baby," ; d-ni, nd-nd), and even these are reduplicated monosyllables 

 rather than dissyllables proper. She once said " lady " pretty well, but 

 did not take it into use. No construction is yet attempted ; the first 

 approach to a sentence above noted has not been repeated. Even with 

 these resources the child already contrives to express a good deal, filling 

 up the meaning of her syllables with a great variety of tone, and also 

 with inarticulate interjections. Impatience, satisfaction, disappoint- 

 ment, amusement, are all very well marked ; and perhaps even intel- 

 lectual dissent (in the case of " zebra" and "gee-gee," see above). 



After this time (viz., her eighteenth birthday, reckoning birthdays 

 by calendar months, as for this purpose is convenient) the child's prog- 

 ress became much more rapid, and it would not have been possible to 

 take down all her new words without giving much more and more con- 

 tinuous attention than I had at my disposal. I also doubt if anything 



