‘Kitchie-koo’ in modern Hebrew: the sociology of Hebrew baby talk

Abstract

One day I caught myself quite by surprise speaking 'baby talk ' (herafter BT) in Hebrew to my own newly born child. Since I am a native English speaker and never had a chance to learn Hebrew BT (hereafter HBT) as a child, I began musing over the nature of the BT I was using. At first I thought I was perhaps applying English BT features to Hebrew, but since I observed my family and Israeli friends addressing my baby in a similar manner, it seemed that I was actually using HBT. If so, how was this possible? As far as I can recall, I was never addressed by my parents in HBT nor did I ever study it formally. If both native and normative speakers of Hebrew use it, how is it acquired? Moreover, if the features of HBT for natives as well as normative speakers are the same, does this indicate some universal principle at work?With curiosity arising from my own personal experience with the phenomenon as sufficient motivational stimulus, the actual course of my inquiry was guided by the following problems:

The phonological forms and perceived functions of janyarrp, the Gurindji ‘baby talk’ register

“…Baby talk may also serve more strictly social or transactional functions. Baby talk can be used expressively, in play, intimacy, sympathy, or to soften directions, functions reported by Hebrew-speaking parents (Zeidner, 1983). In sum, there is a great deal of variety in the 'input' for children beyond baby talk, infant-directed speech, or child-directed speech, and the different forms of language which children hear serve social or transactional functions as well as instructional ones.…”

The forgotten endangered languages: Lessons on the importance of remembering from Thailand's Ban Khor Sign Language

“…Linguistically, baby talk 0motherese involves noticeable changes in phonology, syntax, and lexicon, and even in the paralinguistics of normal language, including the use of special lexical items, mostly monosyllabic words, reduplications, and lack of inflectional affixes (Ferguson in Dil 1971:116-24). Considerable comparative research has been conducted on baby talk 0motherese in spoken languages (e.g., Ferguson 1964Ferguson , 1977Von Raffler-Engel & Lebrun 1976;Williamson 1979;Blount 1982;Zeidner 1983). Far less is known about baby talk 0motherese in signed languages, especially codes other than ASL.…”

English-Speaking Adults' Labeling of Child- and Adult-Directed Speech Across Languages and Its Relationship to Perception of Affect

“…A distinctive CDS register has been documented in a wide variety of languages, ranging from a multitude of Western and Asian languages (e.g., Fernald et al, 1989 ; Fernald and Morikawa, 1993 ; Soderstrom, 2007 and references therein), and geographically diverse places such as the Middle East (e.g., Zeidner, 1983 ; Farran et al, 2016 ) Kenya and Fiji (Broesch and Bryant, 2015 ) and Vanuatu (Broesch and Bryant, 2018 ), leading some to suggest that this register is indeed a universal feature of human interaction between caregivers and infants. More questionable, perhaps, is the idea that CDS has similar interactive functions and takes similar forms cross-culturally (e.g., Ferguson, 1978 ; Fernald et al, 1989 ).…”