This is a translation of my post in French below.

The other day we had the dubious pleasure to share our B&B breakfast table with a group of four Bavarians, at least one of whom spoke acceptable French. Our landlady explained to them the various breads, cakes and jams on the table. I was already raking my memory for the German terms for “quatre-quart” (pound cake) and “épeautre” (spelt wheat), but to my great relief, the Bavarians did not seem to wonder, and I was able to keep my linguistic anonymity.

Then, surprise: The very ordinary red fruit jam (“confiture aux fruits rouges”) baffled the francophile Bavarian, and our landlady listed the red fruit it contained for him.

I thought about it afterwards. The problem had clearly not been the terms “fruits” and “rouges”, since he had repeated them correctly in English as “red fruit” (why in English? search me). But it is true that in Germany you wouldn’t find a “Rotfrucht” jam. “Waldfruchtmarmelade” (literally “forest fruit jam”), yes, with woodland strawberries, blackberries, blueberries (and you wonder why they are not called “red fruit” in English…), but not a combination of strawberries, raspberries and cherries.
Turns out it was a cultural jam, not a linguistic one.

L’autre jour nous avions le plaisir douteux de partager le petit déjeuner dans notre chambre d’hôte avec un groupe de quatre Bavarois, dont au moins un parlais acceptablement bien le français. Notre hôte leur expliquait les différents pains, gâteaux et confitures qui ornaient la table à manger.
Je me creusais déjà le cerveau pour trouver les termes allemands pour “quatre-quart” (Rührkuchen) et “épeautre” (Dinkel), mais à mon grand soulagement, les Bavarois ne semblaient pas chercher à comprendre, et je pouvais rester dans mon anonymat linguistique.
Puis, la surprise : la très ordinaire confiture aux fruits rouges laissait le bavarois francophile perplexe, et notre hôte lui énuméra les fruits qui la composaient.

J’y ai réfléchi par la suite. Ce n’étaient clairement pas les mots “fruits” et “rouges” qui avaient posé problème, puisqu’il les a répété correctement en anglais “red fruit” (pourquoi en anglais ? je n’en sais rien). Mais il est vrai qu’en Allemagne, on ne trouverait pas de confiture aux “rote Früchte”. “Waldfruchtmarmelade”, oui, avec des fraises des bois, des mûres, des myrtilles, mais pas un mélange de fraises, framboises et cerises.
Donc, un problème non linguistique mais culturel.

Today we were visiting with family. At one point we were at the table, and my little girl was sitting on the floor, playing. Her new red hat  was lying on the ground beside her, and she was turned away from me.

“Please give mommy the hat.”

When she picked up the hat, turned around and handed it to me, I was so stunned I didn’t know what to say.

While waiting to catch her saying “mommy” again, here’s a recording I made of her babbling away in the bathtub – hence the slightly hollow sound. Towards the end, you’ll also hear her splashing around.

Just click on the bathtub:

She called me mommy last night!

I apologise for the (possibly misleading) German title of this post, but the sentence resonates with me in my mother tongue more than it does in its English translation. Funny, that.

But let’s get back to the event itself: After a couple of weeks during which I’ve heard “mamamamama” about as often as “papapapapa”, neither directed specifically at the corresponding person, or even meant to call us, last night our baby crawled towards me and said “mama” (the term I use to refer to myself when I speak to her) with a big smile on her face, or at least in her eyes. And I got an “encore” a bit later as the three of us were playing together.
On the day when she started crawling on all fours, too. And her first molar is piercing.

Can you tell I’m a happy mommy? 🙂

I’ll try to be back with a soundbite soon.

You know these little “prisons” whre you put your baby when it starts moving around? They are called “playpen” in English, which makes sense, since the baby will play there (if you put some toys in).
In German they are called “Laufstall”, “walking stable”, which makes a lot less sense because that’s exactly what they are in there not to do.
In French, they are called “parc”, which doesn’t really mean anything. Well, it means “park” of course, and that’s supposed to be a place with trees, and playgrounds if you’re lucky. So maybe it does make a little sense after all, if you’re not too keen on trees.

I’d be curious to know what they are called in other languages…

Following our participation in a research project yesterday (see my previous post), we have been asked if our baby babbles in German or in French. (See also this article on the BBC website with a soundbite comparing the crying of German and French infants.)

Here are some recent soundbites from our little girl, judge for yourselves if you hear a “tonic stress” or not!

“didledidle”

“heyhey”

full interview

Today we took our now ten-months-old girl to the Laboratoire Psychologique de la Perception at Paris V – Descartes University.

She got to listen to a two-syllable sound (“ka-ba”) that was pronounced with different stresses, and by German and French native speakers. A light would blink on her left or right, and when she looked that way, the sound would start and go on until she looked away.
From my position (holding her in my lap) I couldn’t tell, but the lab lady said she understood that it was up to her whether a given sound continued or not.
So the duration of her looking in the direction of a given sound indicated how much she enjoyed hearing it. The idea being that she would enjoy hearing familiar sounds – at ten months, babies’ brains are hard-wired for the sounds of the languages they hear regularly and have discarded those they don’t hear (and thus don’t need).
Who knew?

Another thing I learned today is that apparently it is easier for babies to imitate sounds they can see, that is where they can copy mommy’s or daddy’s lip movement, than those they can’t see.
Hence why they’ll do “b” sounds before rolling their r’s.

The other night, Baby attempted what Daddy had already qualified as “bêtise” the week before – pulling the plug from her bathtub, effectively inundating our bathroom.

This time we had a pail underneath, but still Daddy told her in a stern voice “Non!” Since last week I’d broken down laughing, I hurried to add my equally stern “Nein!”
Baby said and did nothing for a moment, then started crying. I don’t know if it was the German or the French or probably just the tone, but she got the message.
(We keep the pail in place anyway.)

Over a week after I first heard the “m” sound, I finally managed to record it:

mama

You hear “mama” at the 27′ mark, “papa” (or “baba”) follows right after.

🙂 happy mommy