The path to perfection is not always a straight one. Tony E. in order to arrive at the correct pronunciation of please passed through the following stages: (1) [bi·], (2) [bli·], (3) [pi·z], (4) [pwi·ʒ], (5) [beisk, meis, mais] and several other impossible forms. Tracy (p. 139) gives the following forms through which the boy A. (1.5) had to pass before being able to say pussy: pooheh, poofie, poopoohie, poofee. A French child had four forms [mèni, pèti, mèti, mèsi] before being able to say merci correctly (Grammont). A Danish child passed through bejab and vamb before pronouncing svamp (‘sponge’), etc.
It is certain that all this while the little brain is working, and even consciously working, though at first it has not sufficient command of speech to say anything about it. Meringer says that children do not practise, but that their new acquisitions of sounds happen at once without any visible preparation. He may be right in the main with regard to the learning of single sounds, though even there I incline to doubt the possibility of a universal rule; but Ronjat (p. 55) is certainly right as against Meringer with regard to the way in which children learn new and difficult combinations. Here they certainly do practise, and are proudly conscious of the happy results of their efforts. When Frans (2.11) mastered the combination fl, he was very proud, and asked his mother: “Mother, can you say flyve?”; then he came to me and told me that he could say bluse and flue, and when asked whether he could say blad, he answered: “No, not yet; Frans cannot say b-lad” (with a little interval between the b and the l). Five weeks later he said: “Mother, won’t you play upon the klaver (piano)?” and after a little while, “Frans can say kla so well.” About the same time he first mispronounced the word manchetter, and then (when I asked what he was saying, without telling him that anything was wrong) he gave it the correct sound, and I heard him afterwards in the adjoining room repeat the word to himself in a whisper.
How well children observe sounds is again seen by the way in which they will correct their elders if they give a pronunciation to which they are not accustomed—for instance, in a verse they have learnt by heart. Beth M (2.6) was never satisfied with her parents’ pronunciation of “What will you buy me when you get there?” She always insisted on their gabbling the first words as quickly as they could and then coming out with an emphatic there.
V.—§ 7. Tone.
As to the differences in the tone of a voice, even a baby shows by his expression that he can distinguish clearly between what is said to him lovingly and what sharply, a long time before he understands a single word of what is said. Many children are able at a very early age to hit off the exact note in which something is said or sung. Here is a story of a boy of more advanced age. In Copenhagen he had had his hair cut by a Swedish lady and did not like it. When he travelled with his mother to Norway, as soon as he entered the house, he broke out with a scream: “Mother, I hope I’m not going to have my hair cut?” He had noticed the Norwegian intonation, which is very like the Swedish, and it brought an unpleasant association of ideas.
[CHAPTER VI]
WORDS
§ 1. Introductory. § 2. First Period. § 3. Father and Mother. § 4. The Delimitation of Meaning. § 5. Numerals. Time. § 6. Various Difficulties. § 7. Shifters. § 8. Extent of Vocabulary. § 9. Summary.
VI.—§ 1. Introductory.
In the preceding chapter, in order to simplify matters, we have dealt with sounds only, as if they were learnt by themselves and independently of the meanings attached to them. But that, of course, is only an abstraction: to the child, as well as to the grown-up, the two elements, the outer, phonetic element, and the inner element, the meaning, of a word are indissolubly connected, and the child has no interest, or very little interest, in trying to imitate the sounds of its parents except just in so far as these mean something. That words have a meaning, the child will begin to perceive at a very early age. Parents may of course deceive themselves and attribute to the child a more complete and exact understanding of speech than the child is capable of. That the child looks at its father when it hears the word ‘father,’ may mean at first nothing more than that it follows its mother’s glance; but naturally in this way it is prepared for actually associating the idea of ‘father’ with the sound. If the child learns the feat of lifting its arms when it is asked “How big is the boy?” it is not to be supposed that the single words of the sentence are understood, or that the child has any conception of size; he only knows that when this series of sounds is said he is admired if he lifts his arms up: and so the sentence as a whole has the effect of a word of command. A dog has the same degree of understanding. Hilary M. (1.0), when you said to her at any time the refrain “He greeted me so,” from “Here come three knights from Spain,” would bow and salute with her hand, as she had seen some children doing it when practising the song.