rds and designations for
"mother" in various districts of Germany, whereas these and very
similar expressions signify also the mother's breast, milk, pap,
drink, nursing-bottle; nay, even in some languages the father is
designated by _Ma_-sounds, the mother by _Ba_-and _Pa_-sounds.

It is very much the same with other primitive syllables of the babe's
utterance, e. g., _atta_. Where this does not denote the parents or
grandparents it is frequently used (_tata_, _tatta_, _tata_, also in
England and Germany) in the sense of "gone" ("fort") and "goodby."

These primitive syllables, _pa-pa_, _ma-ma_, _tata_ and _apa_, _ama_,
_ata_, originate of themselves when in the expiration of breath the
passage is stopped either by the lips (_p_, _m_) or by the tongue (_d_,
_t_); but after they have been already uttered many times with ease,
without meaning, at random, the mothers of all nations make use of them
to designate previously existing ideas of the child, and designate by
them what is most familiar. Hence occurs the apparent confounding of
"milk" and "breast" and "mother" and "(wet-) nurse" or "nurse" and
"bottle," all of which the child learns to call _mam_, _amma_, etc.

But just at this period appears a genuine echolalia, the child,
unobserved, repeating correctly and like a machine, often in a
whisper, all sorts of syllables, when he hears them at the end of a
sentence. The normal child, before he can speak, repeats sounds,
syllables, words, if they are short, "mechanically," without
understanding, as he imitates movements of the hands and the head that
are made in his sight. Speaking is a movement-making that invites
imitation the more because it can be strictly regulated by means of
the ear. Anything more than regulation is not at first given by the
sense of hearing, for those born deaf also learn to speak. They can
even, like normal children, speak quite early in dreams (according to
Gerard van Asch). Those born deaf, as well as normal children, when
one turns quietly toward them, often observe attentively the lips (and
also touch them sometimes) and the tongue of the person speaking; and
this visual image, even without an auditory image, provokes imitation,
which is made perfect by the combination of the two. This combination
is lacking in the child born blind, pure echolalia prevailing in this
case; in the one born deaf, the combination is likewise wanting, the
reading-off of the syllables from the mouth coming in a