Linguistics

813 readers

1 users here now

Welcome to the community about the science of human Language!

Everyone is welcome here: from laypeople to professionals, Historical linguists to discourse analysts, structuralists to generativists.

Rules:

Instance rules apply.
Be reasonable, constructive, and conductive to discussion.
Stay on-topic, specially for more divisive subjects. And avoid unnecessary mentioning topics and individuals prone to derail the discussion.
Post sources when reasonable to do so. And when sharing links to paywalled content, provide either a short summary of the content or a freely accessible archive link.
Avoid crack theories and pseudoscientific claims.
Have fun!

Related communities:

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Babbling scouse youngster shows babies can have accents, say scientists (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/14265279

The upward intonation, the guttural “ck” and even the cheeky comeback to win the argument: at just 19 months old, baby Orla has mastered the crucial elements of speaking like a scouser.

Impressively, the toddler who featured in a viral video this week appears to have done so without the need for actual words.

A clip posted on TikTok, and now viewed more than 20m times, shows Orla babbling in a Liverpudlian accent as her babysitter, Olayka, tries and fails to coax her into taking a nap. Scientists say that the cute exchange is also a vivid illustration of the processes by which babies acquire language – and the surprising role of accents.

Babies are so tuned in to the musical ups and downs of speech that even as newborns they cry in distinctive ways that reflect the languages that they have heard while in the womb.

In one 2009 study, Prof Kathleen Wermke, a pioneer in the field of speech development at the Würzburg University in Germany, found that French infants tend to wail on a rising note and German babies favour a falling melody and other patterns have been seen for Mandarin, Swedish and African languages. “When I started 40 years ago, if I told people I was recording babies crying and making high-pitched sounds they’d look at you and think ‘Is this really science?’,” she said.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Fixed it - thanks! "Dodói" (I also forgot the diacritic) is boo-boo, indeed - a childish way to call small injuries.

Amon isn't a common pet name here. The one naming him was my mum, who loves Old Egyptian culture; to give you an idea, my childhood cat was Cleópatra, and even one of my current cats (Kika) was supposed to be called Ísis. (The one naming Kika was my nephew - by then he already understood how this "naming" thing works.)