Vocabulary

Well, Sidharth has moved well beyond his go-go-gaga lexicon and moved into actual word formation, but discerning his language takes a bit of work. We have compiled a list of words that he uses regularly and what we think he means by those words. Sometimes we win and other times we lose and it takes a while to figure out what he’s trying to convey. Here is his current verbal glossary:

Chee lello – Cereal

Meee – Milk

I Shee – Ice Cream

Mishnicole – Miss Nicole (his supervisor at the day care)

Effetti – Elephant

Favatti – Butterfly

CheeYouBye – See You Bye

Fuck – Fork (or at least we think that’s what he is saying)

Spoo - Spoon

Diapel – diaper

Cow Moo – Cow, which inadvertently is followed by the sound a cow makes

Fog – Frog

Ship – sheep

Boat – Bird

Coo – Cool, a new word he’s picked from his daycare

Goo – Good

Haaushe – Horse

There are several others words which don’t readily come to mind and of course, he also speaks in our mother tongue Kannada as well, with the same propensity for misinterpretation by an onlooker, as in English. He pronounces his friend Kaaamini’s name as Kmini which literally means “bitch” or something offensive to that effect, in Hindi, and no amount of prompting has persuaded him to change this pronunciation. What’s come from his limited list of inane babble is that when I’m asked what I am going to have for breakfast, I promptly reply, without much thought or a pause, “Chee lello”.