A resolution I can (finally) keep!

I got the best New Year present ever... if my ear didn't trump me! My son made a distinctive Arabic sound that I can't even begin to describe but I *know* it is Arabic for having heard the phoneme so often and having tried to pronounce it myself (I have only managed to produce a pale imitation of it).

(January 10 update: This morning I heard Karim make the same sound while his father was present. Upon asking, 'did you hear this, honey?', his father confirmed right away: 'Yes, he's making Egyptian sounds.' My reply: 'I knew it!')

Today then symbolically marks the beginning of my son's language development, at least from the view point of an observing adult (of course, from the perspective of his brain, language has been developing BEFORE birth). I couldn't wish for a better way to start the year, and this blog. As we embark on 2013, I vow to document his language progress from the perspective of a Mom and trained linguist (a resolution I KNOW I can keep!).

So let's start with who this son of mine is, linguistically speaking. Karim was born on March 13, 2012 in Edmonton, Alberta, to a French-speaking mother and an Arabic-speaking father. English is the language of the outside environment, and the language that he hears when his father and I speak to each other (we are both fluent second language speakers of English, the one and only language that we share). Since birth, Karim has been exposed to French and English on a daily basis. I have been speaking French to him almost exclusively while during the first several weeks of his life, his father spoke English to him. Between the age of 14 to 24 weeks, Karim was intensely exposed to Arabic as we visited his father's side of the family, while continuing to being exposed to French through me and to English as well, though to a lesser extent. Since our travel, his father has been speaking Arabic as much as English to him.

I have a bit of catching up to do because Karim has been making some language-related gains in the last several weeks. He's been demonstrating receptive skills for about 8 to 10 weeks. Mostly, he has been associating words with actions and objects:

- He claps in his hands when he hears 'bravo'. (7 months)

- One morning during a visit at my Mom's... my mother was feeding him, Karim tilted his head to the side. My Mom looked at him and praised him with 'ah le coquin'. Since then, he tilts his head to one side when he hears the phrase or does it on his own to get our attention at the table. He also does it from time to time when we Skype with Grand-Maman. (7 months)

- Similarly, he splashes water in the bath upon hearing 'on fait de l'eau' (let's make some water). (around 8 months)

- I have been singing a song about his name when we go by his bedroom door where we displayed colourful letters of his name. Upon hearing the song when engaged in some other activity, he interupts what he is doing to look at his door. (around 8 months)

- He understands 'no', as demonstrated by a pause in what he is about to do, looking at us, then turning around to something else, or carrying on after acknowledging our disapproval! (around 8 months)

- During bath time, I read him a story from his bath book. One night that he was playing with some other bath toy, I told him the story without taking the book in my hands. He looked around and reached for the book. At first, I thought that the intonation I used gave him the hint because I always told the story with the same exagerated intonation (almost as if I was singing). Later I tried with a strikingly different intonation... he still reached for the book, albeit not as promptly. Then I tried with the same intonation, but with non-intelligible stretches of sounds. He still reached for the book. Hence, I think I can conclude that he is attuned to both intonational contours and stretches of words. (around 8 1/2 months)

(Early January update: I tried to 'mix and match' cues. While in his bath, I told him the first few lines of the story book, then said, as if I was continuing the story, "on fait de l'eau".  It went like this: "Bonjour! C'est moi Pipo, le poisson clown" (Karim reaches for the book). "Au concours de grimace, le roi c'est moi. On fait de l'eau" (with intonational contour consistent with the storytelling. Karim immediately splashes water with a grin.)

More recently, he has also started to produce a few syllables that he seems to attach meaning to:

- He says 'mama' when he needs something... especially when he's hungry or wants to be picked up by me. (8 1/2 months)

- We had been waving goodbye to him, accompanying the motion with 'Bye Bye', for a couple of weeks when one morning, he made the gesture and said 'ba'! He's been doing the motion with the associated 'ba' sound consistently ever since, though he has not linked it to the appropriate context for producing it yet, i.e., for him it is not leave taking. It seems like it is a simple language game that he uses somewhat randomly and/or when he wants our attention, probably because he noticed we stop what we are doing when he does so and show enthusiastic approval. (9 months)

This concludes the first of many entries to come. Happy New Year Year, everyone!

(A note to my readers: while my native language is Canadian French, I will write this blog in English so that Karim's father can follow/contribute to my blog, along with others interested in language acquisition who do not have reading knowledge of French. I trust that my francophone readers will forgive me... it's a good exercise for you anyways!)

(Please also note: I will do my best to use common language to describe his progress, but do let me know if it becomes too linguisticky for you as I may, at times, use technical terms to offer the best description possible.)