Toddlers Speak Jabberwalk

By Renee Hawkley

(This article has been edited from its original version written in 1988.)

My husband and I produced children with superior intelligence. I have proof. Each of our toddlers spoke a foreign language fluently before learning English. With each child, the dialect was unique and difficult to interpret. I call the language jabberwalk.

The person in the family who served as interpreter was the child closest in age to the toddler. Whenever the toddler spoke, the listeners turned to the interpreter and asked, "What did he say?" The rest of the family eventually caught on, but only if they added sessions of paying attention into their daily schedules.

Here are a few examples of jabberwalk straight from the pages of the baby books:

Bider: A little black bug that crawls on our ceilings.

City water: See you later.

Copscorns: The treat you put butter and salt on and eat in front of the TV.

Day hoe: Stay here.

Doot: What I say to Mommy when I point and want her to do something.

Glubs: The things Mommy puts on my hands when we go out to make snowballs.

Grink: A liquid that quenches my thirst.

Gwout: What I say when I want to play outside.

Koo-ah: Kool-Aid

Moke: My favorite white drink.

Moo-coo: The animal that says "moo."

Peecha: The food with pepperoni on top that I eat with a big glass of moke.

Poople: My favorite color.

Scub Cout: What my brother is when he puts on his blue uniform.

Slippin Duty: My favorite Disney movie.

Wimmen cool: What I wade in during the summer.

Yookie: What I say when I want someone to look at something.

Eventually, each of our toddlers made the transition from jabberwalk to English. Meanwhile, the rest of the family was stuck in jabberwalk. It wasn’t unusual to be traveling in the car and hear the whole family exclaim, "Yookie! It’s a moo-coo!"