Amy's language development

[pne]

The other day, Stella asked me whether Amy had ever said "Tschüs, Pipimann" to me. Apparently, that's what S says when she changes E's nappy.

Upon hearing that, Amy said "Tschüs, Pipimann". Stella asked her whether she had a "Pipimann" and Amy said, "Yeah". Stella said, "No, you don't. E does, but Amy doesn't."

Apparently, she now wanted to figure out how has a "Pipimann" and who doesn't. She asked whether Stella had one and I said, no, Mummy and Amy are girls, they don't have penises. Boys have penises. Upon which Amy asked whether Daddy had a "Pipimann" and I said, yes, Daddy has a penis.

Stella said that reminded her of an incident with a boy she knew back in Kiel, who at one point asked, in public, whether snakes have penises.

And that made me think about what words to use. So far, I've used clinical terms for anatomy when talking to Amy, but if she's going to talk about people's (and animals') private parts in public, I somehow think that childish euphemisms would be less embarrassing than "grown-up" words.

---

In an unrelated note, I wonder whether Amy's starting to get more of a hold of grammar.

While I was eating supper, Amy pulled a foot out from under the table, put it on the table, and said, "Amy foot." Yes, that was Amy's foot. Then she put the foot back down, pulled out the other foot, and said, "Noch'n foot." Yes, that's Amy's other foot. Then she said, "Two feet". I was surprised, and praised her.

So far, she's occasionally said "feet" and sometimes "foot" but I think she never really understood when to use which word... she probably just accepted that Daddy sometimes used one word and sometimes the other.

I'm not sure whether she thinks that "feet" always belongs with "two" (and only with that number), but at any rate, I thought it was impressive that in each of her three sentences, she used the correct form of the word.

Comments

[ubykhlives.livejournal.com]

I can understand your problem. It's interesting that several languages have distinct sets of terms for child and adult genitalia; I believe Georgian has a word for a child's penis as opposed to an adult's, which is probably for precisely the reason you state. But, whatever term you use, I suspect that embarrassing questions will be asked in inappropriate settings anyway; children learn language first, and tact later. :)

I'm not sure whether she thinks that "feet" always belongs with "two" (and only with that number), but at any rate, I thought it was impressive that in each of her three sentences, she used the correct form of the word.

Well, to be perfectly honest, (human) feet usually do come as a pair. That's one commonly raised argument for why many languages have a distinct dual form: several body parts come in pairs (eyes, ears, hands, feet...).

[pthalo]

Hungarian uses the singular for eyes, hands, feet, if talking about both of them. If you just mean one hand or one eye, you have to say "half".

</non sequitur>

[ubykhlives.livejournal.com]

o_O

See my icon for my opinion.

Very peculiar, but very interesting!

[pthalo]

yeah, so a word that you can type with one hand is fél-kezes (half-handed). You can say "faj a lábam" (my leg hurts) to mean just one leg, but it's... non specific. you say "my leg hurts" and it can mean: one of my legs hurts. Both my of my legs hurt. one or both of my feet hurt. or any combination there of. Or a one-eyed person is fél-szemes. (half-eyed).

[tungol.livejournal.com]

Very neat.

[ifeedformula.livejournal.com]

*LOL*
My nephew IttyBitty (who just turned 3) is doing the same thing. He's asking EVERYBODY whether or not they have pen0rs which is quite embarrassing to his mom, lemme tell ya. I think it's hilarious though.