Of course these first tentatives in verbal imitation were far from perfect. At first there was hardly more than a reproduction of the rhythm and the rise and fall of voice, as in rendering ‘All gone,’ the sign of disappearance, by a, a, with rise and fall of voice. Like other little people, C. displayed a lordly disposition to save himself trouble and to expect infinite pains from others in the way of comprehension. He was in the habit of reducing difficult words to fragments, the comprehension of which by the most loyal of attendants was a matter of considerable difficulty. In thus chopping off splinters of words he showed the greatest caprice. In many cases he selected the initial sounds, e.g., “bŏ” for ball, “nō” for nose, “pē” for please. In other cases he preferred the ending, e.g., “ĕk” for cake, “bĕ” for Elizabeth. It looked as if certain sounds and combinations, e.g., l, s, fl, sh, etc., lay altogether beyond his gamut. And others seemed to be specially difficult, and so were avoided as much as possible.[[297]]
While C.’s parents could not help resenting at times an economising of speech-power which imposed so heavy a burden on themselves, they were often amused at the way in which the astute little fellow managed after softening down all the asperities of a name to retain a certain rough semblance of the original. Thus, for instance, sugar became “ooga,” biscuit “bĭk,” bread and butter “bup,” fish “gish” (with soft g), and bacon-fat, that is bread dipped in the same, “ak”. In some cases it might have puzzled his father to say whether the sound was a reproduction or an independent creation. This remark applies with particular force to the name he gave himself. His real name as commonly used was, I may say, Clifford. Instead of this he employed as the name for himself “Ingi” or “Ningi” (with hard g). He stuck to his own invention in spite of many efforts to lead him to adopt the name chosen for him by his parents. And perhaps the sovereignty of the baby was never more clearly illustrated than in the fact that in time he constrained his parents and his sister to adopt his self-chosen prænomen. Possibly his real name was to his ear a hopelessly difficult mass of sound, and “Ningi” seemed to him a fair equivalent within the limits of practicable linguistics for so uncouth a combination.[[298]] These changes are interesting as illustrating how the child attends to the general form of the word-sound rather than to its constituent elements.[[299]] The same thing is seen in the modified form of “Ningi,” which he adopted at the beginning of the third year, viz., “Kikkie,” where, too, the special impressiveness of the initial sound is illustrated.
It is now time to pass to the most important phase of baby-speech from a scientific point of view, namely, the first use of sounds as general signs, or as registering the results of a generalising process, as when the child begins to speak of man or boy.
It must be confessed that our diary does not give us much that is startling in the way of original generalisation. So far as we can judge, C. was a steady-going baby, not given to wanton caprices. Yet though not a genius he had his moments of invention. One of the earliest illustrations of a free working of the generalising impulse was the extension of the sound “ŏt” (hot). At first he employed this sign in the conventional manner to indicate that his milk or other viand was disagreeably warm. When, however, he was seventeen and a half months old he struck out an original extension of meaning. He happened to have placed before him cold milk. On tasting this he at once exclaimed, “Ot!” It looks as though the sound now meant something unpleasant to taste, though, as we shall see presently, the boy had another sound (“kaka”) for expressing this idea.[[300]] But “ot” was being extended in another way by a process of association. This was illustrated a month later, when the boy pointed to an engraving of Guido’s Aurora, and exclaimed, “Ot!” His dull parents could not at first comprehend this bold metaphoric use of language, until they bethought them that the clouds on which the aeronauts are sailing are a good deal like a volume of ascending steam.
The sounds “kĕ,” “kă,” and “kăkă” were employed by C. from about the same age (seventeen and a half months) to express what is actually known or simply suspected to be disagreeable to taste or smell, such as a pipe held near him, a glass of beer, a vinegar bottle, and so forth. He had smelt the beer, and learnt its disagreeable odour, and in pronouncing the untried vinegar “kăkă” he was really carrying out a form of reasoning of a simple kind. This sound came to represent a much higher effort of abstraction some weeks later, when it was applied to things so unlike in themselves as milk spilt on the cloth, crumbs on the floor, soiled hands, etc. The idea here seized was plainly that of something soiled or dirty. But this half-æsthetic, half-ethical idea was reached largely by the help of others, more particularly perhaps his sister, who, as elder sisters are wont to do, supplemented the parental discipline by a vigorous inculcation of the well-recognised proprieties.
Another extension of the range of application of names used by others occurred about the same time (end of twentieth month). He employed the sound ‘ga’ (glass) so as to include a plated drinking cup, which of course others always called ‘cup’. This was curious as showing at this stage the superior interest of use (that of drinking utensil) to that of form and colour.
The generalisations just touched on have to do with those qualities and relations of things which strongly impress the baby mind, because they bear on the satisfaction of his wants and his feelings of pleasure and pain. In order to watch the calm movements of the intellect, when no longer urged by appetite and sense, we must turn to the child’s first detection of similarities in the objective attributes of things, as their shape, size, colour, and so forth. Here the first generalisations respecting the forms of bodies are a matter of peculiar interest to the scientific observer. The young thinker, with whom we are now specially concerned, achieved his first success in geometric abstraction, or the consideration of pure form, when just seventeen months old. He had learnt the name of his india-rubber ball. Having securely grasped this, he went on calling oranges “bŏ”. This left the father in some doubt whether the child was attending exclusively to form, as a geometrician should, for he was wont to make a toy of an orange, as when rolling it on the floor. This uncertainty was, however, soon removed. One day C. was sitting at table beside his sire, while the latter was pouring out a glass of beer. Instantly the ready namer of things pointed to the bubbles on the surface, and exclaimed, “Bŏ!” This was repeated on many subsequent occasions. As the child made no attempt to handle the bubbles, it was evident that he did not view them as possible playthings. As he got lost in contemplation, muttering, “Bŏ! bŏ!” his father tells us that he had the satisfaction of feeling sure that the young mind was already learning to turn away from the coarseness of matter, and fix itself on the refined attribute of form.
Although this was the most striking instance of pure or abstract consideration of form, attention to the shape of things was proved by many of the simple ideas reached at this stage. It is obvious, indeed, that a ready recognition of any member of a species of animals, as dog, in spite of considerable variations in size and colour, implies a power of singling out for special attention what we call relations of form. And this conclusion is borne out by the fact that by the end of the eighteenth month C. was quite an adept in recognising uncoloured drawings of animal and other familiar forms.
Colour is of course in itself of much more interest to a child than form, since it gives a keen sensuous enjoyment. Our diary furnishes a curious illustration of a propensity to classify things according to their colour. In his nineteenth month C. was observed to designate by the sound “appoo” (apple) a patch of reddish colour on the mantelpiece, which bore in its form no discoverable resemblance to an apple. At the same time, the effect of growing experience and of a deeper scrutiny of things in bringing out the superior significance of form is seen in the fact that this same word “appoo” came subsequently to be habitually applied to things of unlike colours, namely, apples, oranges, lemons, etc. It may be added that the history of this word “appoo” illustrates a process analogous to what Archbishop Trench (if I remember rightly) has called the degradation of words. When C. first used this name it designated objects simply as visible and tangible ones; he knew nothing of their taste. After he was permitted to try their flavours, the less worthy sensations now added naturally contributed a prominent ingredient to the meaning of the word. Thus, he began to use “appoo” for all edible fruits, including such shapeless masses as stewed apples.
It is not to be expected that children in their first attempts at scrutinising objects should be able to take in completely a complex form, as that of an animal, with all its parts and their relations one to another. C. gave ample proof of the fact that the first generalisations respecting form are apt to be rough and ready, grounded simply on a perception of one or two salient points. Thus, his first use of “bow-wow” showed that the name meant for him simply a four-legged creature. About the fifteenth month this word was thrown about in the most reckless way. Later on, when the canine form began to be disengaged in his mind from those of other quadrupeds, the pointed nose of the animal seems to have become a prominent feature in the meaning of the word. Thus, in his eighteenth month, C. took to applying the name ‘bow-wow’ to objects, such as fragments of bread or biscuit, as well as drawings, having something of a triangular form with a sharp angle at the apex. It is probable that if our little thinker had been able at this stage to define his terms, he would have said that a “bow-wow” was a four-legged thing with a pointed nose.