baby talk

See also: babytalk

English

Alternative forms

• babytalk, baby-talk

Noun

baby talk (uncountable)

1. (linguistics) The form of speech used by adults in talking to very young children.

   Synonyms: babyese, child-directed speech, hypocorism, motherese, parentese

   Coordinate terms: childspeak; adultspeak

   Meronym: babble word

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter III, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     [...] while not a super-goof like some of the female goofs I'd met, she was quite goofy enough to be going on with. Her whole aspect was that of a girl who at the drop of a hat would start talking baby talk.

2. (linguistics) The prelanguage, and subsequent developing language, used by small children, incorporating crying, cooing, and babbling in sequence before the acquisition of adult language capabilities.

   Coordinate terms: child language, childspeak

   Meronyms: babble word, goo goo ga ga

Related terms

• baby steps
• babytalk (verb)

Translations

form of speech used when talking to babies

Basque: haur hizkera Chinese: Mandarin: please add this translation if you can Danish: babysnak c Finnish: vauvakieli (fi) French: langage enfantin (fr) m, mamanais (fr) m German: Ammensprache (de) f, Babysprache (de) f Hungarian: gyermeknyelv (hu) Icelandic: barnamál (is) n, barnahjal n, gælumál n Japanese: 幼児語 (ja) (ようじご, yōjigo) Korean: 유아어(幼兒語) (ko) (yua'eo) Spanish: maternés Ukrainian: сюсю́кання n (sjusjúkannja)

prelanguage used by small children

Chinese: Mandarin: 牙牙學語 / 牙牙学语 (zh) (yáyáxuéyǔ) Dutch: please add this translation if you can Finnish: vauvan viestintä

See also

• Category:English childish terms

Further reading

• baby talk on Wikipedia.Wikipedia