How Dzaky, Tito and Nadhira Acquire Their First Language

As we know that first language acquisition is a process whereby children unconsciously acquire their mother tongue ¬ in the case of monolingual speakers ¬or their mother tongues, in the event of bi- and multi-lingual speakers respectively. The process takes place during the first six or seven years of children′s lives until the lateralisation of their brains occurs as a possible result of hormonal changes.

From Vocalization to Babbling to Speech

I’ve just given a birth three months ago. He is our first son named Dzaky. As an infant, he makes a variety of sounds, crying, cooing, gurgling. In the age of two, he started voicing by pronouncing vowels like /u/, /a/, or /e/ repeatedly. Now, he seems to produce strange words like /enggih/ or /eree/ when he wants to be breastfed, and often yell and laugh by sounding “/aarrghh/” or “/geraaaa/”.
The funny thing is, when his daddy made a joke by touching his beard to Dzaky’s cheek, Dzaky seemed to feel annoyed and produced sounds which is similar to the phrases: “Go away…”. We laughed to see him saying so, since we never teach the baby English at all. Almost being three-month-year old, Dzaky is able to respond what others say. He seems understand when we try to talk to him. He often smile spontaneously and laugh if we make a joke while sounding like /aia/, awa/ and /haw/.


Before observing Dzaky, I have already got in touch with the children of sisters of mine. I have a nephew aged two and a half year old named Tito and a niece aged two year old named Nadhira. Comparing those two kids, Tito is known hyperactive with faster motorist skill development but lower verbal skill development than Nadhira.

Since Tito stayed with us since he was a baby until two year old, I’m well informed about his development. It is easy for me to notice the development patterns of Tito and Dzaky. What makes me surprised is, the speech productions of Dzaky are really similar to Tito in the same age, for instance the sound of /enggihh/ and /ereeee/. However, as I told you, Tito is quiet slow in speech production. Almost one-year-old, he started to babble, to produce what may be described as ‘repeated syllables” (‘syllabic reduplication’) e.g. ‘baba’ or ‘kaka’. I’m not sure what the first word Tito utter is, but it happened after Tito was aged one and a half year old.

Another funny thing is, it seemed that Tito has certain special words to represent his ideas in mind that sounds unfamiliar for others. He was crazy at car, and he always mentioned cars as /abum/. Nobody taught him that word, but maybe he makes his own inferences based on the sound cars produced: buum. Instead of mentioning “motor”, he said /ngengeng/ to refer to motorcycles. Another odd word is /jadda/ which often be uttered over and over by him without fixed specific meaning. Until now we don’t know what /jadda/ really means for him, but it seemed that he used that word when he wanted to take something from us.


Early Speech: Naming, Holophrastic, Telegraphic, and Morphemic

In his age of one year, Tito is familiar with the action of saying goodbye commonly said as “kiss bye”. If someone was leaving and said, “Kiss bye, Tito!”, he would make a movement of kissing his palm and said: /dada/. This is “naming” (one-word-utterance) phase. In his two year old, Tito still uttered the last syllable of the words to express his willingness. Instead of saying “Bunda Meli”, he said “Da Li” or he shortened “Om Amin” into “Miin”. He is able to mention the names of the people he knows in his own ways such as:



Q: Siapa nama ayah kakak?
T: Pul.. (Syaiful)
Q: Nama bunda kakak?
T: Cy.. (Desy)
Q: Nama kakak?
T: To.. (Tito)

Tito has identified himself as “kakak”, Adzhra as “adik”, Syaiful as “Ayah”, Desy as “Bunda”, Meli as “Bunda Meli (Actually it is Tante Meli)”, Anga as “Bunda Anga (Tante Anga)”, Yuyun as “Umi (Tante Yuyun)”, Amin as “Om Amin” etc. He is also able to recognize the differences of his car toys, for instance when we ask, “Yang mana mobil polisi, kakak?”, he will point a certain car, or “Ini mobil apa, kak?”, he answers “Lan.. (ambulans)”. “Gimana bunyi ambulans?”, he replies, “Wiwiwiwiw..”. On the road, when we see the real ambulans, Tito will spontaneously shouts, “Wiwiwiwiwiwwww!”.

Tito often uses single-word to express complex thoughts which involve those objects. Now he doesn’t stay with us anymore and every time he comes he always says “Miin.. Abuuumm” (Om Amin, ayo kita pergi naik mobil) while pointing the car in the garage. This is what we call holophrastic (one-word utterances) phase. But now in his two-and a half-year old, he is already producing telegraphic speech and able to tell a story by using simple sentences. “Da Li, kakak lan.. (Bunda Meli, Kakak dari jalan-jalan), or making simple conversation such as below,

Bunda : “Kakak hari ini mau kemana?”
Tito : “Ke TK”
Bunda : “TK mana?” (Actually Tito hasn’t gone to school yet, but sometimes Bunda Meli brings him to certain kindergarten to play)
Tito : “TK Niai Rom” (Tito mentions one of kindergartens he is familiar to, the one that Niai Rom becomes its teacher)
Bunda : “Pergi sama siapa?”
Tito : “Da Li” (Bunda Meli)
Bunda : Tapi hari ini Bunda Meli mau ngajar..
Tito : Iya, ngajar di TK kakak
Bunda : Lho???

Here, we can see that Tito hasn’t had logical thinking order; he didn’t realize that Bunda Meli has another activity (teaching) so that unable to accompany him to go to the kindergarten. He tought that Bunda Meli’s activity was related to his agenda to go to the kindergarten.

In another side, Nadhira is really fast in verbal skill development. Before one year old, she was already able to imitate the sounds of animals, for instance “auuummm” for “tiger” or “wek wek wek” for duck. When she was one year old, she has already been able to produce words. I think it has something to do with the stimulation. Nadhira is mingled in her neighborhood and accustomed to talk with others. Now, in his age of two years, Nadhira is very fluent in telling stories and singing varied songs. She is able to reply various questions in her smart logical thinking. Another interesting fact is her unstoppable curiousity by asking critical questions over and over, for instance
Nadhira: “Apa ini?” (pointing to laptop)
Me: Ini laptop
Nadhira: Laptop apa?
Me: Laptop untuk ngetik
Nadhira: Ngetik apa?
Me: Ngetik macem-macem, surat juga bisa
Nadhira: Surat apa?

That’s the experience of mine in observing the first language acquisition of children especially in terms of phonology. What I have in mind now is to stimulating Dzaky to acquire Bahasa Indonesia (since his parents use Bahasa Indonesia at home) as his first language in a fast way and will enthusiastically learn his second and foreign languages later :)