My wife and I adopted a biracial male at birth (Caucasian/African-American). He’s now 8. We are both white (I am going to use white/black in the rest of this post, so if you have a problem with this, read no further. He attends a school that is well over 99% white, and has no black teachers.
A few nights ago, he said, “Mommy, I know what tonite is. B-A-F night”. He spelled it. It took mom a few seconds to realize he meant bath night.
We were in hysterics over this. I’d be hard-pressed to think up anything funnier, but then, I’m easily amused, according to certain idiots.
Ok, my question: Is there a reason he says “toofbrush” and the like? Also, what’s up with him always substituting “what” for “that”? As in, The present what my Dad bought me? The lunch what you made for me. I’ve been correcting his grammar since he started speaking, to no avail. Any thoughts?
I thought I spelled it out. He says “bof”. We say “both”. He says "“what” my dad bought me, we say “that” my dad bought me. I can’t think of a simpler way to explain it. It is what it is. Just trying to fight ignorance, without seeing a need to put things in quotation marks.
Presumably, he picked up using “what” in that manner from the speech of his peers (the same way others pick up using “that” in those contexts). There aren’t many other plausible explanations.
As for realizing the “th” phoneme with /f/, either that is also just an accent trait he’s picked up from his peers, or perhaps it is some sort of more complicated speech issue where he has difficulty with the more standard sound (it is worth noting that, if this is the case, both his production and perception seem to be affected, as given by the his spelling the word “B-A-F”; he may not hear any significant difference between the relevant classes of sounds).
Thanks for your answer. His peers are vanilla white, thus my OP. The second part of your answer gives food for thought. I have a lot of experience (I don’t know how to fucking phrase this, so can I be honest, please?) in dealing with the issue of how blacks maybe somehow process language differently than whites. To re-phrase: He never hears his parents, or anyone else, say “what” for “that”.
First, the -f- for -th- thing sounds like a simple speech problem. I couldn’t pronounce Rs right until I was about that age. I still sometimes slur when I get really tired. Some phonemes are hard for young mouths to form.
Second, if he’s a bright kid, he might have picked up the “what” thing as an affectation. Again, at close to that age I decided to start pronouncing either/neither with a long -I- sound when the typical pronunciation of my area was the long -E-. Mom wasn’t impressed.
Once a kid starts going to school, it’s not easy to determine exactly what he or she might be hearing from “anyone else.” There might be just one person whose speech pattern a kid might pick up.
I would say at least try a visit to a speech therapist.
I had a friend when I was in school who had a tendency toward the ‘f’ for ‘th’ substitution. He was sent to a speech therapist and - lo and behold - it turned out he had a genetic condition where the forward portion of his tongue was attached to the floor of his mouth. He could not raise the tip of his tongue to his teeth or the roof of his mouth to produce the ‘th’ (and other) sounds successfully. So, over time he had adjusted by producing the ‘f’ sound instead.
I’m not say “this is your kids issue”, I’m just suggesting a speech therapist might find something helpful.
These are characteristics of Black English and not necessarily a speech impediment. I think what the OP is asking is why does he have these speech characterisitics in the absense of anyone else who also speaks like that.
The kid doesn’t speak “Black English” (AAVE), he speaks AE, probably with a regional Ohio dialect. So while you’re correct that for a speaker of Black English (as well as speakers of a particular South Side Chicago dialect of any race), “Baf” is not a speech impediment, for this kid it probably is.
I second, third or whatever the evaluation by a speech pathologist. Tongue tying is a very common reason for this sound substitution, and it often goes unnoticed if the kid is good at compensating.
And yeah, this has nothing to do with his race. It may have something to do with his genetics, if he is tongue tied, but it’s not racial in origin.