II. Infantile repetition. By the change of a consonant, words are adapted to this type. Thus Bareqe children say jeje for keje, “membrum virile”; Tontemboan children, kiqkiq for kiqciq, “to bite”. In Tontb. titiq for hiliq, “to sleep”, both changes have occurred, viz., substitution of the dental for the velar and also adaptation to the infantile habit of repetition.
III. Transformation of combinations of sounds which are difficult for children to pronounce. Thus Karo children say a-pe for laṅ-pe, “not at all” .
IV. Besides the above, the language of children exhibits other isolated phenomena, which cannot be classed under any general category. Thus Tontemboan children say lileq instead of lěleq, “to bathe”.
23. When parents speak with children, they use either the normal form of speech or the children's language; but they also sometimes make a compromise between the two. In the preceding paragraph, under subsection I, we saw that the Bareqe children use cucu for susu, “breast”. But in normal Bareqe the palatal tenuis only occurs after the nasal, so that forms like cucu do not exist in the speech of adults. On the other hand, the palatal media is not subject to the same restrictions as the tenuis, and so it comes about that parents, when they speak to children, say neither susu nor cucu, but juju.
24. It is not uncommon for childish words to make their way into the language of adults, particularly the forms involving infantile repetition. In Original IN and in most of the living IN languages, “father” is ama, “mother”, ina; but several languages employ the infantile forms mama and nina. In Tontemboan, “grandfather” is apoq, and “uncle”, itoq; but the vocatives of these words are papoq and titoq. — In Bugis the word for “little girl” is běsseq or běcceq, the first form being used only of princesses. According to subsection I of § 22, the form with s is the normal one, while the one with c was originally the infantile form.
