Babies gibberish?

[B00]

Is babies gibberish universal?

What I mean is, whilst listening to my 21 month's old "chatter" I got to wondering if say a Chinese (for example) baby's chatter is exactly the same as my home grown Brit baby's one?

[Catso]

I believe baby gibberish is really their learning/practicing making the sounds, copying (rudely) what they hear.

So I would imagine that initially baby-talk does sound quite similar the world over, but as they grow and develop it tends to get closer to the speech they hear.

Chinese does have a different 'sound' to english/european, but whether you'd be able to discriminate this in baby-talk, I don't know. Perhaps you would in a side-by-side comparison? Or an expert could?

[B00]

Thanks for that Catso :-)

So I wonder at what age/stage there's a marked difference between nationalities then?

[amyunicorn]

Their gibberish may not be exactly the same, but I swear if you put two babies together, they will talk to each other and SOMEHOW know what they are saying!!!!

[Alixw]

I think studies have been done that show that depending on where they are from, the 'gibberish' does differ. Obviously, some sounds we have, are not present in the chinese language and are less likely to be made by a baby. Sorry not to have anything more definite for you than that!!

Also, if a babies parent(s) is deaf, the baby is more likely to be gibberish with their hands and fingers rather than making sounds. What i mean is, they wont make as much sound as a normal baby, but would move their fingers a lot more as if comunicating like they see their parents. So I suppose that would support the idea that sounds made by the parents are copied by the babies!

[B00]

Don't apologise Alixw, awesome answer, thanks alot :-)

[Alixw]

Ooh, thanks for the stars!!

[lynlockwood]

There will be a difference particularly in the rhythms of the speech. Babies learn to distinguish languages and voices in the womb! But in lots of ways it will sound the same as babies learn to control their tongues and lips. If you're interested in how your child learns to speak then get a copy of Listen to Your Child by David Crystal- it's very entertaining and it takes you through the stages of how children learn to speak- it even has pages where you can write down your child's first words etc.