BBG! quoting Anatole France. In French! I can’t even do thatContrary to the perception I may have given here my love of language is not limited to “bad” language. I am, however, a lex(ical) maniac of sorts; a passionate logophile, an enthusiastic etymologist, even on occasion, a cunning linguist. Familiar, foreign, slang, dialects, colloquialisms, spoken, written and read – I can’t get enough of language in all its permutations. Hack of a phrase, master of none (see?), I can only hope to instill half the same fervor in Baby Grrl!™

I was fortunate enough to have multi-lingual parents (Dad: Spanish, English, Some French, Some Portuguese, Some Chinese; Mom: English, Spanish, French) each of whom has always had a great love of literature in all it’s forms. (And, FWIW Mom has been turning out great writing in relative obscurity for years now.) I’ve translated their influence into that same love of literature (high, low and otherwise), a dilettante’s dabbling in writing, a reasonable facility with reading Spanish, an embarrassing spoken Spanish, and the inverse abilities with French. (At one time I had a bit of Portuguese and I pretend to know how to speak German – but it’s only enough to get me slapped and count the slaps.)

So, we know the general plan for BBG!™’s potty (mouth) training. The plan for developing her more refined language skills is a bit more refined itself. I plan to begin reading to her in French, Spanish and English from Day One. I’d really like to read her Neruda in Spanish – I’ll just have to be careful not to select something more appropriate for a BabyBump™ post. So, not this. And, In French, I was thinking of trying an old favorite that I haven’t read in a long time, and never in French, Le Petit Prince.

Being aware of the facility the very young have in developing languages other than their own I want to make sure to take advantage of this window of opportunity. I was further encouraged after reading a passage in Fernyhough’s book explaining that infants are born with all the information they need to develop any language and only begin losing the extraneous information and facilities as they specialize in one. And, I also got very excited about talking to Baby Grrl!™, in any language, after reading a blurb in the April 2010 issue of American Baby that suggested speaking at least 22,000 words to your baby each day before six months has a remarkable impact on their developing language skills.

As for nurturing her love of reading and writing, I may just drop One Hundred Years of Solitude (in Spanish?) in her crib and ask her for a 500-word synopsis by the time she’s five.   

And, what the hell, maybe we’ll get her started on Portuguese – hands down the most beautiful language in the world – with this (which just so happens to be “our” song):

Merci, Gracias, Danke, Grazie, Arigato to @NewYorkDad and his post, “Tower of Babble…” that inspired this post.

“Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want.”

Intriguing insight and inspiration via TED.