Father, mother, banana, hello, and lollipop are among the first words that a child learns to pronounce. The adult spellings for these words are dad, mom, banana, hello, and lollipop. A child would pronounce these words in various forms as listed. The pronunciation of dad by kids is dada, daddy, or papa, and mum is mommy or mama. Most children pronounce banana as nana, and hello is commonly said as ‘ahoy.’ For lollipops, many kids tend to change the wording of the word to sound like poppy-pop. As children grow, they learn new and different words that they pronounce in various unique ways as they attempt to say them correctly.
I hypothesize that these are the first words a child would learn because they carry essential meaning and are frequently mentioned in their little world. For instance, if a child requires something, they would first call their mother or father, who are the closest people that a child first builds trust. Many children tend to have lollipops as their first snack, thus learning to pronounce them whenever they see or want one. A banana is also a common first fruit for many children. Thus, they learn to pronounce it earlier than other words.
Furthermore, greetings are another significant part of early speech development in a child. Hello is the most common type of greetings learned, primarily because of its overuse by adults while making phone calls. Children mostly use cooing, nouns, and verbs as the most common first sounds. Nouns refer to objects, and people and verbs refer to things children would like to do (Oller et al., 2013). For instance, a child can say play, sing, or dance without making actual sentences and still communicate effectively to their caregivers.
A child speaks mostly to attract attention, express their current emotional state, ask for something, and seek play from others. Children primarily intend to attract attention when they speak and react by crying if their needs don’t get met (Hutauruk, 2015). In conclusion, despite children’s quirky expressions of words, they still manage to communicate efficiently with the people around them. Moreover, people find it enjoyable to listen to children say the words distinctively.
References
Hutauruk, B. S. (2015). Children’s first language acquisition at age 1-3 years old in balata. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 20(8), 51-57. Web.
Oller, D. K., Buder, E. H., Ramsdell, H. L., Warlaumont, A. S., Chorna, L., & Bakeman, R. (2013). Functional flexibility of infant vocalization and the emergence of language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(16), 6318-6323.