Gashlaria

The Language of Ariah

Aside from you real vocabulary, which is growing every day, here is a list of some of your unique words and grammar system:

• mama – both your literal mama and an all purpose exclamation
• dada – similar to mama
• mama-dadda – expressing the Nicenesque duality of the mama and dada deities, often a way to start a sentence when both mama and dada are in the room, though it does not necessarily address either mama or dada
• bee – any kind of insect
• flies – “Show me Internet videos.”
  • This word originated from your favorite video, the short film your mom and I and Uncle Eric made “Queen of the Flies”.
• doh – dog / car
  • It’s interesting: you clearly know the difference between a dog and a car, and yet they’re homophones. Once I was walking with you, and I said, “Can you say cheese?” You replied, “Cheese!” – “Can you say cookie?” – “Cookie!” – “Can you say dog?” – “Doh!” – “Can you say car?” – “Doh!”
• me / may – (1) designating yourself (2) designating anything that you don’t know the word for (3) milk or water
• ah – want
  • You have a unique system of grammar, closer to German than English. For example, to say, “I want milk,” you would say “Ah (want) me (I) may (milk)”.
• non – (1) more (2) again
  • “Ah me non” directly translates as “Want I more”.
• [gulp gulp] – “I want water”
• bubble – (1) any type of water that is not drunk, such as in the bathtub or from a sprinkler (2) a bath (3) bubble
• Earnie – any muppet except for Elmo and Cookie Monster
• Cookie – (1) a cookie (2) Cookie Monster (3) granola
  • Cookie as a word for granola actually originated as a deception on our part. You have such an obsession for cookies, that you wouldn’t eat any granola for breakfast unless we called it cookie cereal. The name’s stuck.
• apple – any roundesh fruit or vegetable, from apples, to onions, to peppers, to oranges
• nana – banana
• num-num – food
• night-night – “Go to sleep”
• tsee (whispered) – teeth
• Mimee – both Mickey and Minnie mouse and sometimes other Disney characters as well
• bye-bye-shoe – “I want you to put on my shoes and take me out of the house.”
• bubble-dadda – though a very common phrase, its mean eludes us
• mama-shoe – same as above
• huh (an eager pant) – yes
• non, nee – the two numbers in your binary number system
  • For example, when climbing up or down stairs, you’ll count each step, saying, “Non, nee, non, nee, non, nee…”
• baby! – “Pick me up!”

Some of your more Kosher words are:

• hi
  • You say hi to everyone in a very friendly way, whether it’s a stranger across the street or a neighbor as we’re putting you into the car or a dog. You’ve inspired us to be more friendly. As we’ve learned from you, everyone deserves to be acknowledged.
• ball
• baby
• eyes
• nice

Last night we went to a University Choral concert that your mom sang in at the Provo tabernacle. You have a history of ruining any sort of performance for us, such as when we went to see a play at BYU, and you were so loud and whiny that we had to miss about three fourths of the play, walking outside the theater to pacify you. This time I thought I would be smarter by sitting on the balcony where we were closest to “mama”, directly across from her. But as soon as you were placed on your seat, you got restless. During the opening prayer, when the whole tabernacle was silent, you shouted, “Mama!” You did the same thing during the first song, amid a quiet moment. It was about then that I realized that we were right next to the microphones that were recording the concert. I carried you throughout the tabernacle, trying to persuade you to hush up. But there was only one thing that would pacify you, and that was when I allowed you to climb up a tiny flight of stairs and play with a door that led to the roof. Though the door was locked, it wasn’t tight, and when you pushed it in about a half inch or so, it made a clatter that delighted your wicked ears. You would push it again and again, creating a lot of noise, though at least it wasn’t as bad as you crying. Still, I knew you were disturbing people sitting around us, so I tried to circumvent the noise by pressing on the door. When your pushes produced no noise, you sought for the cause and demanded that I removed my hands. I would not. Finally you burst out into a roaring cry, and I had no choice but to whisk you out of the tabernacle as quickly as I could. By the time the concert was over, once again, I’d missed about three fourths of it. Babies.