| topf | for | klopfen (knock). |
| üffte | " | lüften (take the air). |
| leben | " | kleben (adhere). |
| viloa, viloja, | " | Viola. |
| dummi | " | Gummi (gum). |
The l mouillé can not be at all successfully given at the beginning of this month (batĕlōn for "bataillon"), and the nasal sounds in "orange" and "salon" offer insuperable difficulties (up to the second half of the fourth year). At the end of this month, however, I heard a ganzee bataljohn (j like English y). "Orange" continued to be, after oraanjee had been given up, orohsĕ. The softening (mouilliren—nj = ñ) was inconvenient in this case.
Quite correctly named at this period were eye, nose, cheek, tongue, mouth, ear, beard, hair, arm, thumb, finger.
Meaningless chatter has become much more rare. On the other hand, the child is in the habit of making all sorts of remarks, especially in the morning early after waking, for a quarter of an hour at a time and longer without interruption, these remarks for the most part consisting of a noun and verb and relating to objects immediately about him. Monologues also are given in a singing voice, syllables without meaning, often a regular singing, the child meantime running many times around the table; besides, his strong voice is not seldom practiced in producing high tones without any outward occasion; and, finally, it is worthy of note that sometimes in sleep, evidently when the child has a vivid dream, a scream is uttered. Talking in his sleep first appeared in his fourth year.
The greatest advance in the twenty-ninth month consists in the employment of the personal pronoun in place of his own name: bitte gib mir Brod (please give me bread) was the first sentence in which it appeared. "Ich" (I) is not yet said, but if I ask "Who is 'me'?" then the child names himself with his own name, as he does in general. Through this employment, more and more frequent from this time forth, of the pronoun instead of the proper name, is gradually introduced the inflection of the verbs he has heard; but at this time the imperative has its place generally supplied by the infinitive: Păpă sāgn and Ssooss sitzen. Sentences composed by himself, or heard and then used by him, like das meckt (schmeckt) sehr gut (that tastes very good), are rare; yet the discrimination between regular and irregular verbs has already begun to be made. To be sure, the question "Where have you been?" is answered with paziren gegeht (goed to walk), and ausgezieht is said for ausgezogen (drawed out), also geseht (seed) instead of gesehen (seen); but at the same time frequently eingetigen and ausgetigen, instead of ein- and aus-geteigt. An interesting, rare misformation was grefessen for "gefressen." The verbs most frequently used seem to be "haben" (have) and "kommen" (come), and the forms "hat" and "kommt" are indeed correctly used sometimes, e. g., viel Rauch kommt heraus (much smoke comes out), and gleich kommt Kaffee (the coffee is coming). While the infinitives "haben" and "kommen" are uttered several times a day, the infinitive "sein" (to be) is never heard; but of this auxiliary verb "ist" and "wesen" are used, the latter for "gewesen." In every instance where the child expresses a desire by means of a verb, he simply takes the infinitive; e. g., he hears, as he sits in the room, the noise of the railway-train at a distance, and he says, Locotiwe sehen.
Further, numbering begins to be active to a noteworthy degree. Although the numerals are already well known to the child, he still confounds them on all occasions, and in view of the absolute failure of the many attempts to teach the child the significance of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, one might infer that he has not yet perceived the difference between, e. g., 3 matches and 4 matches; yet counting is already taking place, though in very unexpected fashion. The child began, viz., on the eight hundred and seventy-eighth day, suddenly, of his own accord entirely, to count with his nine-pins, putting them in a row, saying with each one, eins (one)! eins! eins! eins! afterward saying eins! noch eins (one more)! noch eins! noch eins! The process of adding is thus performed without the naming of the sums.
The questioning that appeared in the previous month, the surest sign of independent thought in the child, is somewhat more plainly manifest; but "Where" alone serves as the interrogative word, and that in its proper sense: Where is hat? "Which, who, why, when" are not spoken by the child and doubtless not understood, for, although succession in time is in many cases clear to him ("first eat," "then," "now"), yet in many other cases he does not know how to express distinctions of time; just as in comparing many and few, large and small objects, the quantity is wrongly given. Thus he says correctly, when many counters are to be brought together, Zuviel (too many), but says Zuviel wrongly for Zuwenig (too little) when there is too little butter on his bread. In this case the Zuviel (too much) sounds almost like irony, which, of course, is out of the question at his age. "Too much" and "too little" are confounded in the same way as 5 and 2. Yet, in another respect the memory has made a considerable gain. Expressions long since forgotten by those about the child are suddenly without assignable occasion sometimes uttered again with perfect distinctness, and the child even applies fitly what he has observed. Thus, he brings matches when he sees that some one wants to light a candle. I say to him, "Pick up the bread-crumbs." Upon this the child comes forward, though very slowly, cries out suddenly, Get broom, recollecting that he has seen the carpet swept, goes and gets the broom, and sweeps the crumbs away. His memory for the utterances of animals as they have been made for him is very good. If I ask, e. g., "What does the duck say?" the answer is Kuak kuak. He has gained also in certainty in naming the separate parts of a drawing, especially of a locomotive, so that one chief condition of speech, in the full sense of the word—memory—may be said to be well developed.
Articulation, on the contrary, makes slow progress. "Hirsch" is called Hirss, "Schwalbe" Walbe, "Flasche" Flassee. The following are generally correctly pronounced: Treppe, Fenster, Krug, Kraut, Kuchen, Helm, Besen, Cigarre, Hut, Giesskanne, Dinte, Buch, Birne. For "barometer, thermometer," he says mometer, for "Schrauben" raubn, for "frühstücken" (to breakfast) still often fri-ticken.
In the thirtieth month the independent activity of thought develops more and more. When the child is playing by himself, e. g., he often says to himself: Eimerchen ausleeren (make pail empty); Hackemesser (chopping-knife). Thus his small vocabulary serves him at any rate for making clear his own ideas. Already his thinking is often a low speaking, yet only in part. When language fails him, he first considers well. An example: The child finds it very difficult to turn crosswise or lengthwise one of the nine-pins which he wants to put into its box, and when I say, "Round the other way!" he turns it around in such a way that it comes to lie as it did at the beginning, wrongly. He also pushes the broad side of the cover against the small end of the box. The child evidently understands the expression "Round the other way"; but as the expression is ambiguous (the head of the nine-pin may go to the left, to the right, up, down, back, forward), we can understand that the pin should be turned now one way and again another way, and even brought back to its original position. Then appears the child's own deliberation without words—without any speaking at all, low or loud—until after frequently repeated packing and unpacking hardly any hesitation is shown. Many utterances show how easily at this period objects that have only a slight resemblance to one another or only a few qualities in common are included in one concept. When a roasted apple is peeled, the child sees the peel and says (thinking of his boiled milk, which he saw several hours previous, but which is not now present), Milch auch Haut (milk skin too). Similar is the expression Kirche läutet (church rings) when the tower-clock strikes.
The child forms concepts which comprehend a few qualities in unity, and indeed without designating the concept always by a particular word, whereas the developed understanding more and more forms concepts with many qualities and designates them by words. Hence the concepts of the child have less content and more extent than those of adults. For this reason they are less distinct also, and are often ephemeral, since they break up into narrower, more distinct concepts; but they always testify to activity of thought.