Ask-A-Linguist Message Details
| Subject: | Greek Babbling |
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| Question: |
When infants begin babbling, the first sounds after vowels are usually the stops. First of those are the labials. Because they are very productive in world languages, [b], [p], and [d] are usually the first. In Greek, [b] and [d] are infrequent phones. In fact, there are no letters for these phones; instead, combinations are made: μπ for [b] and ντ for [d]. Does this mean, then, that Greek babies, when they begin babbling, do not begin with the sounds [b] and [d]? And if they do, is that just further proof that much of language acquisition is innate and there is some sort of Universal Grammar? |
| Reply: |
See Dr Cruz-Ferreira's response about child language acquisition. To her response I would add that the spelling is not as significant as it first appears. I assume from your comment about μπ for [b] and ντ for [d] that you are referring to Modern Greek. This spelling is actually a result of a sound change from Ancient Greek to Modern Greek. In earlier stages of Greek "μπ" was the cluster [mp] and "ντ" was [nt] That stage of Greek also did have /b/ which is was spelled as "β" and /d/ which was the letter "δ". But in Modern Greek β and δ are now [v] and [ð]. In other words, some of the Greek consonants underwent a series of sound shifts, one of which was [mp,nt] --> [b,d], but the spelling of the letters was not updated to reflect the new sound changes. This is common in languages with a long written history. Note though that BOTH stages of Greek maintain a phoneme for [b,d]. While these sounds are not the least marked, they are common in many world languages. It's often the case that if a language loses a relative common sound due to a phonological sound change, a second sound change may reintroduce the sound. All of this tends to be consistent with child language acquisition order. Hope this makes sense. |
| Reply From: | Elizabeth J Pyatt click here to access email |
| Date: | 31-Oct-2012 |
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