H. Taine (in the supplement to his book on "Intelligence," which
appeared in a German translation in 1880) noted, as expressions used by
a French child in the fifteenth month, _papa_, _maman_, _tete_ (nurse,
evidently a word taken from the word _teter_, "to nurse or suck at the
breast"), _oua-oua_ (dog, in all probability a word said for the child
to repeat), _koko_ (cock, no doubt from _coq-coq_, which had been said
for the child), _dada_ (horse, carriage, indicating other objects also,
no doubt; a demonstrative word, as it is with many German children).
_Tem_ was uttered without meaning for two weeks; then it signified
"give, take, look, pay attention." I suspect that we have here a
mutilation of the strongly accentuated _tiens_, which had probably been
often heard. As early as the fourteenth month, _ham_ signified "I want
to eat" (_hamm_, then _am_, might have had its origin in the echo of
_faim, as-tu faim?_ (are you hungry?)). At the age of three and a half
months this child formed only vowels, according to the account; at
twelve months she twittered and uttered first _m-m_, then _kraaau_,
_papa_, with varying intonation, but spoke no word with a recognizable
meaning. In the tenth month there was an understanding of some
questions. For the child, when asked "Where is grandpapa?" smiled at the
portrait of the grandfather, but not at the one of the grandmother,
which was not so good a likeness. In the eleventh month, at the
question "Where is mamma?" the child would turn toward her mother, and
in like manner toward the father at the question, "papa"?
A second child observed by Taine made utterances that had intellectual
significance in the seventh week, for the first time.
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