Baby talk

In 1971, in the hopes of attracting some younger customers to their classical offerings, Deutsche Grammophon turned to some contemporary slang. The result was a now-infamous ad: “We’d like to turn you on,” it read, “to what we consider some of our best albums. We have a full color catalogue that’s outta sight… Just walk into your local records store and say ‘Hey, how about laying that new Deutsche Grammophon catalogue on me?’”

I think about that ad occasionally when I talk to Cleo. Everyone has, it turns out, their own style of baby talk. For some, of course, it's a sort of cooing, in an elevated voice; for others, it's a velvet chant, full of w's and z's. For some, it seems to center on straightforward compliments ("look at your blue eyes"); for others, it involves coy comments of a jokingly conspiratorial nature ("aren't we naughty today?").

Mine turns out to be - and it seems that we don't have a lot of control over our baby voices; they just emerge - a rather odd combination of gentle intonation and idiosyncratic observations about the complexities of the world that comes across as something like a combination between Mister Rogers and Werner Herzog, minus the heavy Teutonic accent. Speaking without edge, without sarcasm, without any exclamation points, I lead her through simple sentences about colors and cars and neighborhoods.

Does style matter, though? Probably not much, to month-old ears that can't distinguish words from birdsong. But to the weary parent, a little bit of variety can make a familiar walk fresh. Which is why I was delighted to find, in this month's chapter of What to Expect..., a handsome spread on "How Do You Talk to a Baby?" Some of the advice was rather stock (sing a bit, or read, or raise your voice) but some was new to me: pronouns, for example, are confusing to a listener who doesn't even know what a person is, and so sticking to firm nouns can help a baby's comprehension. And those long explanations of the history of medieval Italian painting? Shelve them for now, for "a young baby doesn't have a memory for the past." Instead, stick to the present tense.

Okay. Perhaps we really can help a baby's comprehension along by avoiding complexities. But the Deutsche Grammophon ad is valuable, too, in reminding us that efforts to modify our voice too much can also backfire, and sound ridiculous. Thinking about a baby's linguistic abilities can lead in some interesting directions. But is telling a baby that she;s a wittle wascal really very far, in the end, from asking a 1971 teenager on to lay some Schumann on them? Only, I suspect, in the thankful sense that the baby won't yet sneer and point out our ridiculousness.