" He says, viz., with indescribable longing in his voice,
_mimi_, more rarely than before _maemae_ and _moemoem_ (page 85). The
first appellation was certainly taken from the often-heard "milk" by
imitation, and applied to biscuit and other kinds of food. If the
child, when he has eaten enough, is asked, "Do you want milk?" he
says without direction, _neinein_; he has thus grasped and turned to
use already the signification of the sound. The same is, perhaps,
true also of "ja." For previously, when I asked the child as he was
eating, "Does it taste good?" he was silent, and I would say, "Say
jaja," and this would be correctly repeated. But in the ninety-first
week he, of his own accord, answers the question with _jaja_--"yes,
yes." This, too, may rest simply on imitation, without a knowledge
of the meaning of the _ja_, and without an understanding of the
question; yet there is progress in the recollection of the
connection of the sound "schmeckt's" with _jaja_, the intermediate
links being passed over.
In other cases, too, the strength of the memory for sounds is plainly
manifested. To all questions of an earlier period, "Where is the
forehead, nose, mouth, chin, beard, hair, cheek, eye, ear, shoulder?"
the child now at once pointed correctly in every instance, although he
might not have answered them for anybody even once for two weeks. Only
the question, "Where is the thumb?" made him hesitate. But when the
thumb had been again shown to him (firmly pressed), he knew it, and from
that time pointed it out invariably without delay.
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