Your First Word(s)?

[royinpink]

Language delays or no, I thought it might be interesting to see what everyone's first words were and if they were different from the typical NT first words. Might say more about what words our parents used than what we paid attention to, but who knows.

Mine was "Bye-bye"

I don't know how official this list is, but "52 percent of surveyed respondents citing a first word related to dad (#1), and 35 percent of respondents offering up mom (#2)." The list, below:

The 15 Most Common First Words

1. Dad (or Dada, Daddy, Papa, etc.)

2. Mom (or Mama, Mommy, Mum, etc.)

3. Hi (or Hiya, Hey, Heya, Hello)

4. Buba (or Bub or Baba)

5. Dog (or Doggy, Puppy)

6. Ball

7. No

8. Cat (or Kitty)

9. Nana

10. Bye

11. Duck

12. Ta (or Tata)

13. Baby

14. Uh oh

15. Car​

This study puts the numbers for "daddy" and "mommy" at 54 and 50 out of 264, respectively, in the U.S. (page 4), but they are ordering the most frequent words for children who can say 1-10 words rather than the absolute first word. My word, 'bye', moves up from #10 to #4 in that study, which makes sense to me--you might want to greet mom and dad first, but you're going to pick up 'Bye!' pretty quickly. They also have the top 20 for HK and mainland China, if you're interested.

 

[DogwoodTree]

My first word was "self".

Mom said I was very independent, even as a baby. I always wanted to do things my "self".

 

[watersprite]

I do not remember my first word. My daughter's at the age of 8 months old was "fan". She uttered it while I was changing her diapers and she was laying looking up. at the ceiling. fan.

 

[Mia]

My first words that my Mother recorded in a tiny notebook: Go outside.

 

[zurb]

Don't know mine. My younger son's first word was 'Boo' as he drew the sheet off his face.

 

[royinpink]

Wow, not one 'mom' or 'dad' yet! And a lot of them seem to be related to whatever you were interested in or wanted, not people.

Also 'self' and 'fan' are a good deal harder to pronounce as a baby than B/P/T/D/K/G sounds, so bonus points for those!

 

[Warmheart]

My mother said my first word was "Dog."

Makes sense to me.

 

[tree]

Single word = 'bottles' while rolling them around on the floor.

Sentence = "See the car."

 

[DogwoodTree]

Sentence = "See the car."

Complete sentences..that's a whole different discussion. Both of my boys took a long time to start being able to say clear sounds, but we could tell by the cadence that their babbling was complete thoughts even though we couldn't understand them. They just couldn't be bothered with single sounds when they had so much to say! So then as their sounds got better, they were already talking in complete sentences.

Then my 2nd daughter, just before she turned 2...she was saying words here and there, and stringing words together a little. One night at dinner, she kept saying potty, indicating that she wanted to go. We had just started her training, and neither of us felt like interrupting dinner to take her to the potty, so we just told her to wait until after dinner (she had a diaper on). She got really mad and yelled out, as clear as anything, "I. WANT. TO. GO. POTTY. NOW!" Alrighty then...off to the potty we went!

 

[Cerulean]

"Whatsat?"
(What's that)

 

[Beverly]

I don't know what my first word was but, I didn't talk at all until I was 3 and a half, then, according to my mother, I would not shut up.

 

[hiraeth]

I believe I was told that my first word was "bridge" or something. Apparently I had an obsession with bridges as a toddler.

 

[clg114]

I do not know what my first words were, but two of my kids had the same first word. It was "no".