The other day in a rare moment of calm, a pensive Milo looked at me with a profound look and said:
"Mamma….Mama….Mamán ?", pronouncing them perfectly in Italian, Dutch and French.
It was evident that at that moment he was really aware of the three different ways of pronouncing my name, and it was as if he was questioning me whether they really meant the same thing…
2 comments:
"Mama" is really similar in many languages, isn't it? Interesting.
When my daughter was not yet able to read she tended to ask me, "Is this Spanish?" "Yes," I said. Then she asked, "Is this Italian?" "Yes," I said. And then she asked, "Is this French?" "Yes," I said.
So I was not amazed when she was able to read and we bought 'una bebida' (we were in Spain), she suddenly asked when reading some small letters on the bottle: "Is this Spanish? Is this Italian? And is this French?"
Currently she is studying Spanish. The first months of her existence, I often spoke in Spanish to her. Later I added small phrases in Italian and French.
English is for me the language of (my) work, not of feelings and emotions. I am Dutch.
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