y express our astonishment that so many writers
on the subject of the order of succession of the consonants in the
development of speech have assigned so late a date to the formation of
the _w_; Schwarz puts it even after _t_, and before _r_ and _s_. Then
come _d_, _t_; then _l_ and _n_; _n_ is easily combined with _d_ when it
precedes _d_; next _f_ and the gutturals _h_, _ch_, _g_, _k_, the _g_
and _k_ often confounded with _d_ and _t_. _S_ and _r_ are regarded as
nearly simultaneous in their appearance; the gutturals as coming later,
the latest of them being _ch_. Still, there is a difference in this
respect in different children. For many produce a sound resembling _r_
among the first consonant sounds; so too _ae_, _oe_, _ue_; the diphthongs
proper do not come till the last."

These statements of Loebisch, going, as they do, far beyond pure
observation, can not all be regarded as having general validity. For
most German children, at least, even those first adduced can scarcely
claim to be well founded.

H. Taine (in the supplement to his book on "Intelligence," which
appeared in a German translation in 1880) noted, as expressions used by
a French child in the fifteenth month, _papa_, _maman_, _tete_ (nurse,
evidently a word taken from the word _teter_, "to nurse or suck at the
breast"), _oua-oua_ (dog, in all probability a word said for the child
to repeat), _koko_ (cock, no doubt from _coq-coq_, which had been said
for the child), _dada_ (horse, carriage, indicating other objects also,
no doubt; a demonstrative word, as it is with many German children).
_Tem_ was uttered without meaning for two weeks; then it signified
"give, take, look, pay attention." I suspect that we have here a
mutilation of the strongly accentuated _tiens_, which had probably been
often heard. As early as the fourteenth month, _ham_ signified "I want
to eat" (_hamm_, then _am_, might have had its origin in the echo of
_faim, as-tu faim?_ (are you hungry?)). At the age of three and a half
months this child formed only vowels, according to the account; at
twelve months she twittered and uttered first _m-m_, then _kraaau_,
_papa_, with varying intonation, but spoke no word with a recognizable
meaning. In the tenth month there was an understanding of some
questions. For the child, when asked "Where is grandpapa?" smiled at the
portrait of the grandfather, but not at the one of the grandmother,
which was not so good a likeness. In the eleventh mon