Language

Last night at dinner Elijah leaned forward excitedly.  “Boh! Boh!”  That’s his word for Pooh, aka Winnie the Pooh, which he has recently been introduced to by way of a fun pillowcase and the Pooh character on his nappies and his new dummy (pacifier).  Elijah was pointing at the mug I was using, which has Pooh on it.  Clever boy!  Then he said, “Owies, Boh, owies!”  He saw that there were honeybees depicted next to Pooh.  Honeybees = “owies” in Elijah’s vocabulary (even more so here, where our standard honeybees are African Killer bees).

This very cute incident illustrates what communicating with Elijah is like.  His vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds, but we have been amused to see that his “words” come in different ways.  More and more he is learning to repeat words as he hears us saying them, or use the point-and-identify tactic.  However, he also mixes in sign language and sometimes simply makes an onomatopoeic sound which serves as the word. 

For instance, “airplane” is NEVER repeated as a word.  Rather, he “says” airplane by going “Wooo, woh, woh, woooo” and flying his hand through the air.  

The same with “snake,” which he says by making a gutteral growling/biting noise and hitting his chest (explanation: we have told him that snakes will bite him, and so his brain interprets the word by signing “bite” with sound effects).  And yes, we are working VERY hard to teach him about snakes – and YES, he has actually identified snakes without any prompting or assistance using this method. 

Some things he simply signs, like “wash hands.”

He is also becoming bilingual, gradually picking up Nyanja words and phrases as he is picking up English ones.  When he says “thank you”, a full 50% of the time he says “koko” which is the Elijah-ization of “zekomo.”  The other half of the time he says “dank oo.”  :-)  He has also been heard saying “iwe!” which his friends are often shouting at each other (“you! You!”).  And he has made several attempts to say “bwanji” in greeting.

And at least although he does say "NO!" very emphatically, he says it so adorably!