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uage, the symbolic and generative requisites, but do they follow the structure of
language, according to the rules of syntax? Not yet, at least so far as we have been able to
determine.
Language and the Human Child
Developmental Milestones
People learn to speak and use language in highly predictable ways. Certain skills are required for
learning to speak, such as babies crying before coherent vocalization can occur. Following crying,
babies babble at age 4 to 6 months, begin using phonemes at 7 to 11 months, and usually speak
their first real word at about 1 year of age. Nouns such as “banana” or “bar” or “mom” get used a
lot at first to indicate the child’s wants.
Between 2 and 2. years, sentences begin to appear and increase in complexity up to about age 5, at
which time the child has good syntactical capability and can even tell short stories (like the cat
drew the picture on my bedroom wall). One interesting aspect of language acquisition is that the
phonemes used during the first year by babies are cross-cultural. The early sounds of all babies are
the same, regardless of the language spoken around the child or the language(s) he or she will
eventually learn to speak. Why?