What babies mean by 'this' and 'that'

[sethstarkaddersmum]

Am trying to learn ds2's language - he's nearly 1.

I had a breakthrough today wrt the difference between 'iss' (this) and 'dat' (that).

Iss means something he wants and dat means something he doesn't want - he will use iss when he holds something up to show your or holds out his hand for it going 'Iss! Iss!'.
Whereas he says 'Dat' disdainfully and drops the thing on the floor.

There is no possible reason why anyone else would be interested in this, I don't know why I posted it

I'm interested. DD is 18mo and just starting to talk, this and that are her only favourite words! Don't mean the same as your DS's though!

However she growls and nods violently for yes and squeals and shakes her head violently for no!

I love the 'violently' - can just imagine.
So what is the difference between this and that in her language?

I wonder where 'dumm' comes from.
'that one' as in 'I want that one'?

LOL - that makes sense!
I love the insight into how their brains work.

My 17 month old DD says UP!! when she means down - it stems from saying it when she wanted to be lifted up out of the pram/highchair, but she now also says it when she's in your arms and actually wants to be put down. They are funny little creatures.

She also says Dis! DISS! at increasing volume and pitch for something she wants, but hasn't mastered 'that' yet.

Awww... this takes me back....

DS1 used to say "neeeeed..." for I want/need some

DS2 used to say "Hassome" (Have some) for 'Can I have some'

sethstarkers, I'm interested too! I could pontificate on baby's language development for ever.

Nearly one and already saying anything is pretty impressive. DD1 was very quick with her language, so I am unresonably impatient with dd2 (not actually to her face, I mean, in my mind) to start saying stuff at 15 months.

We've just had a breakthrough with night night and bye bye, and we've got a good few animal noises, but no progress on identifying people or asking nicely for things. I'm hoping the screaming will stop when she learns to say me, please and more, please. She does make a two syllable sound with the right intonation for thank you, though.

And she's suddenly brilliant at understanding - if I say television, she climbs into the chair where dd1 always watches (I shoud be ashamed of this but I'm not), if "out" is mentioned, then she's off to find her shoes.

Can anyone help with this mystery: when she picks up any shoes, she says "gurr gurr", very consistently and deliberately. What could she mean? The only thing I can think of is that she's saying "Good girl", and in her mind that's somehow connected with fetching her shoes. Any ideas?

these are so sweet.
Now I am remembering that one of my children (can't remember which one ) thought there were items called a 'haton' and a 'bibon'.

re iss and dat (and dumm, and hassome, and neeeeed), it makes perfect sense that the way you need to divide up the world as a baby, in terms of what you can communicate, is 'things I want' and 'things I don't want.'

hahaha my 16 month old dd says up for down lol!! She says yes when you ask her a question, no matter what you ask her. She says ooohhh yeaaahh to everything and baba for any child, animal, soft toy or indeed baby. Lots of words like, that and there too. This age is very funny

Seth, that's so interesting. DS is 11mo and not saying anything at all apart from babble but I've heard some 'ess' and he says 'da' a lot so I'm going to look out for what they might mean....

DS tends to say just the ends of words/phrases. So something that he couldn't get to work was "Work!"

Recently this has been upgraded to "Duddun work", which makes sense, but now he is tacking "duddun" to the front of all sorts of random things! I can't work it out at all. Like today he fell over and said "Duddun, floooooooor"

Maybe he thinks that adding "doesn't" to the start of a sentence means "...and I am NOT happy about it!"

that's so sweet, Bertie!

It is so lovely hearing their understand develop :) With DS, 'this' was and still is something that he already has in his possession or knows is his, whereas 'that' was and is something that he wanted and either can't reach or knows that it is isn't his. Really interesting.
He also adds 'then' onto the end of sentences for extra emphasis. 'Mummy I would like an apple, then' means 'Mummy I really really do want this apple a lot'. The 'then' is often accompanied by a very imperious thrust out of his arm, which is pretty funny :)

DS is 2 and 2 months and his speech has come on in another spurt during the last month. His ideas of possession and ownership are really taking shape, suddenly everything is 'my truck, my lego, my lunch', and he has grasped 'Mummy that is your bag/hairbrush/lunch' and got very cross with DH when he nicked a slice of pizza from me earlier. 'No Daddy, that not your pizza, that Mummy's!'

The cutest though is 'Mummy would you like some of my ', said with a big adoring smile

I like 'baba' for every child, animal etc. It's like when they point to random men and go 'Dada!' and they do not actually mean 'Mummy, I am accusing you of betraying your husband approximately 27 months ago with that man there', just 'That creature belongs to the 'daddy' category; I have one of those too.'

the age at which your child starts to talk definitely has a lot to do with what you are prepared to believe is a word. People who don't spent a lot of time with ds2 probably wouldn't think he was talking.

'Duddun' is good - we could bring it into the political realm, for instance 'Duddun Prime Minister' if we're not happy with DC.

I'm sure I had a child that said down meaning up.... that would make sense too; if you imagine being in a highchair and parents saying 'do you want to get down?' and lifting you up....

Alibaba - the different potential meanings of this and that are amazing, contrasting your ds's and mine, both of which make perfect sense!

awww @ 'I would like an apple then'

Yes that is so true about the 'Daddy/Mummy' etc. I can't remember at what point DS started saying 'another Daddy' but suddenly it all became much clearer! He is our first so we are new to the deciphering :)

With the this and that, I am sure that if I paid attention to how DH and I use them, especially when we are speaking to DS, that it would match. In fact thinking about it, if we had two toys to decide between I would probably say 'this' about whatever I was holding, and 'that' about something further away/on the floor.

Duddun Prime Minister - LOL - try that in the Politics topic

DD is 15 mo and her understanding is great but hasn't many words really. She also says 'Yeah!' to everything.
Except for
Are you a good girl, DD ?
Yeah!
Have you done a big poopoo?
Yeah!
Do you want Daddy to change your nappy? Me winking at DP.
No!

Never heard her say No before.

Brightlight - the 'oh dear!' thing is interesting because I read once that among the commonest first words are words of success and failure - in America 'uh-oh!' is very common but in some research they did in Oxford one of the babies had 'Oh bugger!' In England 'There!' is common and in France, 'voila!'
is 'yay!' her success word?

BrightLight -bless! These are lovely...

reminds me that DS2 did a lot of the "oh no!" with hands to face, and also "aw gone.." for 'all gone' which covered everything from birds in the garden flying away ("Mummy, Mummy.... aw gone..aw gone!") to sticking hands being wiped..

Oh, be still my beating ovaries... this makes me want another baby

DS2 is 8 now BTW

sticky hands!

my DD (18 months) gets three languages spoken with her - my mother tongue, DH's mother tongue, and english. Interestingly, although DH converses with her alot and the grandparents that live nearby are DH's parents who spend alot of time with her too, DD's first word for milk was in my mother tongue - and so was her following demand for "give me that!" ...Im secretly chuffed to bits . Her next words, baby, thank you, gone, car, ball, and "bis" (biscuit) were all in english.
She understands DH's mother tongue when spoken and follows simple instructions, but doesnt speak it yet!
I guess its not called the mother tongue for no reason eh ;-)

ds is 17mo and uses dat for something he wants doesn't say this at all yet.

He says "upba" when he wants to go upstairs/get on to something etc and according to my mum I used to say the same!

I'm finding it fascinating seeing how he learns stuff and how it differs to my friends' dc