The other night at dinner Small Sun was looking in his cup and saying "vis, vis" and The Captain asked "vies?" (dirty?) and SS replied "no, vis" (fish) and began making the o noises imitating a fish. I'm amazed at how he's beginning to sort out our two languages and the homophones (two words that sound the same but have different meanings) that occur between them. Another example is "pet" which means hat in Dutch.
I've been explaining our bilingual communication to Small Sun for a couple months now. When discussing a new word I'll say, both in Dutch and in English "mama says cheese, pappa says kaas/ mamma zegt cheese en pappa zegt kaas". Lately he's started adding his own opinion on what language the baby is speaking. I think most of the time he tells me that she's speaking Dutch.
Tonight when we saw the raccoons the Captain introduced "wasbeer", which was a new word for Small Sun. The Captain explained that he says wasbeer, but mama says raccoon. Small Sun was insistent that the animals were "kalkoen" (turkeys!). Raccoon, kalkoen...they rhyme.
There are also lots of words that are spelled differently, are pronounced similarly, and mean the same thing. Like boter and butter, beer and bear, water and water, slaap and sleep.
So far I'm very pleased with how Small Sun's dual language acquisition is coming along. He is still speaking Dutch to English speakers, but other people are starting to recognize when he is addressing them in Dutch and not just "baby talk". Both his languages still require the mom translator a lot of the time.
I wonder when the Sprout will start speaking? I'm assuming that it will be earlier than Small Sun, given her gender and second child status...but you never know!
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