don't be too quick to dismiss baby talk
Repetitive single syllable utterances increase an infant's exposure to the sounds needed to create words. Infant phonics if you will. Shows small children that their mouth is good for something other than drooling. (No maddie jokes please)

I totally understand where you are coming from though. Many a time I have had to listen to an English teacher preaching about how, if you mutilate the English language in a suitably retarded Glaswegian fashion, it magically transforms into another language. Scots?!
(OTT, Thu 3 Mar 2011, 23:02, 1 reply)

Not true.
A child will become a fluent speaker of their native language by the age of 5 even if you don't talk to them at all. Around them seems to be enough. No training is neccecary. Babies have awareness of the phonetic system of their language even at birth. Language acquisition is not based on imitation.
There's a tribe in Africa that routinely teaches children (with actual classes) to walk. Why? Well, "if we don't then maybe they won't learn," etc, etc. Same deal with baby talk.
( Zuowan, Sat 5 Mar 2011, 12:21, closed)

not true?
What part?

I agree that a child will learn a language without being spoken to directly but the end result will be very different. I am sure we could rely on children to figure a lot of things out for themselves but culturally most of us tend to give them w hand every now and then.
(OTT, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 20:05, closed)