10-month-old King Henry has acquired a vocabulary…sort of, I think.
He says “uh oh” and, when the cat’s around, “m-bow” (imitating the cat).
Is this considered talking? I’m not sure if “uh oh” is considered a word. What about the cat sound?
Thanks for the input!
It’s a start. Have him read the Boards and in no time at all he’ll be saying “when come back, bring pie” and “Cite??” 
I’d say yes. Well, unless his next word is impossibly cute, in which case that’s the one you’ll remember. Parents have a fair amount of latitude with these things. For instance, my older daughter’s first word was officially “Daddy.” That’s how I chose to interpret the sound “Daw-dee,” which in reality meant either “Daddy” or “doggy,” depending on the situation. “Doggy” just didn’t seem as stirring a thing to write in the baby book (I’m kidding - I was never organized enough to keep up with the baby book for more than a couple of months).
I’d say, from a linguistic standpoint, that “uh-oh” is certainly a word. “M-bow” may or may not be, depending on whether you choose to consider “cat” a language. Does he use the sound specifically to refer (or speak) to the cat? If so, it may be a valid word.
From observing my sons (n=3), I’d say that a human starting on using vocabulary at ten months age isn’t unthinkable. At first, it may just be conditioning–repeating something that is said often is rewarded (depending on what ones family is prone to saying often). The child repeats what gets the most rewards. Saying “adadada” at a chair is rewarded less than going up to the father and saying “adadada”. The child then learns to associate “say ‘adadada’ next to the fuzzy-faced guy” with positive response. Furthermore, the child will probably learn that saying “adadada” will get fuzzface to pay some more attention. Thus, “adadada” and fuzzface get identified.
My wife and I are fairly chatty, so our children are likewise as chatty. Drives my wife nuts–I have the daddy defense. (This is a psychological condition that permits some fathers to blithely wander through life mostly inured to the vast amounts of noise generated by young boys.)
“Uh oh” in response to something happening (falling over?) I’m sure would have to be seen as a word.
My little lad’s first (and so far only obvious) word is “Yay!”, often accompanied by clapping his hands, and usually said when he does something hard or new (climbing somewhere, etc).
10 months? Right in line the the little Furds.
At about the same age my little one picked up “w’sat” (what’s that)
That was her only word for about 6 months. We think she liked it because it was like a remote control that got any adult talking. All she had to do was point and say “w’sat” and any adult within earshot would start explaining things to her.
The most adorable use of this was on her first birthday. I don’t even remember what the present was but she was so excited when she saw it that she said “w-w-w-wat’s AT!?!”
If there is a one-to-one use (uh-oh for ‘uh-oh type situations’, cat sound for cat-like things), it is a word. It can be a category word and count (woof for all animals with four legs, say).
Or that’s what I remember from my BIL, the speech pathologist.
It isn’t a word if it is used randomly for anything.
My younger son, who is more in the ‘usual range’ for talking, called cats “T’t” and me? I got to be called “Dat” (that) for ages. There was daddy, g-g (gabe), t’t, and THAT. Sigh. He did finally switch to mama (I didn’t insist), and now I miss being ‘that’… His cool thing was that he also distinguished between this (near item) and that (far item) consistantly. Before I became ‘that’, that is…
It counts as “talking” when he’s consistently using the same sound to mean the same thing. If he uses “m-bow” always to mean only “cat”, then yes, it counts as talking. But if he also says “m-bow” to refer to “juice”, “shoe”, “bath”, “Bert and Ernie”, and “Get that applesauce away from me!”, then it doesn’t count, it’s still just “baby babbling”.
Sounds like babygrey. He had st-ah for star aroud 9-10 months. We thought he had started even earlier with Da Da when pointing to me but then he called the cat Da Da, the prunes Da Da…
My kid’s first word was, “Bob.” He’d stand there with his hands on the playpen, bobbing up and down saying, “Bob. Bob. Bob.” We even called him Bob for a while. But he was only about 8 months at that time, so I don’t think it really counts.
At about 10 mos, Paidhi-girl uttered her first word–“cat.” It tended to come out as a sort of excited squeak whenever the cat ventured near, but eventually we realized she was actually saying the word, not just squeaking. It was three or four months later that she acquired a second word–“sock.” Her third word was “checkbook.” She hung there at three words for quite some time, and then started accellerating and hasn’t stopped yet.
When my #1 son was about nine months, he started saying “ba” when it was time for his bottle. My wife, my mom, and my sister all said that he was trying to say “bottle,” but I, being the skeptical one, told them that he was just playing with a sound he learned how to make.
Within a couple of weeks, it was clear that they were right. When he was 12 months, he had a vocabulary of about 50 words that he could say pretty clearly. I also taught him to whistle when he was nine months. So yes, ten months is definitely a time when a kid can be starting to speak.
Bren_Cameron, are you my sister? Her name is Brenda Cameron, at least that was her name until about 1969 when she got married, and we often call her Bren.
Nope, Curt–sorry! Bren Cameron isn’t my real name.
My friend’s daughter is just over 1 year. She says “da. da. da.” alot, and “mmm-mmm-mm” and “nnn-nnn-nnn”. MY friend and his wife are convinced that she is saying words. (Okay, she is talking. But they’re convinced she’s trying to say them in English.)
I (privately) disagree. She is making sounds that could easily be taken to mean Dad and Mom and Nanna and she makes a lot of other sounds as well, but she doesn’t associate any sounds with their appropriate targets enough to think that she’s saying “Dada” or “Mama.”
Of course, this has nothing to do with wether Torgo’s heir is talking or not. Nor am I suggesting that Torgo step back and take this clinical view of the life and times of King Henry.
I just don’t think that an uttered sound is a word simply because it sounds like a word.
“Walkin’ by one, talkin’ by two.”