Language-strings

Language-strings

A language-string is a sequence of a few words (a segment) repeated over and over in many languages. Pairs of speakers are used for each segment, which average about 11 seconds in length.

The 25 abbreviations used below are;

Ar (Arabic), Be (Bengali), Cm (Chinese; Mandarin), En (English), Fr (French), Gr (German), Gk (Greek), Hi (Hindi), In (Indonesian), It (Italian), Ja (Japanese), Ko (Korean), Po (Polish), Pr (Portuguese), Ru (Russian), Sp (Spanish), Sw (Swahili), Se (Swedish), Ta (Tagalog), Ti (Thai), Tm (Tamil), Tu (Turkish), Ur (Urdu), (Punjabi or alternate) and He (Hebrew)

The children's laughter between language-strings gives an audible clue to the infant of a change of meaning. The use of pairs of speakers, a woman then a man, provides an infant with a permissible range of pronunciation -- a kind of linguistic delta.

Because of the short inserted pauses, the rhythm of the segments in each language-string is unique.

For the example given below, it is; "da,da,da...da,da...da" for each segment. Thus for this example, the 4th and 5th elements in every segment have the same meaning ("leaves" & "moss") regardless of the language being heard.

Eight different patterns (each containing 25 segments) are repeated again and again for the 38 language-strings in a set of 3 CDs. The pattern of the 25 segments in a typical line (Wednesday, line 20) is as follows:

...(line 20)...children's laughter...Ar, Pr, Ru, Tu, It, Be, Po, Ko, Ta, En, Fr, Ti, Hi, Sp, Ja, Pu, In, Tm, Cm, Gr, He, Gk, Se, Sw, Ur...children's laughter...(line 22)...

The 4th, 12th, 20th, 28th & 36th language-strings on the Wednesday CDs all use this pattern. For this language-string some of the individual segments are as follows:

the 2nd is; “raiz, galho, graveto...folhas, musgo...frio” (Portuguese)

the 4th is; “radice, ramo, stecco...foglie, muschio...freddo” (Italian)

the 7th is; “korzen, galaz, patyk...liscie, mech...chiodny” (Polish)

the 9th is; “wurzel, ast, stock...blatter, moos...frostig” (German)

the 10th is: “root, branch, stick...leaves, moss...chilly” (English)

the 11th is; “racine, branche, baguette...feuilles, mousse...froid” (French)

the 14th is; “raiz, rama, palo...jojas, muzgo...frio” (Spanish)

the 17th is; “akar, cabang, ranting...daun-daun, lumut...dingin” (Indonesian)

the 21st is; Kok, Dal, Sopa...Yapraklar, Yosun...Serin (Turkish)

the 23rd is; “rot, gren, sticka...lov, moss...ruggig” (Swedish)

the 24th is; "mzizi,tawi, fimbo...majani, kuvumwani...-a mzizimo" (Swahili)

Each set of 3 CDs ("Monday", "Tuesday" & "Wednesday") uses a different group of eight patterns. The manner in which a language creates sentences determines what are called “word order” rules, that is, the order of the verbs, nouns and adjectives (for example, “green house” in English becomes “casa verde” in Spanish). These word order rules vary considerably from language to language.

Most of the language-strings therefore present a series of words which are not sentences so that there are no changes in a segment due to word order rules.

Thus in the language-string given above, all the segments have identical sequences of meanings. A few basic phrases and sentences however are included to give examples of the word order rules.

This structure allows a language-string to become a basic reference pattern. If the native language of a child is used in a segment in a language-string, it should tend to anchor the meaning of the entire series for the child. Each set of CDs or tapes contains 3 hours of material to insure that all of the unique sounds for each language are presented.

Studies have shown that bilingual and multilingual speakers do not translate, but rather they just tend to have more than one way of saying something. Early exposure to language-strings should help develop this capability.

The language-strings should contain a language spoken in the infant's home. This "domestic" language tends to anchor the meaning of the different language segments for the infant. "Go For It" is a proposed game/method for randomizing access & use of language-strings segments.

Baby Safari.US -- Akilo.Com -- The Snow Water Corporation

2 Hayfields Road, Portola Valley, Ca 94028 -- (800) 872-5244