Nanny at the airport: development of childrens’ language
It’s fascinating the way that children take the building blocks that they have and construct language in sometimes quite unexpected ways.
For instance, our eldest was 2 when we moved here and refers to my mum as “Granda’s Nanny” whereas the youngest was born here and calls her “Nanny at the airport” because he’s so used to seeing her as we arrive or leave.
Or, what about that final remnant of the inflections of Old English, that is the confusing difference between first and third person terms eg “I was” but “You were”? Has anyone succeeded in teaching their children the latter without being forced into saying “You was”? One wonders whether that distinction will disappear over the next century as has that between “I shall” and “You will” over the last century.
In our case we have quite an interesting perspective on “mother tongue” as with Wendy being from Australia and me being from Northern Ireland, it’s obvious which of us they’ve picked up various words from. In practical terms, the youngest effectively has a “father tongue” rather than a mother tongue as I’ve been around a lot more in the critical first couple of years. Having said that, both of them recount fairy tales with my accent as I’m the one that’s been reading them the bedtime stories.
What we’re wondering at the moment is what might be the effect on their accent if we move to an English speaking area?
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