Monday, March 16, 2009

Linguistic development

Some of the more Ukrainian babushki at church are absolutely thrilled because, as they say, "Raia speaks perfect Ukrainian!"  The funny thing is that she doesn't speak any Ukrainian.  They are just hearing her mistakes in Russian and taking them for "perfect Ukrainian."

Yesterday morning Asya said her first sentence.  I think.  She has a very limited spoken vocabulary so far: Mama, Papa, nyum or am for food, ляля (baby or referring to herself), ow (hot/ouch/dog/cat/horse, depends on the context) and sometimes Ba (Jaan, from братик/brother?) and Yaya (Raia).  Well, yesterday morning she was standing in her crib, hungry and yelling for me.  Then she paused and said very clearly, "Мама Ляля АМ!"  That's a sentence, right?  "Mama, Baby [wants] FOOD!"

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

That sounds like a sentence. =)

Baba Julie said...

That's great! The girl has her priorities in order!! (: Love, Julie

Agape said...

Yep, that's a sentence. (in perfect Ukrainian, that's hilarious!) Congratulations! Priorities in order, indeed!

Alissa Maxwell said...

I love the us of ow for 6 different words depending on context. We have that same situation in our house right now.

Jeanne said...

Yep, that's a sentence, alright...a perfect Ukranian sentence!?!

Jeanne

Phyllis said...

Oh, I forgot to mention the first meaning of "ow." It also means "book."

Anonymous said...

A perfect sentence out of despair. :-) When nothing else works, they start talk. That's funny about the perfect Ukrainian. Maybe they call Russian Ukrainian now?! For Ukrainian babushkas it may have no difference since they always spoke Russian in Ukrain in the former Soviet Union. :-)

Anonymous said...

I forgot to sign. It was mine (Leana's) comment above.