wentieth month; the
interrogative word _was?_ (what) in the twenty-second month. Wo? (where)
and Wohin? (whither) had the same meaning (that of the French _ou?_),
and this as late as in the fourth year. The word "Ich" (I) made its
appearance in the thirtieth month. As to verbs, it is to be mentioned
that, with the child at two years of age, before the use of the tenses
there came the special word denoting activity in general: thus he said,
when looking at a head of Christ by Guido Reni, _thut beten_, instead of
"betet" ("does pray," instead of "prays"). The verb "sein" (be) was very
much distorted: _Warum warst du nicht fleissig gebist?_ (gebist for
gewesen) (why have you not been industrious?). (Cf., pp. 172, 177.) He
inflected _bin_, _binst_ (for bist), _bint_ (ist), _binn_ (sind), _bint_
(sind and seid), _binn_ (sind). Further, _wir isn_ (wir sind, we are),
and _nun sei ich ruhig_ (sei for bin) (now I am quiet), and _ich habe
nicht ruhig geseit_ (_habe_ for "bin" and _geseit_ for "gewesen") (I
have not been quiet), are worthy of note, because they show how strong
an influence in the formation of words during the transition period is
exerted by the forms most frequently heard--here the imperative. The
child used first of all the imperative; last the subjunctive. The
superlative and comparative were not used by this child until the fourth
year.

The observations of Lindner (edited anew in the periodical "Kosmos" for
1882) are among the best we have.

In the case of four brothers and sisters, whose mother, Frau Dr.
Friedemann, of Berlin, has most kindly placed at my disposal trustworthy
observations concerning them, the first articulate sounds heard were
_aerae_, _haegae_, _aeche_, and a deep guttural, rattling or snarling sound
(Schnarren); but the last was heard from only one of the children.

The above syllables contain three consonants (_r_, _h_, _ch_) that are
declared by many, wrongly, to be very late in their appearance. These
children in their first attempts at speaking often left out the first
consonant of a word pronounced for them, or else substituted for it the
one last heard, as if their memory were not equal to the retaining of
the sounds heard first: e. g., in the fifteenth month they would say
_t[)e]_, _t_ for _Hut_ (hat), _Lale_ for _Rosalie_; in the
twenty-fourth, _kanke_ for _danke_ (thank you), _kecke_ for _Decke_
(covering), _kucker_ for _Zucker_ (sugar), _huch_, _huche_ for _Schuh_,
_Schuhe_ (sh