Thursday, November 05, 2009

Griffinventions

Sometimes Griffin says a new word (for him) in English; sometimes he'll bust out with a new word in French. Other times, his utterances are his own creations!

Griffin-English Glossary
Bayoo: butterfly/papillon

Bee: a prefix which seems to mean "I want a different one than the one I'm currently playing with or looking at," as in "bee-book" and "bee-awwwwww" (airplane)
Clop: block/cube, which could be an amalgamation of the sounds in both French and English pronounced by a toddler, or perhaps a reference to the sounds that blocks make in a French book that he likes
Die-oh: his name for his cousin Carl
Mimi: stuffed baby doll which is supposed to be the Little Prince/Petit Prince en peluche

Tah-pee: pizza, plus any take-out or delivered food (He's probably just inverting the syllables, but why with this word and not any of his other two-syllable words?)

Uh-oh-way (with sharp rising intonation): We never did figure this one out, but it seemed to be distinct from his "uh-oh."

Up-or-down: For some reason, he said this for months, but he also knew how to say "up" and "down" separately. We think "up-or-down" had some other meaning for him (but what exactly remains a mystery).

What inscrutable words have your toddlers invented? Click on "comments" to let us know!

4 comments:

  1. So cute! D creates "words" by combining Spanish and English also. His latest is "matchear" to match. Nice. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Such a fun post idea! My current fav is "capane (accent aigu)" for canape, especially because he's always very enthusiastic when he says it. Kind like YewNork, I think... until just a couple months ago, Ronan said "mah" for "pain" and "nanoo" for "lune". They've both been replaced to a more "correct" version, which is a little sad:( The other day, he smiled and said "mah" when the toaster popped up, as if he had remembered an old friend.:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dani likes to invent words, but they are not part of her vocabulary. When she was younger, she did it a lot. I remember one match-up (like Griff's up-or-down) was her "yes-or-no". "Do you want milk" "Yes-or-no." "Argh!!"

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a good blog ! I have a little one who is 3 years old and a pain in the A** and so demanding its like having 2 children in one .

    ReplyDelete