The kids have learnt the use of the possessive pronoun. It is not a very recent development but I have never thought/found time to write about it.
The pronoun that they find most useful is 'mine' but since they havent learnt to use I, my, mine and still resort to their names to identify themselves and their stuff, there is some grammatical aberration here. Malayalam grammar that is. Their use of English is still limited to words - sun, apple, elephant etc. - but they are getting pretty comfy in their mother tongue. I mean, Mira can make three-word sentences though I dunno if that is an achivement for a 2-year-old.
Coming back to pronouns, Mira uses the word Vaavii (Vaava's) to identify/claim something that she thinks is hers. It almost sounds like Paapi to us, the Malayalam equivalent for sinner.
And now I hear Ash using Achachiya to identify anything that is his.
The Tamil influence is beginning to show since the advent of the Tamilian nanny. Mira has abandoned the word mumma (something she picked up from Ash though I dont know where he got it from) for water and now uses the Tamil word thanni for it. All our efforts at telling them that it is either vellam (Malayalam) or water hadnt yielded results. Visiting relatives who heard their pleas for mumma often thought they were asking for me.
Happy Sundae ;) everyone!
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2 comments:
Learning pronouns is a definite milestone in a kid's development. It does takes a few good years to leap from using their names to identify smthing to using pronouns. Congrats! And I guess Mira's definitely picked up faster for her age probably cos of an older sibling's existence.
Sam: As I gather, children start saying kunju (malayalam) or vava for themselves when they start speaking. they learn it from others who refer to them that way
so there is no first person for a child initially; it comes later.
it is always in third person. i think u should read some books on growing up.
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