Baby babble makes grammar sense

BABY “babble” follows the rules of grammar, according to new research at Newcastle University.

Christina Dye, a lecturer in child development at Newcastle University in the UK, said very young children copied speech patterns and grammatical nuances, which they incorporated in their baby babble.

She recorded thousands of toddlers aged between 23 and 37 months and found that the little sounds and puffs of air inserted into their babble were in fact subtle stand-ins for grammatical words.

This challenges the prevailing view among development specialists that children’s early language combinations are devoid of grammar.

Dye found that the sounds produced by the children always came in the correct place in the sentence. This finding led the research team to believe that young children had an instinct for grammar.

The research has provided extra weight to the argument that grammar could be taught from a very young age.

Sara Wernham, a former primary school teacher and author of grammar books, said the research showed that it was possible to teach children as young as three what a verb or a noun is. “I know that if I make the lesson fun and relevant, pupils can easily understand quite complex concepts. If the children and teacher share an understanding of grammar via a shared vocabulary, classroom discussions can become lively and explanation easy.”

She said that by building up their knowledge a bit at a time, “children never doubt that good grammar is easily mastered”.

“We can talk about why ‘I ranned’ is not correct, rather than just saying ‘I ran’ is right and ‘I ranned’ is wrong.

“Acquiring good grammar is essential.”