As far as Julie and I can tell, Sylvan’s thirteen-month vocabulary currently consists of sixteen words, along with a few questionable sounds that will probably turn into words soon. He always says these words in the appropriate context. Sometimes he surprises us by seeing or hearing something (a dog, a bird, a truck) that we either haven’t seen or heard yet or didn’t pay attention to.
All of the words are nouns so far. Fluent English speakers would consider most of Sylvan’s current noun definitions somewhat broader in scope than Mr. Webster would prefer. His words for things are often more like words for classes of things. For example, the word “sock” includes socks, shoes, and pretty much any other kind of footwear. I have included examples of items included in each word’s scope of meaning.
Pronunciation follows each word, in parentheses.
Ball (bah or baht) – Any round or mostly round object, including balls, round fruit of any sort (grapes, plums, apples, avocadoes, avocado pits, peaches, etc.), pumpkins, eggs.
Balloon (moom) – He doesn’t say “balloon” for non-balloon objects, and he can accurately point them out as we pass a car dealership at 40 miles per hour.
Bird (buhrt or buht) – He has been pointing out birds for a while. He used a version of the sign language sign for “bird” for a while (Grandma Diana taught him) until he could say “bird” and be understood.
Book (bhut) – Sylvan loves books. Magazines are books. If you ask him to bring you a book, Sylvan will bring you a book from his basket and then sit down to be read to. Those of you who knew Julie and Christopher as children will not be surprised by this report.
Bottle (boh’l) – Bottles include glass jars, any sort of plastic water bottle, and drinking glasses. His only two-syllable word, unless he’s in a hurry.
Dog (daw) – This was Sylvan’s first word, at about nine months. He said it frequently for a few weeks, then stopped saying it for a while. A dog used to be any animal with four legs and fur, but he has stopped using it for cats recently.
Duck (duh) – Most water birds are ducks. At the beach this weekend, Sylvan pointed to crows, sparrows, woodpeckers, etc., and said “bird”, then to seagulls and said “duck”. The great blue heron fooled him, though. A heron is a bird, so far.
Food (nahn) – We have used the sign for food forever, but Sylvan has not picked it up. He generally points to what he wants or away from what he doesn’t want, and we have to figure it out. He keeps us running around the kitchen picking up different foods to see if we can guess what he wants to eat. It’s a fun game, I think.
Light (neht or nat) – Sylvan has been fascinated by lights since he was about five weeks old. Ceiling fans are also lights. He pronounced it “nahn” until last week; one day he changed and hasn’t gone back.
Milk (neh-neh-neh) – This useful word was one of Sylvan’s first. He picked up the sign for milk pretty early, then he started using words and dropped the sign.
Mom (mom) – Another useful word. He can pick her out from really far away. “Sylvan, who’s that?” “Mom.”
Potty (dahn) – Sylvan says this when he sits on his potty and can also correctly identify multiple kinds of adult toilets with this word. This word may also be the verb “to change” and appears to have other related meanings that we have not yet divined. I’m guessing that when we figure out what he’s talking about when he says “dahn”, there will be fewer trousergrams for us.
Sock (dok) – A sock is anything that a person wears on his or her foot. Shoes are definitely “dok”.
Truck (tuh) – This was also one of Sylvan’s first few words. It originally applied to all four-wheeled vehicles, but only when they were moving. He is beginning to get the idea of “car”, but he doesn’t have a word for it yet.
Vroom (voom or boom) – “Sylvan, what does a truck say?” “Vroom!” “That’s right!”
Water (wah or waht) – Any drinkable liquid. He also recognizes water in its untreated state in rivers, streams, and lakes.
Emerging and dormant words:
Backpack (?) – He has a word for backpack, but I don’t think he’s settled on a pronunciation yet.
Box (bah) – He just started saying this tonight. I don’t know if it will stick.
Done (dun) – He used to say “done” and give us the sign language equivalent. He doesn’t appear to be saying it anymore. Now he just refuses additional food and gives the sign for “up”. This was his first non-noun.
Down (down) – I think he is starting to say “down” when he descends stairs. Holy crow, an adverb!
Squirrel (qurh or gurl) – He said this for a week or two, but I haven’t heard it in a while, even though we saw and discussed a bunch of squirrels this weekend.
Tree (bwot or maybe bot) – He used the sign for “tree” for a while, but he hasn’t done that in a few weeks. I think that he is telling us about the trees when he says “bwot”, but I’m not sure.
Isn’t down a preposition?
Actually, I just looked it up and it appears that ‘down’, depending on context, can be every single word type known to english. Silly.