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it's dusk.  Talkie is speaking her one end of the day sound.  Emrie,  when here late,  into darkness last night,  stopped everything and was alert, ears pricked,  to that sound,  the single sound that Talkie speaks at dusk.  Emrie repeated it.  Perfectly.  Listened.  Repeated.  Listened.  Repeated.  Her eyes were wide with the exchange that had to do with heart.  Hers,  a chicken's.  Language.

I fill two plastic pitchers with beet pulp.  Dry shredded beets.  Winter supliment for Goats.  Fill them when the doe Goats aren't around and at different times of day,  put them in 2 feeding tubs.  Then call them.  Loud.  Yelling….GOATS!  COME COME.  they hear,  from wherever they are on 6 acres and come flying fast.  The language shared between us is just two words…Come Come.  

Emrie isn't much of one to repeat words you want her to.  She just won't.  A lot of her language is "Uh" and pointing and eyebrows raised, or  brows squenched, or big smile,  hands extended with fingers wiggling.  She recently has added Yeah.  for affirmative.  No is still a shaken head.  We try to get her to say milk.  she won't.  Juice.  Juice is anything in the bottle.  I can say…do you want your milk till i'm blue in the face and she will cheerfully nod and say Juice!   I am Mom.  Alyssia is Mom Mom.  Her brother Julian is Jshzuju.  I refer to Tay as Dog.  a few days ago she began calling Tay ,  Tay.  Clearly.  Tay.  I say, Tay Dog,  she says…Tay.  She understands very complex sentences.  like…you need to put the lantern lights back now because i told you to be careful and you are not being careful.  She frowns but puts them back.

yesterday when we were at B,  working on the Compost and then coming back up,  she pointed to the hammock and said Uh…

i sat and pulled her up next to me.  She hasn't liked the hammock all summer.  She sat yesterday,  her eyebrows up,  rocking and said rocky baby.  She leaned back down into the spread of the hammock and looked up,  let out a gasp….a gasp…and began singing.  Singing as she looked up into the tree branches and the sky.  She sang.  Sounds.  Sounds.

Sounds. with a lilting tune.

What is language?    Language of tree branches, sky,  Earth with all it's relations…looking for language 

 

 

 

 

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27 responses to “Language. Speaking. Telling. Showing heart with sound, heard with ears or otherwise.”

  1. joanne Avatar
    joanne

    Emrie–so close to the Source.

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  2. jaime Avatar
    jaime

    I can hear the thin voice in the big woods and sky, weaving like a tendril through tree branches and up to the birds. She and you really make me smile inside. Words.

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  3. Michelle Slater Avatar

    Up close and personal. Child/Chicken dialogue, Giver/Goat dialogue-both so viscerally observed, I could imagine hearing. I can hardly remember learning words, but I remember my little brother articulating “da tat ran up da cree” as though it were yesterday. But he’s a big tall man in his sixties with a twenty something son and I’m a short elder just turned seventy six who just loves looking in on your wonderful world way across this Country we share.

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  4. Deb G Avatar

    Singing often comes first I think. I love that.

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  5. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Of everything that you have written about Emrie, this image of her singing to the earth, the sky, singing her special tune, is pure magic! She is a quite the responsive observer and participant in her world.
    Language defines, explains, communicates emotion that we can all understand and then there is language of hidden meaning and sounds:
    Our twin daughters created their own language, gibberish to others but they totally understood each other and it was fascinating to sit quietly and watch their communication; over time I began to understand. They were two years old before they spoke in words that were easily understandable. When our twin grandchildren, boy and girl, were born I wondered if they would create their own language and whether one of them being a boy would make a difference in how they communicated. They did create their own language, twins have a tendency to do that and there is even a name for and I learned that this is very common, they even have a name for this, cryptophasia. I didn’t see any difference in how they communicated compared to my daughters as my grandson and granddaughter chatted away happily all day long and it also seemed as if some kind of switch turned on when they turned two and began to speak in words that were understandable.
    The need, urge and wonder of forming words, of giving oral meaning to what is seen, felt, is such a moving experience to witness. i have memories of myself using two languages to communicate since I grew up in a bilingual household. Changing from one to the other was like a game and became quite instinctive. One of my most endearing memories of language was when our almost 3 year old daughters looked at fog, laughed out loud and called it cloud smoke…

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  6. Peggy McG Avatar
    Peggy McG

    Emrie, teaching us all, by communication language from her mom mom. I was thinking about Julian, teen age communicaion, boy child saying he wanted to go with his mom to the Dr appt.. maybe his disguise of concern and relief of concern in the words of “might be interesting” then “wasn’t”…

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  7. Liz A Avatar

    how this telling touches my heart, my eyes welling with the simple beauty of it … we, too, watching our toddler granddaughter learn language, singing … it is a gift

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  8. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    Watching song and or dance at any age is …. HEART skipping beautiful. 🎶🎶 All the music of life seems to be .. like a bell that is ringing for me. Words from one of our Ukuladies songs🎵🎶

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  9. jude Avatar

    Language is how we share…

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  10. ² Avatar
    ²

    marti , 2 of my grandchildren in a family of 3 kids , it started when the youngest a boy was born , he and his oldest sister communicate with eachother in a own language and she cald him putti even the name of there language , every time she speak with her litle brother was in that language . Now they are 14 and he 8 years and when he have somme problem with somthing they do talk like that ” putti “, the other sister now 11 have nothing to do with that and except it as normal

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  11. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Maria, this is so touching and shows the power of language to comfort and help when needed. After all of these years, sister and brother have their own special heart language.

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  12. grace Forrest Avatar

    sometimes just a tapping, like morse code

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  13. grace Forrest Avatar

    her song…it was short, but i was awash with feeling to hear and see it rise out of her without hesitation

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  14. grace Forrest Avatar

    learning language, such a beautiful endeavor

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  15. grace Forrest Avatar

    her song. her one and only Beauty FULL song

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  16. grace Forrest Avatar

    it’s stunning, isn’t it?, the steadfast fierceness of it

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  17. grace Forrest Avatar

    this is extraordinary, Maria…that they have the sense of agency to live in their own language

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  18. grace Forrest Avatar

    maybe…but what is important is that he is allowed to
    find out things. I think about this a lot. He needs to
    find out things.

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  19. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes, Parker is singing. Do you remember singing?
    Do you remember your daughter singing?

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  20. grace Forrest Avatar

    love Ukuladies!!!!!

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  21. grace Forrest Avatar

    so many kinds of language tho

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  22. Laura R Avatar
    Laura R

    What an interesting post, Grace, and the comments are, as well. My 2 year-old son would say a word, and if I couldn’t understand it by his second say, he would not repeat it. I should have asked him to sing it! Soon after he turned three he spoke in complete sentences. Children learn language in so many different ways. Your description/story about Emrie is lovely. A smart little girl. You will have wonderFull times together. xo

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  23. dee Avatar

    This is a beautiful post. I’m coming late to the party here, but the comments are beautiful too. One of my sons spoke in clear paragraphs by the age of two. He’d chew on his binky on one side of his mouth and talk out the other like an old man with a cigar. But he had a few words for which he refused the common terms: basement, wheelbarrow, and umbrella. Dim sum for basement. Kibar for umbrella. I forget wheelbarrow. His consistency was fascinating. In your tale of Emrie I hear not only the wonder of language acquisition, but the shining spirit coming through already fully formed. How wonderful that she speaks to chickens and the stars but refuses the mundane exchanges about breakfast. I hope people will remind her of this when she is older.

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  24. Dakotah Avatar

    A true child of the forest…

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  25. grace Forrest Avatar

    your late comment allowed me to read this again…savor it
    again…Thank YOu. and yes she is. Child of the forest.
    As we All are, if we want to be

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