Bilingual suffixes

Growing up in India while speaking English as a first language has naturally always been a slight dichotomy for me. Therefore, I have been always intrigued by the acquisition of language, (two languages, English and Hindi, in my case) and how they can be acquired simultaneously.

Clark and Hecht's discussion of children's "spontaneous coinage", particularly in the context of "productivity in language" really appeals to me. The example of "plant-man" versus "gardner" reminded struck out to me in how children add suffixes and compound head nouns. In my case, I often mixed English and Hindi in attempting to add suffixes to head nouns. An example of this is a common term used around my house that my little sister has picked up on since she was 3 years old- "computer-wala". "wala" is similar to "man", and translates to someone that performs a particular duty/job, and "computer-wala" means the person who works on fixing problems with computers, specifically viruses, etc. It is interesting because literally none of us know what the translation of computer is to Hindi, and actively use the"wala" suffix to so many head nouns as a way to refer to people performing particular roles.

Another part of the reading that really interested me was the analysis of principles in the acquisition of word formation. Thinking through my own vocabulary as a child, I'd often relate a word in Hindi to English and be unclear on how to exactly translate it, and end up saying both to my mum while trying to communicate something. To consider this in light of suffixes is particularly intriguing. I was particularly interested by the discussion on "principle of transparency" and one-many and many-one matches. It spoke volumes about our interpretation of language as a function of our current breadth of it.


Overall, I really enjoyed these weeks readings and they made me think a lot about the way we express ourselves, while we are younger and especially if we speak multiple languages.