Lojbanic children

[mashers]

Is anyone speaking Lojban to/with their children? If so, how does their proficiency in Lojban compare to the other language(s) you speak with them?

[Ian Johnson]

The one example of this is Robin, whose two girls are still in infancy. He speaks to them almost (fully?) entirely in Lojban. I don't think there are any others, and I'm certain there are no children speaking Lojban as one of their very first languages yet.

mu'o mi'e la latro'a

On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 1:49 PM, mashers <ma...@mashley.net> wrote:

Is anyone speaking Lojban to/with their children? If so, how does their proficiency in Lojban compare to the other language(s) you speak with them?

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[Robin Lee Powell]

Yeah, the only verbal words they know are "mama"[1] and "hi!", both
pretty iffily, so I can't usefully comment yet.

-Robin

[1]: It's interesting that we didn't actually say "mama", or
anything much like it, to them very much at all. I have a suspicion
that those sounds are a human built-in in some fashion.

--
http://singinst.org/ : Our last, best hope for a fantastic future.
.i ko na cpedu lo nu stidi vau loi jbopre .i danfu lu na go'i li'u .e
lu go'i li'u .i ji'a go'i lu na'e go'i li'u .e lu go'i na'i li'u .e
lu no'e go'i li'u .e lu to'e go'i li'u .e lu lo mamta be do cu sofybakni li'u

[mashers]

On Tuesday, 16 October 2012 06:54:49 UTC+1, Robin Powell wrote:

Yeah, the only verbal words they know are "mama"[1] and "hi!", both
pretty iffily, so I can't usefully comment yet.

[1]: It's interesting that we didn't actually say "mama", or
anything much like it, to them very much at all.  I have a suspicion
that those sounds are a human built-in in some fashion.

Yep, [mama] is usually part of reduplicative babble demonstrated by infants. [m] is a common sound in most languages (and exists in pretty much every language on the planet) so tends to be babbled a lot, and often mistaken for a word ("mama").

How much Lojban are you speaking to them? And what other languages are they hearing in their environment?

[CosmicRay]

My 17-month old has a working vocabulary of around a thousand words  or so but still reverts to calling her mother "mama" when she's very tired or upset, it definitely isn't babbled and definitely isn't something we've taught her.  Interesting phenomenon that it's so widespread :-)

kozmikreis

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[james riley]

Does this cross language families? Possible explanation: "Child has
said something! It's clearly said my name, it wants my attention. I am
loved by this lump of flesh that has mostly screamed and shat for
months!"

cmacis

[Michael Eaton]

Just to muddy the waters, slightly - my wife died when my youngest daughter was just two weeks old. The first 'word' she sounded was dada, not mama, so I'm not entirely certain 'mama' can be considered /that/ much a reflex. Though, obviously, I acknowledge there was coaching.

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[CosmicRay]

Oh yes, I think every parent keenly listens out for what they want to hear, but I don't think that's the whole story. What I'm saying is how specifically the untaught "mama" is sometimes used at a stage when a baby can clearly articulate nouns for close relatives ("mummy", "daddy", "nanny", "grandad", "uncle", "auntie", etc).

Whether it crosses language families is a very good question, any takers?

kozmikreis

[Jonathan Jones]

On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 11:54 PM, Robin Lee Powell <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:

[1]: It's interesting that we didn't actually say "mama", or
anything much like it, to them very much at all.  I have a suspicion
that those sounds are a human built-in in some fashion.

More likely it's due to limited ability at at least one stage in the process. I'm relatively certain that in languages in which "mother" doesn't begin with my., children just starting to speak don't say "mama". If I were to guess, based on the fact that common baby words are "mama", "dada", and "baba".

--
mu'o mi'e .aionys.

.i.e'ucai ko cmima lo pilno be denpa bu .i doi.luk. mi patfu do zo'o
(Come to the Dot Side! Luke, I am your father. :D )

[Pierre Abbat]

On Tuesday, October 16, 2012 11:47:52 james riley wrote:
> Does this cross language families? Possible explanation: "Child has
> said something! It's clearly said my name, it wants my attention. I am
> loved by this lump of flesh that has mostly screamed and shat for
> months!"

I've read somewhere that "ma" means the same in English, Chinese, and Quechua.
The Chinese word is one of at least six words in four different tones, but in
all three languages it is reduplicated "mama". In Georgian, however, "mama" is
father and "deda" is mother.

Pierre

--
I believe in Yellow when I'm in Sweden and in Black when I'm in Wales.

[Michael Turniansky]

  But getting back to the original topic (or "no'i", as we say in lojban :-) ), my five kids know a little lojban vocabulary  (the numbers and many colors and a few other words like gerku, zdani, and cutci) but on the whole never had an interest in it. (Heck, my middle kid  even had "1 hour lojban lesson" as one of the birthday copupons he gave me)   My youngest when already born by the time I started learning lojban, and my wife would in no way let me use her as a guinea pig (Robin's lucky ;-) ) My dogs, however, know a few lojban commands ("ko zutse", "ko vreta", "ko klama mi", "ko klama fi mi")

         00gejyspa

[Sebastian]

My 8 year old daughter speaks some lojban words: coi, co'o pat, ki'e, ta mo, .ui, .o'onai, .u'a, doi mlatu pinca, a'o do xamgu sipna, mi do prami... Yeah, I think that's it.

Skickat från min iPhone

[Robin Lee Powell]

On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 03:17:31AM -0700, mashers wrote:
>
> How much Lojban are you speaking to them?

I don't know how to quantify that. When I'm speaking to them
directly, that's all I speak. To everyone else I speak English.

> And what other languages are they hearing in their environment?

English, a smattering of Spanish, half-assed baby sign.

-Robin

[Robin Lee Powell]

On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 11:43:09AM +0100, CosmicRay wrote:
> My 17-month old has a working vocabulary of around a thousand
> words or so

0.o

That's a bit exceptional, no?

> but still reverts to calling her mother "mama" when she's very
> tired or upset, it definitely isn't babbled and definitely isn't
> something we've taught her. Interesting phenomenon that it's so
> widespread :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa says that it's basically
"that's what kids say, and everybody assumes it's about them".
Except, according to that page, the Japanese, who assume it's about
food. I find that pretty hilarious, for some reason.

-Robin

[Robin Lee Powell]

As far as I can tell, yes, that's exactly what is happening; babies
tend to say "mama", and parents want to believe it's them.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa

-Robin

[Robin Lee Powell]

On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 08:59:31AM -0400, Michael Turniansky wrote:
> My youngest when already born by the time I started learning
> lojban, and my wife would in no way let me use her as a guinea pig
> (Robin's lucky ;-) )

You mistunderstand; she wasn't given a choice. :) It was a
participation requirement of mine.

Having said that, she wasn't terribly upset about it.

-Robin

[gleki]

On Tuesday, October 16, 2012 4:53:50 PM UTC+4, Pierre Abbat wrote:

On Tuesday, October 16, 2012 11:47:52 james riley wrote:
> Does this cross language families? Possible explanation: "Child has
> said something! It's clearly said my name, it wants my attention. I am
> loved by this lump of flesh that has mostly screamed and shat for
> months!"

I've read somewhere that "ma" means the same in English, Chinese, and Quechua.

Haven't you ever seen the etymology  of {mamta}?;)

However, In Turkic and  some Amerindian languages mother is [ina/ani]. It's not a universal thing.

[CosmicRay]

On 17 Oct 2012, at 04:42, Robin Lee Powell <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 11:43:09AM +0100, CosmicRay wrote:
>> My 17-month old has a working vocabulary of around a thousand
>> words or so
>
> 0.o
>
> That's a bit exceptional, no?

It's one to two orders of magnitude more than her immediate peers, and we've got used to the nursery(/kindergarten) she attends a few hours a week excitedly telling us all about her verbal prowess, but I don't know if it's exceptional. I've heard anecdotal evidence of outliers her age who properly use pronouns, verb conjugations, adverbs, clauses, time references and so on and speak in >10 word sentences. I'd call *that* exceptional.

>> but still reverts to calling her mother "mama" when she's very
>> tired or upset, it definitely isn't babbled and definitely isn't
>> something we've taught her. Interesting phenomenon that it's so
>> widespread :-)
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa says that it's basically
> "that's what kids say, and everybody assumes it's about them".
> Except, according to that page, the Japanese, who assume it's about
> food. I find that pretty hilarious, for some reason.

Hahaha, brilliant! So it's probably fair to assume that these names most likely came about from babies' use of them more than (in most cultures) the self-labelling of them by parents first.

kozmikreis

[CosmicRay]

Just checked - I meant "preschool" and not "kindergarten" btw - neither term is all that common here :-)

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[Jorge Llambías]

On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 12:42 AM, Robin Lee Powell
<rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_and_papa says that it's basically
> "that's what kids say, and everybody assumes it's about them".
> Except, according to that page, the Japanese, who assume it's about
> food. I find that pretty hilarious, for some reason.

It's not just the Japanese. In Spanish "papá" is "dad", but "papa",
from Quechua "papa", is "potato" and is also used for any baby-food.

mu'o mi'e xorxes