Babbler

“ By the end of the first year the number of sounds which the little babbler has mastered is already considerable, and he loves to combine long series of the same syllables, dadadada ..., nenenene ..., bygnbygnbygn ..., etc. That is a game which need not even cease when the child is able to talk actual language. It is strange that among an infant’s sounds one can often detect sounds—for instance k, g, h, and uvular r—which the child will find difficulty in producing afterwards when they occur in real words, or which may be unknown to the language which it will some day speak. ”

“ The result is that such a means has been developed. Every bird, whose habit it is to go about in company, has the habit of continually uttering some kind of call or cry. It probably does this unconsciously, without being aware that it is making any sound.
In Madras a white-headed babbler nestling was once brought to me. ”

“ The bird while uttering it careers about madly among the foliage of a tree, hopping from bough to bough with great dexterity.
Mad babblers go about, like the seven sisters, in flocks of ten or twelve, and feed largely on the ground. [230] Their mode of progression when not on the wing is by a series of hops. Their movements are very like those of a thrush on an English lawn—a dash forward for about a yard, followed by an abrupt halt. They seem to subsist chiefly on insects, but grain does not come amiss to them. ”

“ This babbler was common in small groups at Quoin Hill. Whitehead (1893:227) states that the species "frequents the true forest near the ground." I observed these babblers only in sub-canopy trees, at least 30 feet above the ground. Smythies (1960:419) stated that he had never seen this species in the forest undergrowth.
Stachyris erythroptera bicolor (Blyth) : Red-winged Tree Babbler.—Specimens, 11: Cocoa Research Station: ♂ testis 2 × 1 mm., 13.4 gm., July 24, 1962, MCT 2654 ”

“ This is provocative of much unparliamentary language on the part of the naturalist, but gives the priority-hunter unalloyed pleasure.
Is it necessary for me to describe these misnamed babblers? Who is not familiar with the untidy creature, with his dirty-looking brownish-grey plumage, [217] relieved by a yellow beak and a white, wicked eye? Who has not laughed at the drooping wings, the ruffled feathers, and the disreputable tail of the birds? Yet the seven brothers lead happy, contented lives. They have always company, and plenty to occupy their minds. ”

“ The Forest of Montmorency.
I do not like explanatory lectures; young people pay very little attention to them, and seldom remember them. Things! things! I cannot repeat often enough that we attach too much importance to words. Our babbling education produces nothing but babblers.
Suppose that while we are studying the course of the sun, and the manner of finding where the east is, Émile all at once interrupts me, to ask, "What is the use of all this?" ”

“ C’est un franc —; he is a regular babbler. Ne vous fiez pas à cet homme-là, c’est un —; don’t trust that man, he is a great blab.
*babillard, -e, adj., babbling, talkative, chattering.
*babillement, n.m., talkativeness, loquacity, garrulity.
*babiller, v.n., to prate, to tattle, to gossip.
[51]
babine, n.f., lip (of animals) ; chop. Il s’en lèche les —s; he is smacking his lips over it.
babiole, n.f., bauble, gewgaw, toy, knick-knack, plaything, trifle, trinket. ”

“ A hundred different voices sound together, now blending into a wonderful harmony, now into a bewildering maze of sounds which one seeks in vain to analyse, in which only long practice enables one to differentiate individual voices. With the exception of thrushes, bulbuls, several species of warblers, and drongos, there are no true songsters, but there are many pleasing babblers and delightful chatterers, and an endless number who scream, cackle, croak, and utter various more or less shrill sounds. ”

“ This doubling of syllables, involuntary and surely contrary to the will of the child, stands in remarkable contrast with the indolence he commonly shows in reproducing anything said, even when the fault is not to be charged to teasing, stubbornness, or inability. The child then finds more gratification in other movements than those of the muscles of speech. The babbling only, abounding in consonants, yields him great pleasure, particularly when it is laughed at, although it remains wholly void of meaning as language. ”

“ STOP THAT BABBLING!—Because now the babbling’s not only in the creek, as I say it’s left the creek and come in my head, it would be alright for coherent babbling meaning something but it’s all brilliantly enlightened babble that does more than mean something: it’s telling me to die because everything is over—Everything is swarming all over me. ”

“ It is true, that in the acquirement of speech one word may have several different meanings in succession, as is especially the case with the word bébé (corresponding to the English word baby) , almost universal with French children; it is not true that a child without imitation of sounds invents a word with a fixed meaning, and that, with no help or suggestion from members of the family, it employs its imperfectly uttered syllables (Lallsylben) consistently for designating its ideas. ”

“ Every home, for instance, has its own rules for pronunciation. Of these I do not for my immediate purpose propose to take cognisance.
Here, then, is a short Bablingo examination paper for the use of mothers and nurses. I do not at present see my way to including fathers.
(1) On what principles is the language which you use in your nursery formed? Did you (a) acquire it, or (b) find yourself unconsciously in possession of it?
(2) Give a list of the characteristic features which distinguish Bablingo from the dialects employed by Prehistoric Man. ”

“ Of syllables original with the child, these are new: Bibi, nä-nä-nä—the first has come from the frequent hearing of "bitte"; the last is an utterance of joy at meeting and an expression of the desire to be lifted up. Otherwise, longing, abhorrence, pleasure and pain, hunger and satiety, are indicated by pitch, accent, timbre, intensity of the vocal sounds, more decidedly than by syllables. A peculiar complaining sound signifies that he does not understand; another one, that he does not wish. ”

“ In the babbling and crowing continued often for a long time without interruption, consonants are seldom uttered, pure vowels, with the exception of a, less often than ä and ö; i and u are especially rare.
When the child lies on his back, he moves his arms and legs in a lively manner even without any external provocation. He contracts and expands all the muscles he can command, among these especially the muscles of the larynx, of the tongue, and of the aperture of the mouth. In the various movements of the tongue made at random it often happens that the mouth is partly or entirely closed. ”

“ The truth is, that each elementary sound that enters into the composition of words is represented in our language by so many different combinations of letters, in different cases, that the child has very little clue from the sound of a syllable to guide him in the spelling of it. We ourselves, from long habit, have become so accustomed to what we call the right spelling—which, of course, means nothing more than the customary one—that we are apt to imagine, as has already been said, that there is some natural fitness in it ”

“ In the development of the child, then, we have to do with the interaction of two types, both of which are ancient and stable, though one more so than the other. And the stir and generation of human life is precisely in the mingling of these types and in the many variations of each one. The hereditary outfit of a child consists of vague tendencies or aptitudes which get definiteness and meaning only through the communicative influences which enable them to develop. Thus babbling is instinctive, while speech comes by this instinct being defined and instructed in society ”

“ To the expressive beginnings of speech belongs the sum total of the inarticulate sounds—crying, whimpering, grunting, cooing, squealing, crowing, laughing, shouting (for joy) , modulation of the voice, smacking, and many others, but also the silent movement of the tongue; further, articulation, especially before imitation begins; the formation of sound, and so the gradual perfecting of the vowels, aspirates, and consonants; at the same time the forming of syllables. The last is especially easy to follow in the babbling monologues of the infant, which are often very long. ”

“ It is possible also that a child instinctively feels a special satisfaction at babbling when spoken to and a special satisfaction at finding the sound he makes like one that rings in the ears of memory and has meaning. ”

“ As the sun rises the dust does the same, and so do the voices of the people, old and young, and the geese and the children join in, but the babel is not unpleasant, it is not too loud; there are pleasant low notes and laughter all the time. ”

“ According to my observations, I am compelled in spite of this disagreement to lay down the proposition as valid for all [Page 76] healthy children, that the greatly preponderating majority of the sounds the child makes use of after learning verbal language, and many other sounds besides these, are correctly formed by him within the first eight months, not intentionally, but just as much at random as any other utterance of sound not to be used later in speech, not appearing in any civilized language. ”

“ Further, at this period the child begins during his long monologues to whisper. He produces sounds in abundance, varying in force, pitch, and timbre, as if he were speaking an unknown tongue; and some single syllables may gradually be more easily distinguished, although the corresponding positions of the mouth pass into one another, sometimes quite gradually, sometimes rapidly. ”

“ To babble is to be unintelligent and imperfect of tongue. But when the brooks speak, they utter lessons of beauty that the dullest ear can understand. We have wandered from the Androscoggin in Maine to the Tombigbee in Alabama, and we never found a brook, that "babbled." ”

“ The adult patient can no longer speak correctly, because those parts are no longer complete or capable of performing their functions. The parallelism is perfect even to individual cases, if children of various ages are carefully observed in regard to their acquirement of speech. As to facts of a more general nature, we arrive, then, at the three following:
1. The normal infant understands spoken language much earlier than he can himself produce through imitation the sounds, syllables, and words he hears. ”

“ We should expect that a considerable development of vocal power would be a condition of man’s taking heartily to this mode of emotional utterance. The study of the infant certainly supports this idea. The babble of the second and third months, which is made up of a reiteration of many vocal and consonantal sounds, may prepare for laughter, as it certainly does for speech. The observations of Miss Shinn, quoted above, on the expansion of the range of vocal sound before the occurrence of the first laugh are most significant here. ”

“ BABY PHONETICS
Finally, we have to consider what may be called baby phonetics, the sound-changes which seem rather to transgress general phonetic laws. Young children habitually confuse dentals and palatals, thus a child may be heard to say that he has "dot a told." This tendency is, however, not confined to children. My own name, which is a very uncommon one, is a stumbling-block to most people, and when I give it in a shop the scribe has generally got as far as Wheat- before he can be stopped. ”

“ In the nurseries of all countries a little comedy has in all ages been played—the baby lies and babbles his ‘mamama’ or ‘amama’ or ‘papapa’ or ‘apapa’ or ‘bababa’ or ‘ababab’ without associating the slightest meaning with his mouth-games, and his grown-up friends, in their joy over the precocious child, assign to these syllables a rational sense, accustomed as they are themselves to the fact of an uttered sound having a content, a thought, an idea, corresponding to it. ”

“ It is not, however, the production of long sequences of syllables in itself that is difficult to the child, for in its meaningless babbling it may begin very early to pronounce long strings of sounds without any break; but the difficulty is to remember what sounds have to be put together to bring about exactly this or that word. We grown-up people may experience just the same sort of difficulty if after hearing once the long name of a Bulgarian minister or a Sanskrit book we are required to repeat it at once. ”

“ But since the publication of English Fairy Tales, I have been specially fortunate in obtaining access to tales entirely new and exceptionally well told, which have been either published during the past three years or have been kindly placed at my disposal by folk-lore friends. Among these, the tales reported by Mrs. Balfour, with a thorough knowledge of the peasants' mind and mode of speech, are a veritable acquisition. I only regret that I have had to tone down so much of dialect in her versions. ”

“ There's no tongue that's so tied, when tying's needed, as the one that babbles most bewhiles. Babbling covers a lot of secrets." ”

“ My report must, in any event, as a rough draft of the history of the development of language in [Page 101] the child, be very imperfect. It, however, contains nothing but perfectly trustworthy matter of my own observation.
During the first weeks the child often cried long and vigorously from discomfort. If one were to try to represent by written vowels the screaming sounds, these would most nearly resemble, in the majority of cases, a short u (oo in book) , with a very quickly following prolonged ä (ai in fair) ; thus, uä, uä, uä, uä, were the first sounds that may be approximately expressed. ”