babbling
Roget's Thesaurus:
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babbling
Oxford Companion to the Mind:
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babbling
The utterance or hearing of incoherent speech sounds. It is thought that the Greeks heard all other languages as 'babble', giving the word an onomatopoeic origin. Indeed unfamiliar languages do sound formless, with no clear demarcation between words. In a familiar language, word units are identified not by breaks in speech but from the continuous 'babble' of speech, much as separate objects are seen from the mosaic pattern of stimulation of the eyes.
It is believed that babies produce all the speech sounds of any language in their babbling, and that speech sounds or phonemes of the language of their environment are gradually selected, according to use (see language development in children).
(Published 1987)
It is believed that babies produce all the speech sounds of any language in their babbling, and that speech sounds or phonemes of the language of their environment are gradually selected, according to use (see language development in children).
(Published 1987)
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Roget's Thesaurus
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 byHoughton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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